A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modernworld in Vicki Baum s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era bestseller that retains all itsverve and luster today. Among the guests of the hotel is Dr. Otternschlag, a WorldWar I veteran whose face has been sliced in half by a shell. Day after day he emergesto read the paper in the lobby, discreetly inquiring at the desk if the letter he s beenawaiting for years has arrived. Then there is Grusinskaya, a great ballerina now fightinga losing battle not so much against age as against her fear of it, and Gaigern, asleek...