Tristan

The narrative sketches life at a refined mountain sanatorium run by a stern physician and managed by a devoted housekeeper, cataloguing a gallery of patients and the regimented therapies that organize their days. Into this microcosm arrive a robust husband, his exquisitely fragile wife and a healthy child, whose presence and the woman's delicate symptoms become a focal point for observation. An eccentric writer and other residents provide contrasting temperaments, and the account interweaves close psychological portraits with social detail to explore illness, care, aesthetic sensitivity and the subtle tensions that arise within institutional routine.