Grado. Süße Nacht is a short novel by Gustav Ernst

Gustav Ernst

Gustav Ernst is an Austrian playwright, novelist and screenwriter. He has also founded and edited two literary journals, Wespennest and kolik....

 first published in 2004

2004 in literature

The year 2004 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation....

. Set in Grado

Grado, Italy

Grado is a town and comune in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located on a peninsula of the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 on a summer's evening, the book is a long monologue

Monologue

In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

 spoken by a middle-aged Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n man alone on holiday. Over dinner, he addresses a woman he has just met whose "offer" to have sex

Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

 with him right after their three-course meal he refuses, detailing all the reasons why he thinks each of them will be better off if they do not succumb to carnal knowledge. However, right from the start he is aware of the fact that the woman has actually never made him an offer.

Grado contains sexually explicit language and, according to the publisher, should not be read by people under 18.