Summary of the novel: Die Frau des Weisen - Artur Schnitzler

The protagonist of the story, on whose behalf the story is being taught, arrives at the seaside resort with the intention of staying there for a long time and fully enjoying the desired peace. He had just received his doctoral degree, and the young woman whom he was courting had married another. He feels that the whole chapter of his life is left behind, and this gives him confidence and calm. However, suddenly an unexpected meeting breaks his plan to take a break from worries and troubles. During the walk, he sees a young woman with a young son and recognizes her. This is Frederick, who disappeared from his life seven years ago.

They remember each other, but the tone of their welcoming conversation is taut: Frederick clearly seeks to avoid further communication with him. Moreover, the hero loses his head. The meeting stirred up forbidden memories in him of the days of his youth, which he spent in the house of his professor, husband of Frederick. He again feels in love with a woman who, for so long, until the day of his departure from the professor's house, treated the young man with maternal tenderness, nothing more. However, on the day when he was leaving, she ran into his room, covered the boy with kisses, falling at his feet. At that moment, a door opened behind her, and the young man, stunned by horror, saw the professor's face. The door immediately closed. Frederica jumped up, led him out of the house in a panic and ordered him to flee immediately.

Seven years then he did not receive any news from her, and so, having met by chance at a resort, they do not dare to speak about that episode. They arrange a sailing trip to the island, and there is an explanation between them. Frederick confesses that she loved him all these years, and blames the hero for his many years of silence, when she and her husband waited for news from him. The hero is at a loss: after the episode in the room, he was tormented for a long time by the fear of everything that Frederick husband had seen; how can she not understand that he could not write to them, and so reproaches him so easily. Frederick is trying to find out if he understood what had caused her to send him off so suddenly then, and the hero begins to guess what was the matter. Frederick continues in the meantime: it seemed to her that she heard footsteps outside the door, but there was no one there, and her husband returned many hours after the hero's escape. As she speaks, he feels something cold in his chest. Instead of the beloved, the hero sees a strange woman next to him. The hero thinks about the professor, that Frederick does not know and never knew that her husband saw her at his feet. He quietly left then and returned only a few hours later. All these years, the professor lived next to her, not giving himself a single word.

The hero realizes with horror that her husband has forgiven her everything and she is still draining the silent burden of his forgiveness. She suddenly ceases to be just a welcome woman for him, in her place he sees a ghost surrounded by an impenetrable shell of deep forgiveness. Moreover, he thinks he has no right to open his eyes to Frederick , to remove this horror from her. Frederick does not suspect that he is going on with the hero, and continues to happily twitter about his love, and then assigns him a date for the evening. She takes the shocked silence of the hero for the expression of happiness, but he is unable to look at her face. That evening he leaves and tries to imagine on the train how she is waiting for him at the seaside, but he sees not a living woman, but only an ethereal shadow.