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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Once there were six sisters. The pretty one, the musical one, the clever one, the helpful one, the young one . . . And then there was the Wild one. Dortchen Wild has loved Wilhelm Grimm since she was a young girl. Under the forbidding shadow of her father, the pair meet secretly to piece together a magical fairy tale collection. The story behind the stories of the Brothers Grimm.
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THE WILD GIRL
Kate Forsyth
For my darling husband, Greg, the Amen of my Universe
‘Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.’
– Alice Hoffman
FOREWORD
The fairy tales collected and rewritten by the Grimm brothers in the early part of the nineteenth century have spread far and wide in the past two hundred years, inspiring many novels, poems, operas, ballets, films, cartoons and advertisements.
Most people imagine the brothers as elderly men in medieval costume, travelling around the countryside asking for tales from old women bent over their spinning wheels, or wizened shepherds tending their flocks. The truth is that they were young men in their twenties, living at the same time as Jane Austen and Lord Byron.
It was a time of war and tyranny and terror. Napoléon Bonaparte was seeking to rule as much of the world as he could, and the small German kingdom in which the brothers lived was one of the first to fall. Poverty-stricken, and filled with nationalistic zeal, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm – the elder brothers of a family of six – decided to collect and save the old tales of princesses and goose girls, lucky fools and unlucky princes, poisonous apples and dangerous rose-briars, hungry witches and murderous sausages that had once been told and retold in houses both small and grand all over the land.
The Grimms were too poor to travel far from home; besides, the countryside was wracked by repeated waves of fighting as the great powers struggled back and forth over the German landscape. Luckily, Jakob and Wilhelm were to find a rich source of storytelling among the young women of their acquaintance. One of them, Dortchen Wild, grew up right next door.
This is her story.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Briar Hedge
CASSEL
The Electorate of Hessen-Cassel, December 1814
And the maiden changed herself into a rose which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up towards them, and said: ‘Dear musician, may I pluck that flower for myself?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will play to you while you do it.’ As the witch crept into the hedge and reached to pluck the flower, he began to play, and she was forced to dance. The faster he played, the faster she danced, and the thorns tore her clothes from her body, pricking and wounding her till she bled. As he did not stop playing, the witch had to dance till she lay dead on the ground.
From ‘Sweetheart Roland’, a tale told by Dortchen Wild to Wilhelm Grimm on 19th January 1812
‘Wild by name and wild by nature,’ Dortchen’s father used to say of her. He did not mean it as a compliment. He thought her headstrong, and so he set himself to tame her.
The day Dortchen Wild’s father died, she went to the forest, winter-bare and snow-frosted, so no one could see her dancing with joy. She went to the place where she had last been truly happy, the grove of old linden trees in the palace garden. Tearing off her black bonnet, she flung it into the tangled twigs, and drew off her gloves, shoving them in her coat pocket. Holding out her bare hands, embracing the cold winter wind, Dortchen spun alone among the linden trees, her black skirts swaying.
Snow lay thick upon the ground. The lake’s edges were slurred with ice. The only colour was the red rosehips in the briar hedge, and the golden windows of the palace. Violin music lilted into the air, and shadows twirled past the glass panes.
It was Christmas Day. All through Cassel, people were dancing and feasting. Dortchen remembered the Christmas balls Jérôme Bonaparte had held during his seven-year reign as king. A thousand guests had waltzed till dawn, their faces hidden behind masks. Wilhelm I, the Kurfürst of Hessen, had won back his throne from the French only a little over a year ago. He would not celebrate Christmas so extravagantly. Soon the lights would be doused and the music would fade away, and he and his court would go sensibly to bed, to save on the cost of lamp oil.
Dortchen must dance while she could.
She lifted her black skirts and twirled in the snow. He’s dead, she sang to herself. I’m free!
Three ravens flew through the darkening forest, wings ebony-black against the white snow. Their haunting call chilled her. She came to a standstill, surprised to find she was shaking with tears as much as with cold. She caught hold of a thorny branch to steady herself. Snow showered over her.
I will never be free …
Dortchen was so cold that she felt as if she were made of ice. Looking down, she realised she had cut herself on the rose thorns. Blood dripped into the snow. She sucked the cut, and the taste of her blood filled her mouth, metallic as biting a bullet.
The sun was sinking away behind the palace, and the violin music came to an end. Dortchen did not want to go home, but it was not safe in the forest at night. She picked up her bonnet and began trudging back home, to the rambling old house above her father’s apothecary shop, where his corpse lay in his bedroom, swollen and stinking, waiting for her to wash it and lay it out.
The town was full of revellers. It was the first Christmas since Napoléon had been defeated and banished. Carol-singers in long red gowns stood on street corners, singing harmonies. A chestnut-seller was selling paper cones of hot chestnuts to the crowd clustered about his little fire, while potmen sold mugs of hot cider and mulled wine. All the young women were dressed in British red and Russian green and Prussian blue, trimmed with military frogging and golden braid – a vast change from the previous year, when all had worn the high-waisted white favoured by the Empress Joséphine. Dortchen’s severe black dress and bonnet made her look like a hooded crow among a vast flock of gaudy parrots.
