Letter From An Unknown Woman; By Stephan Zweig.

Opinions differ on this - chiefly on Letter From An Unknown Woman - regarding how to see this, as a maudlin or heartrending.

To begin with the story is about a handsome rich playboy who is depicted in the tale with no moral sentence on him whatsoever, neither about his wasting his life nor about his neglect of the women he has been around with. This is not to say one ought to pass such a judgement or that the author lacks moral sense, it is merely how the portrayal here of the man goes. The chief part is about a young girl who is poor and it so happen she lives across from his flat, looks at him and is fascinated by him and his lifestyle. There is no way she can aspire to be one of his lovers in her circumstance.

Her circumstances change for the worse, and she subsequently is a woman of the world in the barest sense, but with better financial position, and happens to be on the fringe of the man's circle one evening and he notices her. He is intrigued, takes her home, and she has the love she had ever dreamt of - for the short while she does.

She knows he is not to be bound, to be expected to be steadfast in his attraction or notice he took of her, it is casual, and while he could be with her again just as casually another time, he might not, too. She knows this, unquestioningly accepts it, and leaves in the morning.

It so happens she is with child from him and hence loses any possibility of keeping herself financially well off - and then loses the child too, to an illness she is too poor to pay for a treatment of.

The letter is written post that heartrending loss, still with no expectation, just to let him know. He reads it, wondering, trying to remember which of the hundreds of women he has been with was this one, and has merely wisps of recall but nothing clear.

Written in a simple style and heartrending in its truth at every step, it makes an impact - unless this is what one takes as normal and is impatient with the author or the woman for making a fuss, which one supposes a good many would; some of course would denounce the male, and most the female. The author merely portrays the lifestyle of one, and the life of another blossoming and withering, without any such denouncing or comment.

Some opine this is a great work, and some that this is maudlin sentimentality.

Incidentally, the word stems from Magdalena and represents the snide attitude towards women from the church authorities of early, perhaps even now, times; not so far from the word grotto being the origin of the word grotesque, and the latter one being denigrated into meaning something horrible, while really it amounts to merely relate to grotto the way statuesque relates to statue. Grottos and caves, or artificial grottos thereafter even until now, were and are used for worship of the Mother Goddess figures through Europe; on one hand the figures were integrated by using the name of Mary the mother (one wonders if the earlier and real figure included Mary Magdalene, the bearer of Jesus's child, rather than his mother); the practice of the grottos used for worship continued on one hand and was denigrated on the other by the denigration of the word grotesque.