Musil's first novel, published in 1906, is set in a strict boarding school for boys in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Young Törless, a sensitive and thoughtful pupil, watches as some of his classmates begin to bully and humiliate one of their fellows. He is drawn in and troubled, unable to decide whether he is a participant or an observer. The book is a study of cruelty, group pressure and the confusing inner life of adolescence. Törless is also fascinated by language, mathematics and the limits of what can be put into words. It is short, tense and psychologically exact, and it is often read as an early warning about how ordinary people can accept domination and violence.