At last she came to the Marktgasse, lit up with dancing light from a huge bonfire. Not one building matched another, crowded together all higgledy-piggledy around the cobblestoned square with its old pump and drinking trough outside the inn.
Only the apothecary’s shop was dark and shuttered, with no welcoming light above its door. Dortchen made her way through crowds buying sugar-roasted almonds, gingerbread hearts, wooden toys and small gilded angels at the market stalls. She slipped into the alley that ran down the side of the shop to its garden, locked away behind high walls.
‘Dortchen,’ a low voice called from the shadowy doorway opposite the garden gate.
She turned, hands clasped painfully tight together.
A tall, lean figure in black stepped out of the doorway. The light from the square flickered over the strong, spare bones of his face, making hollows of his eyes and cheeks.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Wilhelm said. ‘No one knew where you had gone.’
‘I went to the forest,’ she answered.
Wilhelm nodded. ‘I thought you would.’ He put his arms about her, drawing her close.
For a moment Dortchen resisted, but she was so cold and tired that she could not withstand the comfort of his touch. She rested her cheek on his chest and heard the thunder of his heart.
A ragged breath escaped her. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘I can hardly believe it.’
‘I know, I heard the news. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not.’
He did not answer. She knew she had grieved him. The death of Wilhelm’s father had been the first great sorrow of his life; he and his brother Jakob had worked hard ever since to be all their father would have wanted. It was different for Dortchen, though. She had not loved her father.
‘You’re free now,’ he said, his voice so low it could scarcely be heard over the laughter and singing of the crowd in the square.
Dortchen had to look away. ‘It doesn’t change anything. There’s nothing left for me, not a single thaler.’
‘Wouldn’t Rudolf—’
Dortchen made a restless movement at the mention of her brother. ‘There’s not much left for him either. All the wars … and then my father’s illness … Well, Rudolf’s close to ruin as it is.’
There was a long silence. In the space between them were all the words Wilhelm could not say. I am too poor to take a wife … I earn so little at my job at the library … I cannot ask Jakob to feed another mouth when he has to support all six of us …
The failure of their fairy tale collection was a disappointment to him, Dortchen knew. Wilhelm had worked so hard, pinning all his hopes to it. If only it had been better received … If only it had sold more …
‘I’m so sorry.’ He bent his head and kissed her.
Dortchen drew away and shook her head. ‘I can’t … We mustn’t …’ He gave a murmur deep in his throat and tried to kiss her again. She wrenched herself out of his arms. ‘Wilhelm, I can’t … It hurts too much.’
He caught her and drew her back, and she did not have the strength to resist him. Once again his mouth found hers, and she succumbed to the old magic. Desire quickened between them. Her arms were about his neck, their cold lips opening hungrily to each other. His hand slid down to find the curve of her waist, and she drew herself up against him. His breath caught. He turned and pressed her against the stone wall, his hands trying to find the shape of her within her heavy black gown.
Dortchen let herself forget the dark years that gaped between them, pretending that she was once more just a girl, madly in love with the boy next door.
The church bells rang out, marking the hour. She remembered she was frozen to the bone, and that her father’s dead body lay on the far side of the wall.
‘It’s no use,’ she whispered, pulling herself out of Wilhelm’s arms. It felt like she was tearing away living flesh. ‘Please, Wilhelm … don’t make it harder.’
He held her steady, bending his head so his forehead met hers. ‘Our time will come.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too late.’
‘Don’t say that. I cannot bear it, Dortchen. It’ll never be too late. I love you – you know that I do. Someday, somehow, we’ll be together.’
She sighed and tried once more to draw away. He gripped her forearms and said, in a low, intense voice, ‘I’ve been reading Novalis. Do you remember? He said the most beautiful thing about love. It’s given me new faith, Dortchen.’
‘What did he say?’ she asked, wanting to believe, if only for a minute.
‘Love works magic,’ Wilhelm said. ‘It is the final purpose of the world story, the “Amen” of the universe.’
She caught her breath in a sob and reached up to kiss him. For a long moment, the world stilled around them. Dortchen thought of nothing but the feel of his arms about her, his mouth on hers. But then the bonfire in the square flared up, sending the shadows racing away, and a great drunken cheer sounded out. Dortchen stepped back. ‘I must go.’
‘Must you?’ He tried to hold her still so he could kiss her again.
She turned her face away. ‘Wilhelm, we can’t do this any more,’ she said to the stones in the wall. ‘I … I need to make some kind of life for myself.’
He took a deep, unhappy breath. ‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll keep house for Rudolf, I suppose. And help my sisters. There’s always work for Aunty Dortchen.’ Her voice was bitter. At twenty-one years of age, she was an old maid, all her hopes of love and romance turned to ashes.
‘There must be a way. If the fairy tales would sell just a few more copies …’ His voice died away. They both knew that he would need to sell many thousands more before they could ever dream of being together.
