had changed during this time, and when a new, influential warlord appeared in Italy in the form of the Habsburg Maximilian I, Fosca had the idea of putting his forces at the service of a successful ruler rather than trying any longer to become one himself. He leaves his hometown, for which he has fought for so long, to the Habsburgs and serves as an advisor to Maximilian and later to his son Philip and his grandson Charles V. At the imperial court, he finds that the same old intrigues for power and influence are being spun here, too, without the people necessarily being better off as a result. On the contrary, on a journey to the American colonies, Fosca is made vividly aware of all the misery of the inhabitants of this seemingly glamorous empire. He flees from this realization into the wilderness of North America. There, by chance, Fosca meets the adventurer Pierre Carlier, who succeeds in infecting him with his joy of discovery: The young man has set himself the ambitious goal of traveling to China and, on his way there, becoming the first European to cross the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. Fosca joins him. Thanks to his immortality, he saves his new friend several times from dicey situations, but they get no closer to their goal. The adventurer eventually dies, and Fosca's search for further discoveries is thus spoiled. He retreats to the natives for several generations. Tracked down there, he ends up in absolutist Paris carrying with him riches he acquired in North America. In the decadent circles of the nobility there, he first becomes a ruthless gambler who outplays all opponents and cannot be killed even in a duel - but this behavior does not provide him with lasting distraction. He begins to take an interest in science and rises to become an renowned chemist. As a result, he first wins the affection of young Marianne, who maintains an intellectual salon. He falls in love and marries her, but almost loses her when she finds out his secret. And he, for all his love, does not really understand her, for her actions and motives are those of a mortal, and Fosca is literally "free" of such motives, whereas no one else understands his ever-increasing fear of infinity, which no amount of activity can permanently subdue. As long as Marianne lives, Fosca