Amokläufer

A European doctor stationed in the Dutch East Indies makes a demand that will destroy him. When a wealthy white woman arrives at his clinic seeking an abortion, her cold arrogance provokes something vicious in him. He refuses her money and instead demands sexual favors in exchange for his silence. She leaves in disgust. But then the implications of her departure sink in: she will find someone else, someone untrained, and she may die. What begins as guilt becomes obsession. The doctor transforms into something hunted, spending weeks searching the热带 colonies for a woman he barely knows, driven by motives he cannot fully name. Zweig maps the anatomy of moral collapse with terrifying precision - a man whose civilized surface dissolves under tropical heat and colonial isolation. The amok of the title refers to the Malay term for murderous frenzy, yet the doctor's true victim is himself. This is a story about what happens when desire and conscience collide, and neither wins.