‘One day people will recognise how wonderful the stories are,’ she said.
He took her hand and bent before her, pressing his mouth into her palm. She drew away from him, turning to the gate in the wall. She was shivering so hard she could scarcely lift the latch. She glanced back and saw him watching her, a tall, still shadow among shadows.
Happy endings are only for fairy tales, Dortchen thought, stepping through to her father’s walled garden. She raised her hand to dash away her tears. These days, there’s no use in wishing.
PART ONE
Into the Dark Forest
CASSEL
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, 1805–1806
So they walked for a long time and finally came to the middle of the great forest. There the father made a big fire and the mother says: ‘Sleep for a while, children, we want to go into the forest and look for wood, wait till we come back.’ The children sat down next to the fire, and each one ate its little piece of bread. They wait a long time until night falls, but the parents don’t come back.
From ‘Hänsel and Gretel’, a tale thought to have been told by Dortchen Wild to Wilhelm Grimm before 1810
LANTERN IN THE NIGHT
October 1805
Dortchen Wild fell in love with Wilhelm Grimm the first time she saw him.
She was only twelve years old, but love has never been something that can be constrained by age. It happened in the way of old tales, in an instant, changing everything forever. It was a fork in the path, the turn of a key, the kindling of a lantern.
That afternoon, Dortchen had gone with her friend Lotte to visit Lotte’s aunt, Henriette Zimmer, who was a lady-in-waiting to the Princess Wilhelmine. They had been accompanied by Lotte’s mother, Frau Grimm, and three of her brothers, Karl, Ferdinand and Ludwig. It was a long walk back to the Marktgasse from the vast green park of the palace, but no one suggested hiring a carriage. The Grimms were poor, and Dortchen certainly had no money in her purse. It was both scary and wonderful to walk through the forest at twilight, imagining wolves and witches and bears and other wild beasts lurking in the shadows.
‘Look at Herkules,’ Lotte said. ‘He’s all lit up by the sun.’
Dortchen turned and walked backward, staring back up at the palace, square and grand on its low hill, with six heavy columns holding up a great stone pediment. On the crest of the mountain behind was an octagonal building of turreted stone, surmounted by a pyramid on which stood the immense statue of Herkules, symbol of the Kurfürst’s power. As the sun slid down behind the western horizon, Herkules sank back into shadow. Light drained away from the sky.
‘Hurry up, girls!’ Frau Grimm called. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’
Supper, Dortchen thought. She turned forward again and quickened her steps. ‘I mustn’t be late or Father will be angry.’
‘He won’t mind once he knows you’ve been with us, surely,’ Lotte said.
Dortchen did not like to say that her father did not approve of the Grimm family. There were far too many boys for his comfort, and, besides, they were as poor as church mice. Herr Wild had six girls to settle comfortably.
The shadowy forest gave way to parkland, then the long, straight road ran between wide plots of gardens, each confined behind stone walls, the gateposts carved with the initials of the owners’ long-dead ancestors. They approached Dortchen’s family’s garden plot, where she had been meant to spend all afternoon, weeding and hoeing. She ran in and caught up her basket and gardening gloves, then hurried to catch up with Lotte, who turned to wait for her, one hand clamped to her bonnet.
The road led inside the medieval walls, the cobbles bruising Dortchen’s feet. The jutting eaves and chimneys and turrets of the buildings were dark against a luminous sky. The first star shone out, and Dortchen thought, I wish …
She hardly knew how to frame the words. She longed to have someone of her own to love – a friend, a twin, a soulmate. She glanced at Lotte, at her thin face and the curly dark hair so unlike Dortchen’s, which was thick and fair and straight. Lotte was only thirteen days older than Dortchen. Almost close enough to be twins. They had both been born in May 1793, the year that the King and Queen of France had their heads chopped off and the people of Paris had danced in streets puddled with blood.
Dortchen had always been fascinated by the story of Maria Antonia of Austria, who had become Marie Antoinette of France. She sometimes imagined herself as a beautiful young queen, dressed in white, dragged to the guillotine through a jeering crowd. In her daydream, Dortchen was rescued at the last moment by a daring band of masked heroes, led by a handsome stranger with a flashing sword. He threw her over the saddle of his horse and galloped away through the crowd, and the guillotine was left thirsty.
She wondered if Lotte ever imagined herself a condemned queen, a girl in a story.
Warm light spilt from the upper windows. The smell of cooking made Dortchen’s stomach growl and her pulse quicken in anxiety. ‘Let’s hurry – I’m hungry.’
‘I’m always hungry,’ Lotte said. ‘And all we have to eat is sausages. Sausages, sausages, every day.’
‘It’s better than stone soup, which is what I’ll get if I’m home late.’
The small party reached the Königsplatz, its six avenues radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. In the centre of the square was a marble statue of the Kurfürst’s father, the Landgrave Frederick, famous for having sent hundreds of Hessian soldiers to die fighting for Great Britain in the American Revolution.
