Adolf Muschg Das gefangene Lächeln (Confessions) Suhrkamp Verlag, August 2002. 160 pp. ISBN 3-5184-1351-1 Muschg's novella is the compassionate letter of a grandfather, Joseph Kaspar, now generally known as Joe, to his six-year-old grandson, John. The boy is still too young to understand the letter, or even to receive it, but the grandfather wishes both to show his love for the boy and to leave a trace of himself when he is gone. Two further reasons, of a more disturbing sort, also compel him. First, he feels that the has never loved anyone, a fear disproved by the fact of the letter itself; and secondly he is haunted by the thought that he may have murdered a woman with whom he was once in love. Conflict and depth are both introduced by these elements, but not as adventitious extras. Everything is there in the easy and elegant style, hiding a wealth of reflection and wisdom but never parading it. Beneath the smooth surface and in a very short compass, this confessional narrative offers the incidents of a whole life: Josef's schooling; the ambiguity of his name and ancestry; his parents' misconduct; the promiscuous mistress whom he pummels in the stomach when she is pregnant with somebody else's child and fears he has killed (but has not); above all his deep and genuine love for his wife Zoe, whom he meets in Egypt where her father is a rich hotel owner but who, through the misfortune of a tragic inheritance, dies young. Events that might in other hands appear heavy or over-contrived are presented by Muschg as simply a part of life. There is humour too, as in the quirky but important incident concerning a Christmas crib, which John, the first time it is his turn to set up the figures, plays an innocent prank which in a sense triggers the plot. There is a lot of introspection and self-analysis in this book, but the balance between that and direct narrative works well and the reader is absorbed throughout. Another fine work by one of the most eminent Swiss authors now writing.