Description

An elderly woman looks back on the first decade of her life, recalling a world that feels sharper than the present. Born to a former Prussian officer who retired as a colonel and was given stewardship of the sprawling Château of Augustenburg, she spent her early years under a rigid aunt in a gloomy Nuremberg house, with only a garden, a few animals, and a strict Lutheran routine for comfort. When she is ten, her father brings her to Brühl, and the stark contrast between the austere courtyard and the sun‑lit park marks the start of a new chapter.

In the lavish yet oddly taste‑less palace that dominates the Rhineland countryside, she discovers the simple joys of freedom: wandering among flowered lawns, listening to soldiers drill, and watching a kind‑hearted maid with a silver hairpin attend to her. The narrative follows her delight in these everyday miracles, painting a vivid picture of early nineteenth‑century life through a child's eyes. As she grows, the memories of that bright autumn become the foundation for the stories she will later tell.

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