We readers can only dream about it or read about it: The wonderful bird's nest makes its owner invisible and gives him opportunities for all sorts of things that would otherwise be impossible. In a wealth of comic scenes, amorous episodes and drastic pranks, Grimmelshausen has a simple soldier and then a power-crazed rich merchant tell the story of how the Bird's Nest came to be, drawing a panorama of the time after the Thirty Years' War. Deception and self-deception are omnipresent, for not only war but also peace, in its own way, creates a "perverse world". But Grimmelshausen is not only interested in what his characters make of their invisibility. He also pursues the reverse question: What does invisibility make them? The merchant turns him into the blackest figure he has ever seen.