More out of novelistic fantasy than romantic passion, Irene Wagner, a well-to-do upper-class woman leading a seemingly perfect and boring life, becomes involved in an extramarital affair that drags her into a stormy web of blackmail, secrets and paranoia for the terror of being discovered and losing everything she now discovers she loves and needs so much. Stefan Zweig explores the abysses of the human heart through guilt and fear in a masterful psychological tale with a surprising ending.
