It is always a pleasure to come into contact with a living spirit like this Jakob Wassermann. If historian Peter de Mendelssohn’s statement that the novel translated as My first wife “is a work of exactest, most scrupulous autobiography”, “authentic to the last detail” is correct, one cannot help but read it with special attention. And there is definitely no stopping the laughter at the meticulous descriptions of the protagonist’s state of mind when he meets the woman who would destroy his life. The descriptions are so intense that they express, all at once, his psychological turmoil, the despair of his situation, and the indescribable remorse at what is being narrated. It is as if, with each line, his hair stood on end, absolutely amazed at what he has done. A work of this kind is not only for the author to vent: these are lines of such strong realism that they become real experiences for the reader as well.