‘Did you know that there’s an echo here?’ Dortchen told Lotte. ‘If you shout, you’ll hear your voice bounce back six times.’ She stood in the centre and demonstrated, much to the amazement of Lotte’s three brothers, who at once came to stand beside her to test the echo too.
‘Ja!’ they shouted.
Back came the faint echo: Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja.
‘Ja! Ja!’
Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja …
The church bells rang out and Dortchen remembered the time. ‘Come on, I’m late. Father will skin me alive!’ Catching Lotte’s hand, she ran down the cobblestoned avenue that led through the crooked houses towards the Marktgasse. The gables shut out the last of the light, so they ran through shadows, with only the occasional gleam of candlelight through a shutter showing the way.
They burst out into the Marktgasse, the three Grimm boys racing past them, Lotte’s stout mother panting behind. Dortchen saw at once that the windows of her father’s shop were dark, and he had hung the quail’s cage out the upstairs window. Her spirits sank.
A lantern bobbed across the square towards them. Behind it were two young men, dark shapes in long coats and tall hats. They strode up to Frau Grimm, arms spread in greeting. ‘Mother, where have you been?’ the younger one asked in mock reproof. ‘We got home to a dark, cold house and an empty larder.’
‘Jakob, Wilhelm, you’re here at last.’ Frau Grimm embraced them warmly.
‘It’s my other brothers.’ Lotte ran forward to greet them, and Dortchen followed shyly. In the glow of the lamp, she saw two young men, both thin and dark and shabbily dressed. The elder of the two had a serious face, with straight hair hanging past his ears. The younger was the more handsome, with pale skin, hollow cheeks and wavy dark curls. He laughed at Lotte and swung her around by the hands.
Dortchen forgot about her father, forgot about being late, forgot to breathe. The world tilted, then righted itself.
‘Lotte, not so wild! You’re not a little girl any more,’ the elder brother reproved her. Dortchen knew that he was named Jakob and that he was twenty years old, for Lotte had spoken often about her clever brothers.
‘Don’t scold, Jakob,’ Lotte protested. ‘I haven’t seen you in such an age.’
Frau Grimm patted his shoulder. ‘Look at you, so tall and manly. We’ve been so worried. What took you so long?’
‘Professor von Savigny and I had to come the long way, through Metz,’ Jakob replied. ‘Strasbourg is full of French soldiers.’
‘The Grand Army is on the move again? I thought Napoléon was all set to invade England,’ Ferdinand said. He was the fourth of the five Grimm sons, seventeen years old, with the family’s dark hair and thin, sensitive face.
‘I guess he’s changed his mind,’ Jakob replied drily.
‘Do they march against Austria?’ eighteen-year-old Karl demanded.
‘I suppose it was to be expected,’ nineteen-year-old Wilhelm said. ‘Austria did invade Bavaria, after all.’
‘The French move so swiftly,’ Jakob said. ‘Napoléon left Paris after us, yet overtook us on the road. They say he drove for fifty-eight hours, only stopping to change his horses. The ostlers had to throw water over the carriage wheels to stop them from melting.’
‘You saw the Emperor? What is he like? Is it true he’s a dwarf?’ Ludwig asked. At fifteen, he was the youngest Grimm brother and three years older than Lotte.
‘He’s not tall by any means, but one hardly notices. There’s such a presence about him. His eyes, they’re full of fire …’ Jakob’s voice trailed off.
‘What about the Empress? Was she very beautiful? Are her dresses as shocking as they say?’ Lotte wanted to know.
‘Indeed, I’d be sorry to see you emulating her clothes, as half of Europe seems to do. If you can call a few wisps of muslin “clothes”. As for beautiful – she wears so much rouge you cannot see her skin at all!’
‘I wish I could have gone with you to Paris,’ Wilhelm interjected. ‘It was lonely at university without you.’
‘I’m glad to be back with you all again,’ Jakob said. ‘Stimulating as Paris was.’
‘We’re glad to have you back too,’ Ludwig said. ‘Although you’ll miss the house at Steinau. We’re all very cramped here in Cassel.’
‘We were cramped in Marburg too, I assure you,’ Wilhelm said. ‘At least it’s not so hilly here. At Marburg, we had to climb hundreds of steps every day just to get around. And sometimes you’d walk in through the front door of a house and find yourself on the top floor!’
Dortchen waited for a chance to say her farewells. She was eager to get to the safety of the kitchen before her father noticed her absence, yet she found their talk of the outside world fascinating.
Wilhelm sensed Dortchen’s eyes on him and glanced her way. ‘But who is this? A friend of yours, Lottechen?’
‘Oh, that’s one of the Wild girls,’ Karl said. ‘There’s a whole horde of them across the way.’
‘It’s Dortchen,’ Lotte said. ‘Dortchen Wild. She lives above the apothecary’s there.’ She waved her hand at the dark shop, with its mortar and pestle sign hanging outside.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dortchen. Is that a love name for Dorothea?’ When Dortchen nodded shyly, Wilhelm went on. ‘One of my favourite names. My mother’s name, you know.’
