The Hippodrome

Arithelli arrives in Barcelona from Paris with a job at the Hippodrome, a trunk of bright dresses and almost no money. At the station she meets Count Emile Poleski, a Polish conspirator whose devotion to an anarchist cause has made him a target for detectives. He helps her find lodgings, bringing her first uncertain foothold in the city into contact with his secretive political world.

Rachel Hayward sets this novel among performers, rented rooms and the intrigues of Barcelona. The opening follows Arithelli through practical worries about rent, language and an unfamiliar city, while a later passage shows Poleski anxiously watching over her during an illness. Michael, a doctor attached to the Hippodrome to attend its animals, improvises care and talks cheerfully beside her bed. These contrasting temperaments give the story a personal scale: an ambitious newcomer, a guarded activist and an outspoken helper face the practical demands and emotional strains of life in the city.