Once upon a time there was a place called Hungary. Actually, as a country, it had ceased to exist. It had a past alright, made up of graves, ruins, chronicles of what the people here or there had done. But for the outside world �ungary�was little different from �loud-cuckoo-land� it may well have flourished in some earlier age, but was now no more than a bunch of stories from the past, a fairy-tale.
The characters in our story are gathered for the hunt.
The group also includes an English engineer who settled in Pressburg. An idealist, inventor and adventurer, some say he sends reports back to British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston. He has daring ideas with which to achieve Hungarian economic progress and thereby the country� independence. His enthusiasm is further energized by a secret, romantic affection felt towards one of the ladies present.
Of course, neither has the hunt escaped the attention of the Austrian secret service. Such are the times. It is beautiful September weather. Our protagonists enjoy the pretty landscape, and life in general. They go hunting.
It is 1839. It is nine years before the revolutions and wars of independence that will sweep through the continent, when Europe will again recognise a country that has always been around, but still doesn� exist.