Why do you think Lucius goes to such unusual lengths to find Margarete? Do you suppose the spell is broken after he finds her?

After he and Margarete are parted, Lucius spends a great deal of effort over the next two years trying to find her. Why do you think he went to such unusual lengths? Do you suppose the spell is broken after he finds her, or do you sense he’ll be obsessed with her for the rest of his life, unable to move on?

War creates stronger bonds between people that is often never felt in a day-to-day life. The fact is Margarete was the first woman he met who shared the same intensity for knowledge in the medical realm as Lucius did. I think he admired her for her skills and patience while teaching him what she knew. She also knew how to handle men with respect while getting them to do what she felt was right. For those many reasons and then some, he went to find Margarete in the hopes of building a new life with her. After trying desperately to find her, suffering much himself, it was such a devastating blow to realize she had moved on with her life. As bad as it was, he did receive closure in knowing that she had taken care of Jozsef Horvath, the winter solider that haunted him all those years. Because of that I feel he was able to move on with his life; the world received him.

Great comments from renem!

The war left many stories uncompleted for Lucius, and what happened with Margarete (and how she would have answered his question) was the biggest one. I think he was driven to close the loop --ceta8nly getting married to someone else had not eliminated his need to finish their story. In the end, I think having the situation resolved, even if not how he would have preferred, gave him enough closure to move on.

Not too much to add to what renem said. I think he probably would always have regrets about losing Margrete, but not debilitating ones. This ending is the only one that allows Lucius to move on in his life, he is still a young man. Wonder how he faced Hitler and WWII?

Lucius had so many things he wanted to find out about Margarete and he certainly thought he was in love with her. I think he also felt a responsibility to take care of her and make her safe.

She was his first love. They developed mutual respect. She taught him how to be a battlefield doctor with making him feel stupid. She was a constant in an environment of hell, with people dying daily, trying to survive in an inhospitable remote locale, she was mystery. He loved her intellect and compassion. I think they were drawn together in a celebration of survival when she recovered. He was trying to find himself, to forgive himself for Horvath, and he needed closure. This book, in some ways, reminded me of The English Patient.

I agree that she was very important to him because she was his first love but also she was the only woman he could really talk to since medicine was his only topic of interest. Trying to find her was like a quest for him.
Maybe it was as much symbolic as it was realistic for him. It was kind of like a spell being broken when they finally met again and he saw that she had gone on with her life and he would have to so too.

agree with renem

I think Lucius' need to find Margarete was an overwhelming need for closure. He may have felt that he was in love with her, but I think it is more likely that he just needed to find out who she was and what part she should play in his life going forward. Finding her with Horvath ended his quest and enabled him to move on.

Many have made excellent points above that I can agree with - I knew how the story would end. There are clues thoughout the last 1/2 of book. And the books’s title told me we had not heard the last of Horvath - but the book’s abrupt ending was a disappointment - to believe this love/obsession/guilt could be finished in this brief moment is not believable.

She was his first love. He had hope in finding her, maybe to listen to her side of the story of why she fled when he proposed, to know who she really was, to know if she was ok. Also, he had hope of beginning a new life with her.

Without spoilers, I really think that the spell was broken with the shocking ending. I think that Lucius closed two chapters of his life that really were "haunting" him consciously and unconsciously.

Not only was Margarete Lucius' first love but she was also an unrequited love. Margarete was the one who "got away". If Lucius hadn't found her he would always be wondering what would have happened if they'd been together. I think the spell was broken because Lucius knew that what the two of them had was fleeting. It also released Lucius's demons about the war.