‘It’s really Henriette Dorothea,’ Dortchen said. ‘But no one calls me that.’
‘It’s a very pretty name, both the long and the short versions,’ he answered, smiling.
‘What about Charlotte?’ his sister demanded. ‘Isn’t that your favourite?’
‘I like them both. Two very pretty names.’
Dortchen felt heat rising in her cheeks. ‘I have to go. Thank you for taking me to afternoon tea, Frau Grimm. Bye, Lotte.’ She hurried down the alley that divided her father’s shop from the building in which the Grimms rented an apartment. Within seconds she was hidden in darkness, but she could hear the conversation of the Grimm family behind her.
‘She seems very nice,’ Wilhelm said. ‘How lovely to have some girls living right next door, Lotte.’
‘I hope they are sensible, hard-working girls, not like those silly friends of yours in Steinau,’ Jakob added.
‘Their father is very strict and keeps them close,’ Frau Grimm said.
‘She’s very pretty,’ Wilhelm said.
Dortchen smiled and clasped his words to her like something small and precious.
OLD MARIE
October 1805
Dortchen hurried through the gate in the wall and into the garden. A cobbled path led between wide beds overflowing with herbs. An old holly tree filled one corner, its branches weighed down with berries. Their servant, Old Marie, always picked holly at Christmas-time and put it on the mantelpiece in the kitchen, though if Herr Wild had known he would have ordered her to throw it on the fire. Dortchen’s father thought such things pagan nonsense. The only reason holly grew in his garden was because it was a useful herb in winter, when most others were dead. Holly leaves relieved fever and rheumatism, and the powdered berries would purge a blocked bowel.
At the back of the garden were the stables and sheds. Apple trees were espaliered against the south-facing wall. As Dortchen hurried up the path, her boots bruised the thyme and hyssop and sage that spilt over the cobbles, releasing their scents into the night air.
Light illuminated a narrow window on one side of the kitchen door. Dortchen peeked through. Inside, Old Marie was busy at the fireplace. She was called that by everyone, to differentiate her from Dortchen’s youngest sister, who was called Little Marie, or Mia. Old Marie was a stout woman in her late fifties, with round cheeks rosy and wrinkled as a winter apple. She wore a coarse calico apron over her brown stuff dress, and a white cap that covered most of her grey-streaked hair. Dortchen opened the door and slipped into the kitchen, a blast of hot air hitting her chilled cheeks. Mozart the starling swooped down to land on her shoulder, trilling a welcome. His dark wings were all starred with white, like snowflakes.
‘Good boy,’ Dortchen said and stroked his head with her knuckle.
‘Good boy,’ Mozart repeated. He was named after the composer, who had had a pet starling who’d learnt to whistle the last movement of his Piano Concerto in G. Although Old Marie’s starling had never mastered a concerto, he had many words and sounds and songs, and chattered away all day long in a most endearing way.
‘Dortchen, sweetling, where’ve you been?’ Old Marie cried.
‘Pretty sweetling, pretty sweetling,’ the starling chirped.
‘I’ve been that worried,’ Old Marie went on. ‘It’s past the hour already. You know how your father hates to be kept waiting. Röse has come down once already to see where supper is. Quickly, take off your shawl and wash your hands, then you can ring the bell for me.’
‘Does Father know I’ve been out?’ Dortchen asked, putting down her basket and lifting Mozart down so he could hop onto his perch.
‘I don’t think so – he only went up from the shop ten minutes ago. He and your brother have been going at it hammer and tongs ever since. The whole house was shaking.’
As Dortchen took off her shawl and bonnet and hung them up, she said, ‘Sometimes I think Father doesn’t like us very much.’
‘Bite your tongue,’ Old Marie responded at once. ‘How can you say such a thing, when you live in this fine big house, with all this good food to eat? Yes, he’s a little gruff, your father, but he works hard and looks after you, which is more than can be said for many fathers.’
‘He never buys us any treats or lets us do anything fun,’ Dortchen pointed out.
‘Better than taking you out into the forest and abandoning you, like the father of the little boy and girl in that story,’ Old Marie said.
‘I suppose so,’ Dortchen replied. ‘Though at least they got to have an adventure. We never go anywhere or do anything.’
‘You call almost being eaten by a witch an adventure? Be glad for small mercies, Dortchen, my love, and pass me the salt.’
Dortchen did as she was asked, her mind wandering away into a deep, dark, thorn-tangled forest. She imagined leaving a trail of white stones to help find her way home. She imagined tricking the witch.
Still daydreaming, she began to get down plates for their dinner from the oak dresser. The kitchen was a long, low room, lit by smoky tallow candles and the orange roar of the fire. Heavy beams supported the brown-stained ceiling, with washing lines strung between them flapping with the week’s laundry. Iron ladles and pots hung from hooks from a long oak shelf above the fireplace. The shelf itself held pewter bowls and tankards, and heavy ceramic jars of salt and sugar and oil.
