
In a sprawling old house, the Hinzelmeier family seems caught in a gentle time loop. Mr. Hinzelmeier and his radiant wife, Frau Abel, have been married twelve years, yet the townsfolk swear they look as fresh as they did when they were almost eighty. Their young son watches this quiet miracle with a mix of admiration and puzzlement, wondering why his parents never age.
One autumn twilight the boy, playing solitary in a corridor, witnesses his mother stride to a white wall and, after a few measured taps with her handkerchief, watch the wall silently open and swallow her. Moments later she reappears, perfumed by roses, as if stepping through an unseen garden. The strange episode leaves the child deep in thought, prompting him to ask why she passes through walls and what lies beyond them.
Language
de
Duration
~49 minutes (47K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Release date
2005-09-01
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1817โ1888
A major voice of 19th-century German literature, he is best loved for lyrical, atmospheric stories that blend everyday life with memory, melancholy, and the uncanny. His work moves easily between poetry and novella, with "Immensee" and "The Rider on the White Horse" among his most enduring classics.
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