内容简介：
Nicholas Jenkins has been persuaded to attend a cultural conference in Venice by his old acquiantanace Mark Members. The intrigues of Widmerpool, now a life peer, come to something of a climax, as do the perverse loves of Pamela (nee Flitton), his good-looking but destructive wife. The main characters are now middle-aged and they are supported by new additions to the scene, such as the Americans; Glober, a playboy-tycoon in his sixties, and Gwinnett, a neurotic Professor of English in his thirties. The Dance has now built up to a vast picture of life, in which violence and disaster are only just below the surface....