A roasting jack, made of cast iron, stood before the fireplace. A complex set of wheels and pulleys kept the roast turning evenly, its juices dripping down into a pan. Old Marie heaved the roast beef off the jack and onto a platter, her round face red and damp with perspiration, then swung the boiling pot of potato dumplings off the fire. Dortchen hurried to help her, ladling boiled red cabbage into a tureen.
The kitchen door swung open and Mia rushed in. ‘Old Marie, Mother’s having a spasm. Where’s supper? It’s nearly quarter past.’
‘I had trouble with the fire,’ Old Marie said. ‘The wind’s in the wrong quarter.’
‘Father’s furious.’ Mia jumped up and down on one foot, her loops of red-gold hair bouncing. She was eleven years old, the youngest of the six Wild sisters. Everything about her seemed round, from her soft, plump figure to her protuberant blue eyes.
‘Tell your father to try cooking when the wind keeps blowing out the fire,’ Old Marie answered, heaving up the tray with her rough red hands.
Mia gave a snort of incredulous laughter. ‘You tell him! If you dare.’
‘Mia, if you ring the bell, I’ll help carry the food up,’ Dortchen said.
The little girl seized the handbell and rang it vigorously, while Old Marie pushed the door open with her foot and carried out the platter of beef.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Mia caught up the potato dumplings.
‘I’ve been to the palace,’ Dortchen said. ‘Lotte’s aunt works there. We had coffee and cakes.’
‘Did you see the Kurfürst?’
Dortchen shook her head, leading the way down the cold corridor, the tureen of cabbage in her hands. ‘I met Lotte’s big brothers. They’ve come home from university. At least, the second one has: Wilhelm. The other one was in Paris.’ She pushed open the dining-room door with her hip and put the tureen down on the sideboard. Old Marie was laying out the plates on the table.
‘Paris! Did he see the Ogre?’ Mia demanded.
Dortchen nodded. ‘He said that it’s true that he’s short as a dwarf, but he’s so full of fire you hardly notice.’
‘I’d like to see Napoléon one day,’ Mia said.
‘Pray to God you don’t get the chance,’ Old Marie said.
THE WILD ONE
October 1805
Dortchen’s elder sisters came into the room in a swirl of skirts, talking over the top of one another.
‘Supper at last!’ Gretchen cried. ‘I am near ready to faint with hunger.’ The pretty one, she wore her flaxen hair in ringlets, a feat only achieved by the very uncomfortable practice of wearing rags in her hair to bed.
‘Father will not be pleased,’ Röse said with a certain amount of pleasure. ‘It is a sign of a disordered mind to be so unpunctual.’ Thirteen-year-old Röse was the clever one, and seemed to take pleasure in being positively dowdy. Her fair hair was scraped back in a thin plait, and a small book of sermons protruded from her pocket.
‘Why so late?’ Lisette asked. The eldest, and her mother’s prop, she was also the tallest, with a long face and nose and beautiful, long-fingered hands.
‘He’s almost popped all his buttons already tonight,’ Hanne said. She was the musical one, always getting into trouble for singing at the top of her voice around the house.
Dortchen would have liked to have been the clever one, and Mia would have liked to have been the musical one, but with six girls in the family, those roles were already taken by the time they were born. They had become the wild one and the baby, with absolutely no choice in the matter at all.
Dortchen was called the wild one because one day, when she was seven years old, she had got lost in the forest. She had wandered off to a far-distant glade where a willow tree trailed its branches in a pool of water. Dortchen crept within the shadowy tent of its branches and found a green palace. She wove herself a crown of willow tendrils and collected pebbles and flowers to be her jewels. At last, worn out, she lay down on a velvet bed of moss and fell asleep.
She did not hear her family calling for her. She did not see the sun slipping away and the shadows growing longer. Waking in the dusk, she had gone skipping to find her sisters, her hair in a tangle, a wreath of leaves on her head. Ever since then, no matter how hard she tried to be good, Frau Wild would always say, with a long-suffering sigh, ‘And this is Dortchen, my wild one, always running off into the forest.’
‘You’re too soft with her, Katharina,’ Herr Wild would growl. ‘You should’ve mastered her will by now.’
It was true Dortchen loved to be outdoors. With so many siblings, it was hard to find time to be alone, and the old house was always full of people shouting, arguing, singing, crying, slamming doors, ringing bells or running up and down the stairs. Out in the forest, it was just Dortchen, free as the wind in the leaves and the birds in the sky. Whenever she could, Dortchen would take a basket and go to the forest in search of fallen chestnuts or mushrooms. She would come home in the evening with her cheeks flushed, her lips stained with berry juice, and her head full of dreams.
‘What do we have?’ Gretchen lifted the lid of the tureen and wrinkled her nose. ‘Not red cabbage again.’
Frau Wild drifted into the room, a shawl trailing from her elbows. ‘Girls. The time. Your father.’ She collapsed into a chair.
‘Bad weather ahead. Better batten down the hatches.’ Hanne pretended to swoon into her own chair, her hand held to her temple in mockery of their mother.
‘You couldn’t possibly understand, Hannechen,’ her mother said in a faint voice. ‘Who will your father blame?’
