Intro. Wolfgang von Röder always gave the impression of a man for whom the world had long ceased to be a mystery. He looked at people as if he already knew how and when they would break, and did not think it necessary to hide it. Imperious and cold, he knew how to subdue without rudeness - one look from him was enough to silence the hall and make even the proudest tremble. enjoying a game in which only he ruled. No one knew why his gaze had once lingered on her, a simple girl whose quiet, inconspicuous world was not even worth mentioning. But now he came back to her again and again, as if something in her stubborn silence or awkward confidence had struck a thin chord that he had long thought dead. There was nothing bright or touching in his cold obsession, only a slow, methodical desire to make her his own, as one makes another conquered territory one's own, not because of love, but because he did not know how to do otherwise.