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The servants said that even the waters of the Orinoco obeyed Misia Schmutter,the white-haired old lady, so proud of her Prussian ancestry, who treatedthe world like her slave. She had seen a glint of her own ruthlessness in hergrandson Lucien's eye. Worshipping and torturing him by turns she cultivatedin him a terrible understanding of tyranny and the true nature of power. Shepassed on to him a love of beauty and science and of roulette.Even after her death 'the Empress of the Orinoco' would hold Lucien in arelentless stranglehold, clinging like a tiger to his back, a demon people couldglimpse through Lucien's gentleness. Misia Schmutter would be there as he setout from the plains of San Fernando de Apure for the extraordinary journeys ofhis life, first to Caracas where he lived in sumptuous excess in a gothic palace,crowded with the human vultures who took advantage of his almost dementedgenerosity. Later, when he was declared a public menace and locked away,tales of his extravagance would continue to flourish, as would the legend of hisextraordinary luck at gambling.Like a pilgrim to a shrine, Lucien made his way to the German fatherland whichMisia Schmutter had so passionately described to him, to find the Nazis onthe verge of havoc. He returned to his beloved Venezuela, to be imprisoned fortreason and escape through the forest. Arrested and convicted for a murder hehad not committed.