‘Never mind, Mother,’ Lisette soothed her. ‘Perhaps Father hasn’t noticed the time.’
‘He always notices the time,’ Frau Wild replied, one hand pressed against her chest.
The door opened so abruptly that it thumped into the wall. Hanne at once scrambled up and took her place by her chair, head bowed and hands folded. Frau Wild rose to her feet, murmuring, ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear.’
Herr Wild came into the room and stood looking around with frowning eyes. He was a heavyset man, dressed soberly in brown, with grey hair drawn back from his forehead and tied in a queue. In one hand he held a pocket watch.
‘Twenty minutes past the hour,’ he said. ‘Not acceptable.’
Nobody spoke.
‘Katharina, you must keep better order. That servant of yours has no business serving supper at such a late hour.’
Frau Wild hurried into speech. ‘No, sir, of course not. Normally she’s very good. I don’t know what held her up today. Perhaps the roasting jack broke again—’
‘I have no wish to hear excuses,’ Herr Wild said. ‘Where is Rudolf?’
No one answered.
‘Rudolf!’ he shouted.
Frau Wild covered her ears. ‘My nerves,’ she moaned.
A few minutes later a young man sauntered into the room. His golden locks were brushed forward in careful disarray onto his forehead, and he had a magnificent pair of gingery sideburns. His tall, athletic figure was squeezed into tight pantaloons and a cutaway coat with two rows of enormous brass buttons. Dortchen wondered where he had got the funds for such fine new clothes. Certainly not from his father.
‘No need to bellow, Father,’ he said. ‘I’m not deaf.’
‘Neither am I, you insolent dog, if that is what you mean to imply. Nor am I too old to tan your hide. How dare you keep us waiting!’
‘I’m not in for supper tonight, Father, I told you.’
Herr Wild pointed to the vacant seat. ‘While you live in my house, you will do as I say. Take your place, or I’ll kick you there myself.’
Rudolf strolled to his spot. ‘I suppose I may as well save my thalers and eat here.’
Herr Wild folded his hands and intoned, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ the girls echoed.
Rudolf sighed and repeated, in a voice of long suffering, ‘Amen.’
‘Sit,’ Herr Wild said and everyone sat.
Herr Wild took a large slab of beef, piled cabbage and dumplings on top, then passed the platter to Rudolf, who served himself, then held the platter for his mother. Frau Wild dithered for a while, trying to choose the slice of meat with the least amount of fat. At last she took one, then added a tiny spoonful of cabbage. ‘My poor stomach can scarcely tolerate it, you know. Such a day I’ve had! I’ve barely the strength to eat a mouthful.’
‘Never mind, Mother,’ Lisette said. ‘Perhaps some orgeat will help.’ She poured her mother a glass of the sweet almond cordial. Frau Wild sipped it with a sigh.
By the time the platter reached Dortchen and Mia at the far end of the table, there was very little beef left. Mia sighed ostentatiously, and Lisette smiled and passed her some of hers. They ate in silence. Rudolf slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out his watch. Surreptitiously, he flipped open the case and glanced at its face.
‘It’s no use thinking you can sneak out once my back is turned.’ Herr Wild spoke without looking up from his meal. ‘I meant what I said, Rudolf. I will not have you gadding about town with those wild friends of yours, drinking and gambling and fraternising with loose women. Going out indeed! You will stay here and study your pharmacology books.’
‘But Father—’
‘Do not argue with me. By all accounts, war is coming and there’ll be money to be made. I need you to finish your apprenticeship and be ready to work by my side. You haven’t time for fooling around, Rudolf. Your Latin is execrable and your knowledge of the pharmacopoeia is weak. Even Dortchen knows more about plant properties than you do.’
‘That’s because she’s always grubbing around in the garden,’ Rudolf said.
‘Which is what you should be doing, not wasting your days going to cockfights and the races,’ his father responded.
‘Well, that’s certainly not where your proper little miss was this afternoon. I saw her sneaking in at ten past the hour. It’s her fault supper was late, so you can jaw at her for a change.’
Dortchen fixed her eyes on her plate.
Herr Wild laid down his knife and fork. ‘Dortchen Wild, were you late coming in this evening?’
Dortchen nodded her head. ‘Yes, Father.’
‘Why? Where were you?’
Dortchen did not reply for a moment, wondering whether it was a greater sin to lie than it was to disobey one’s father.
‘Hobnobbing with that Grimm girl, I bet,’ Rudolf said.
‘I … I did visit with Lotte and Frau Grimm, Father. But I was only a little late, it wasn’t ten past the hour.’ She shot a look at her brother. ‘I was held up. Lotte’s elder brothers had arrived. From university, you know. The biggest one, he said Strasbourg is full of French soldiers. The Grand Army’s on the march again.’
‘Against Austria?’ Rudolf exclaimed. ‘Father’s right, there will be war!’
‘What are we to do?’ Frau Wild lamented. ‘Will the Ogre march on Cassel?’
