This novel describes the terrifying experience of a Brazilian man who, in a shocked condition, has lost his identity. Not knowing who he is or where he comes from, he is obsessed with the fear that he may have committed some crime, perhaps even murder. He is a stranger even to himself. In a single night of horror, he wanders through the streets of an unrecognized city guided by a sadistic hunchback and another man, called The Master. In the hands of these two concentrations of evil and dominated by them, he is forced to join their revelries. A mysterious figure in white, radiant and tranquil, haunts his steps and beckons to him. The stranger yearns to follow but finds himself powerless to resist the diabolic forces which impel him through this period of darkness. At last, as day dawns, memory returns and he escapes from his imprisonment. This is an intense psychological study quite out of the ordinary, and a story of stark realism possessing impressive narrative power.

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