A high-ranking civil servant, celebrating his 50th birthday in 1936, receives among congratulatory cards, a letter from a woman he had seduced years before while tutoring her brother in her father's house, asking for his help for a young man. This letter leads to all kinds of complications. The author has given a good idea of what can ensue from misunderstanding, and also, a devastating portrait of a creep, the main character. A good psychological study, a forerunner to the whole genre of "Holocaust literature." ( )