Couple isolé et reclus dans le silence et l'amour, un homme et une femme se sont construit un univers paisible jusqu'au jour où ils aperçoivent, depuis la baie vitrée de leur maison, des corps s'échouant sur la plage. Cet évènement va creuser un abîme d'incompréhension entre eux. Tandis que dans «Raz de marée», la femme peine à oublier, l'homme, qui prend la parole dans «Marée basse», entend continuer sa vie comme si de rien n'était.
"Forgetting is a strange power, because it makes memory possible. That is why all architecture from the past is something like the music of space, which surrounds us and sends us images that we have constantly to interpret." In Intercities, Stefan Hertmans thinks about what constitutes identity in present-day Europe. Looking at people and cities from the periphery, he tries to discover an "archaeology of streets and faces" which could bring him closer to himself. Set in peripheral cities such as Trieste, Marseille, Dresden and Bratislava, and in major ones like Vienna and Amsterdam, Intercities is about the feeling of being abroad, of losing part of one's self in order to gain a richer life. Mingling travel stories with philosophical reflections, Hertmans's poetic text proves the sixteenth-century observation that every journey is a "voyage around your own chamber". His book is a personal statement about living in Europe today which looks beyond the surface to the heart of contemporary urban existence.