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It's my first encounter with Steven Zweig and after reading a few pages a query I posed to myself in contemplation that why I waited so long to read this author, such was the impact of Zweig. The author had precision of a sculptor to craft sentences with just enough verbosity but with deep observations to put forth the deep secrets, of human beings, which are buried well below the layers of bygone times.

I guess there are other people like me who easily gets bored from things if they stick for long :P and always looks for something, to read, with which the bond could be disassembled just before it starts becoming a languor to you, then this is for you, it's roughly 90 odd pages with a short size however it's narrative a burst of deep emotions having tales within in a tale. The prose is intoxicating wherein you feel that although it begins on a very innocuous note but as you move on, you realize that it goes into deep abyss of human emotions, and by the time you end the book, the human emotions are totally exposed to naked eye to reiterate imperfect human existence. The experience of reading of Zweig is truly amazing for it's like a short sojourn wherein reader initially starts to feel sympathizing towards the protagonist, as if one is spellbound by someone whom you meet first time in your life but the persona of that person is so charismatic that you feel like pull along by some hidden force, as you move along with book, you really start feeling the emotions of the protagonist as your own, as if the protagonist is someone who has been brought up by the author from the deep reminiscences of your past and you know her well but somehow it got stacked down by the pile of memories.

The book revolves around morality of our society towards women, for there are two intriguing issues in the book: Could a woman have really done this with a perfect stranger, or was the situation a ruse? And, should she be encountered again, should she be treated with contempt, as an outcast from society? As our society has traditionally been patriarch and always maintained a different eye, at times disdainful, for women, the question here is whether a woman, who has done an act perhaps on her will, could be accepted in the society or she should be devoid of any sort of respect (I won't say we should sympathize with anyone since, I feel, that refutes the very meaning of a authentic existence) and be declared an outcast to our 'civilized' society. The married couples furiously maintain that she should be treated with utter contempt. The narrator finds himself pushed into a position of defence.
This accusation rather annoyed me, and when the German lady added her mite by remarking instructively that there were real women on the one hand and 'natural-born tarts' on the other, and in her opinion Madame Henriette must have been one of the latter, I lost patience entirely and became aggressive myself. Such a denial of the obvious fact that at certain times in her life a woman is delivered up to mysterious powers beyond her own will and judgment, I said, merely concealed fear of our own instincts, of the demonic element in our nature, and many people seemed to take pleasure in feeling themselves stronger, purer, and more moral than those who are 'easily led astray.

Zweig has brilliantly conveyed the swings in expressions of a man, his control is like that of a river which flows with a poise to have no impetus, no hesitation until it mingles with expanse of aqua:
Once more like a little waves, rippling galvanically, spread out from his lips, once again his hands were clasped, the boyish face disappeared behind greedy expectation until the spasmodic tension exploded and fell apart in disappointment: the face that had just looked boyish turned faded, wan and old, light disappeared from the burnt-out eyes, and all this within the space of a second as the ball came to rest on the wrong number.

And as soon you finish the book, you are (innocently) forced to ponder that how magical it's that the author has been able to do so much in so few pages, I won't say he was a minimalist as Beckett was but he surely had deep understanding of human emotions like a psychologist and mastery over choosing them so as to make a portrait (of man) which has just those details that are necessary to make it alive to have a consciousness of its own and not more than that, that so much could happen in one's life over the span of just 24 hours as it's also reinforced by the author himself:
And now you will understand why I suddenly brought myself to tell you about my own experience. When you defended Madame Henriette and said, so passionately, that twenty-four hours could determine a woman's whole life, I felt that you meant me; I was grateful to you, since for the first time I felt myself, as it were, confirmed in my existence.