»Beware the pronouncements of the critic« is the warning message of ›Depth Wish‹ in which a promising young painter takes her notices catastrophically to heart. In ›A Battle‹ bystanders want a nonchalant, elegantly dressed challenger to beat their ugly little local chess matador who has doggedly defeated them over the years, but what exactly is the newcomer up to with his breathtaking Napoleonic flair at the chessboard? In ›Maître Mussard's Bequest‹ a man develops a world view that renders him all too soon - and all too literally - petrified. In ›Amnesia in Litteris‹, Patrick Suskind's hilarious and compelling concluding piece, the author recounts a great forgetting as he browses through his own well-loved library and discovers how few of the books can actually remember. In this exquisite collection, Patrick Suskind's genius for unmasking self-deception and dramatising human obsession is once again beautifully demonstrated.