Musil’s short, first novel (which appeared in 1906, his first work to be published), focuses on the problems of adolescence. Set in an exclusive military academy in Austria, it deals with the confusions (the German title is literally ‘the confusions of Törless’), of awakening sexuality.

The main plot centres on two pupils, Beineberg and Reiting, who have discovered that a third, Basini, has been stealing from his fellow students. This knowledge gives them power over him, and they use it to see how far they can go, subjecting him to brutal floggings and compelling him to take part in homosexual activities. What interests Musil is not the sex and violence as such, but the reactions of the fourth member of the group, Törless. Although he is present when the two torment Basini, and although he has his own homosexual encounters with him, he is more an observer than a participant. He insistently questions Basini as to what he feels at various moments, just as he observes and questions his own reactions and emotions. He is aware of a great gulf between the polite, disciplined surface of society and the turbulence of feeling inside him and, he assumes, others. The adult world, as represented by his teachers and parents, fails to provide him with the assistance he needs to come to terms with the two sides of human nature, and he is abandoned to a cynical detachment which seems the only solution.

The combination of the realistic description of the milieu of the military academy (which is clearly the one at Weisskirchen which Musil, and, some years earlier, Rainer Maria Rilke, the great poet, attended), and the intense potrayal of Törless’ almost obsessive inner life make this one of the most absorbing works from the age and ambience of Freud.

‘Törless was not in control of his actions. For a moment he sat still, staring into the sleeper’s face. Through his brain there jerked those short, ragged thoughts which do no more, it seems, than record what a situation is, those flashes of thought one has when losing one’s balance, or falling from a height... and without knowing what he was doing, he gripped Basini by the shoulder and shook him out of his sleep.

Basini stretched indolently a few times. Then he started up and gazed at Törless with sleepy, stupefied eyes.

A shock went through Törless. He was utterly confused; now all at once he realized what he had done, and he did not know what he was to do next. He was frightfully ashamed... without having uttered a word, Törless withdrew his arm, now he slid off the bed and was about to creep soundlessly back to his own bed — and at this moment Basini seemed to grasp the situation and sat bolt upright.

Törless stopped irresolutely at the foot of the bed. Basini glanced at him once more, questioningly, searchingly, and then got out of bed, slipped into coat and slippers and went padding off towards the door. And in a flash Törless became sure of what he had long suspected: that this had happened to Basini many times before.

In passing his bed, Törless took the key to the cubbyhole, which he had been keeping under his pillow.’ p130-1