The most obvious sign of Carossa's financial success and definite turn toward literature was his ability to fulfill his desire for a Goethean pilgrimage to classic Italy. Such a pilgrimage had meant much to Goethe' s classical development and could have perhaps done the same for Carossa, but Carossa had had to wait too long for his ""Italienische Reise"". The world of 1925 was being shaken by ominous political happenings which were soon to bar any possibility of Carossa's accomplishing the degree of classic detachment that Goethe had been able to enjoy. In 1922, three years before Carossa's Italian trip, Italy had become the second totalitarian state of Europe. It called itself Fascist, while the first had designated itself Communist; but in terms of freedom of expression for an individual citizen, Communism and Fascism were synonymous. Germany, at the time, was still a democratic republic, but already in 1924, a little-known party with