Key novel about the lives of German emigrants. The setting of this novel is Paris, the city that became a place of exile for thousands of German refugees. In the spring of 1935, Friedrich Benjamin, a well-known publicist and editor of a German emigrant newspaper, is abducted by the Nazis. Sepp Trautwein, a music professor and composer who was expelled from his position in Munich, gives up music to make Benjamin's cause his own. He fights an almost hopeless battle, which ultimately serves as motivation and affirmation in his art. He composes the symphony "The Waiting Room," a metaphor for the time of exile. Feuchtwanger chose an authentic case as a starting point for a nuanced portrayal of the situation of German exiles, their existential struggles, their political divisions, and their powerless and somewhat ridiculous existence.