Fear

Fear

A psychological cat and mouse hunt.... The brief, loveless affair between a bourgeois woman and a concert pianist leads to a vortex of terror, beset by danger, blackmail and fear...<br /><br />"...Yet finally she was at her own front steps, stumbling towards them. As she pulled open the door, her husband was standing there, a knife in his hand, staring at her, his eyes boring into her. “Where have you been?” he asked dully, “Nowhere,” she heard herself reply. A harsh guffaw sounded at her side. “I saw it all! I saw it!” the grinning woman shrieked, giggling maniacally. Her husband raised the knife. “Help!” she shouted. “Help…!”"<br /><br />"Fear" is an enduringly popular novella by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. The story was adapted into a 1928 silent film "Angst" directed by Hans Steinhoff and a 1954 film "Fear" / "La Paura" directed by Roberto Rossellini.<br /><br />This is a new translation by Nicholas Stephens, who has previously translated Stefan Zweig's "Chess Story," also available on the Kindle.