These stories about fatal meetings and the vicissitudes of fate reveal the most intimate secrets of the human heart, showing with amazing brightness how defenseless we are against the destructive power of passion." A rare and happy combination of the talent of a deep thinker with the talent of a first-class artist" - this is how Maxim Gorky described Zweig's work. In his "short stories of mood," "short stories of extreme situations," the reader, following the heroes, loses his sense of reality and plunges into a world of deep mental experiences, where feelings are naked to the limit.