"The Thüringer House'' is the first of a cycle of novels, "Life of Adrien Zograffi," written by the Romanian Panait Istrati in the early 1930's, shortly after his return, bitterly disillusioned, from a long stay in the Soviet Union. Adrien, servant in a bourgeois household headed by rich grain exporters, must reconcile his socialist ideals—put to the test during a strike in the grain-exporting port of Braila, on the Danube—and his growing attraction to Madame Anna Thüringer, the mistress of the house. Length: 45,117 words