I read most of ‘Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman’ in the bath and it was an excellent accompaniment to soaking. As with previous novellas and short stories of Zweig’s that I’ve read, the narrator is relating an anecdote of some emotional intensity in which he himself plays only a small part. Here, the narrator is staying in a hotel when a woman confides in him a shameful secret from her past. The woman’s rather anguished voice is vivid and moving, giving this novella more impact than [b:Chess Story|59151|Chess Story|Stefan Zweig|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924796s/59151.jpg|57593] in my opinion.

What I particularly liked would probably spoil it, however. The dramatic twenty-four hours the woman spent two decades before were occupied with a beautiful young man addicted to gambling, who she tried and failed to save. Her sudden, intense obsession with this youth is nothing so simple as lust or even romantic love, although there are elements of both. She seems determined to have a meaningful, positive impact on someone who is terribly at risk of destroying himself. Thus I felt Zweig inverted the theme of an older, wealthier man saving a young, vulnerable woman from herself very neatly and showed such saviours as fallacies. The woman cannot offer a miracle cure for the youth’s gambling compulsion. He returns to the roulette tables and she is stricken with horror to find him there, in the most powerful scene in the story. Zweig seems to deliberately eschew simple moral judgements in his writing, and this is no exception. I had every sympathy for the woman, and the fact she felt ashamed of her actions for so long only underscores how limited women’s lives were in the late nineteenth century. Impulsiveness was considered highly suspect and inappropriate, which Zweig demonstrates is stifling.

In short, another beautifully written Zweig novella with a very pretty Pushkin Press binding. The painting on the cover implies more raciness than the book contains, though! ( )

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ROTATIVA - PLAZA&JANES
Una señora inglesa, con hijos mayores, se ve irresistiblemente atraída por la desesperación de un joven jugador de ruleta, con el que liga su existencia durante unas horas. Esta es la línea argumental de Veinticuatro horas de la vida de una mujer, obra que contiene una sorprendente descripción de la metamorfosis de dos manos que se agitan sobre el tapete verde de una mesa de juego. En esta breve obra, mundialmente famosa, y recientemente llevada a la pantalla, el arte de Etefan Zweig consigue uno de sus más exquisitos triunfos. ( )

Story follows a woman's memory through 24 hours. She is an English widow who never forgot her mourning. She becomes hypnotized by a Polish diplomat one evening in Monte Carlo. He is suicidal and addicted to gambling. And also younger than her. Very unlikely pair of a secure woman and risky man. Some amazing quotes:
"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'."
"Perhaps only those who are strangers to passion know such sudden outbursts of emotion in their few passionate moments ... whole years fall from one's own breast with the fury of powers left unused."

Not every 24 hours last the same. This book is a masterpiece and a great example of how the novellas should be written. ( )

Curiously old-fashioned and melodramatic, it felt like the product of 1877 rather than 1927... ( )