‘No need to fear,’ Herr Wild replied. ‘The Austrians will soon have the French running with their tail between their legs. Still, there’s no doubt the Kurfürst will be calling up new conscripts. Lucky for you, Rudolf, I can arrange an exemption—’
‘I don’t want an exemption,’ Rudolf burst out. ‘I don’t want to spend the whole war puking and purging and bloodletting and blistering. I want to fight! The best fun to ever happen around here and you want me to stay home swotting up on Latin!’
‘You’re a fool.’ Herr Wild pushed away his plate and stood up. ‘Your first day tending the wounded on a battlefield and you’ll be on your knees thanking the Good Lord that your father is wiser than you are.’
Rudolf stood up too, pushing back his chair so violently it fell over. He left the room, banging the door behind him.
Frau Wild fell back in her chair, one hand groping outwards. ‘My drops … where are my drops? All this noise, my nerves are shattered.’
Hanne hurried to find her mother’s drops while Lisette knelt beside her chair, wetting a napkin to press against her brow.
Herr Wild strode to the door and opened it. Pausing there, he turned back to address Dortchen. ‘As for you, Fraülein, you’ll spend your free afternoons this week doing God’s labour in the garden, and Sunday on your knees reciting your catechism.’
‘But Father,’ Dortchen cried before she could stop herself. As he turned to face her, she faltered. ‘This Sunday is the harvest festival.’ Even as she spoke, she knew it was no use.
‘You may look instead to the sanctity of your soul,’ Herr Wild said, and shut the door behind him.
That Sunday afternoon, when all Dortchen’s sisters went off to enjoy the harvest festival, Dortchen stayed home alone with her father. She knelt before him in the chilly parlour while he tested her on her catechism. It went on for hours.
‘What is repentance?’ Herr Wild asked.
‘Dissatisfaction with and a hatred of sin … and a love of righteousness … proceeding from the fear of God … which lead to self-denial and mortification of the flesh, so that we give ourselves up to the guidance of the Spirit of God …’ Dortchen stopped, unable to go on.
‘And frame …’ her father prompted.
‘And frame all the actions of our life to the obedience of the Divine Will.’
‘You should have it by heart,’ her father said. ‘Study it and I’ll return in an hour to test you again.’ He rose and went out, and Dortchen went to sit in the window seat, drawing flowers and faces on the frosty glass and looking down to the street below. Dusk was dropping over Cassel, the sun just a red smear behind the turrets and chimney pots, even though it was not yet seven o’clock. Men and women in their Sunday best were strolling along, many with ears of wheat tucked into the brims of their hats or their buttonholes. A little girl in a frothy white dress and a hat with yellow ribbons was skipping beside her father, her small hand in his large one.
At last, Dortchen saw her sisters returning with the Grimm family, flowers tucked into their bodices. Lotte was dancing ahead with Mia, their baskets swinging, while Lisette and Hanne followed arm in arm. Frau Grimm and Frau Wild walked together, one stout, one skinny, their bonneted heads close together. Jakob strode beside them, lighting their way with a lantern. The three younger Grimm brothers, Karl, Ferdinand and Ludwig, jostled behind, while Röse walked sedately some distance away, peering at her book of sermons.
Wilhelm and Gretchen followed along last of all. Ethereal in white muslin, she walked close beside him, his dark head in its tall black hat bent close over hers. Gretchen’s bonnet swung from her hand. On her fair head was the harvest crown, woven of asters and autumn leaves, always given to the prettiest girl.
Dortchen felt a sharp pang. All week she had been daydreaming about Lotte’s handsome elder brother. As she watched, Wilhelm said something that made Gretchen look up at him and smile. Dortchen turned away.
A RAIN OF DEATH
October 1805
‘Napoléon has won a great battle against the Austrians!’ Aunt Zimmer cried, before the door had even shut behind her. She whirled in on a blast of wintry air, her silk skirts blowing up around her white-stockinged ankles.
‘What?’ Wilhelm came to his feet, almost knocking over his inkpot. Dortchen looked around from the fireplace, where she was trying to teach Lotte how to make bread soup.
‘But that’s impossible,’ Frau Grimm said, dropping her sewing in her lap. She sat in a rocking chair as close to the fire as she could, her feet propped against the fender. It had been a nasty day, veering between snow and sleet, and the Grimms’ lodgings were draughty. As a result, all the brothers were crammed in the kitchen, their books and papers spread out over the table, the only light coming from mismatched candles stuck in chipped saucers.
‘It’s all too true,’ Aunt Zimmer said. ‘A courier arrived at the palace not an hour ago. The Austrian general has laid down his arms.’
The boys stared blankly at one another.
‘But he couldn’t have!’ Lotte said. ‘It can’t be all over so soon.’
‘Ten thousand dead, thirty thousand taken prisoner.’ Aunt Zimmer subsided onto a chair with a billow of her silken skirts. ‘Napoléon lost not even half of that.’
‘But Ulm is only a few days’ ride from here,’ Frau Grimm said. ‘Whatever are we to do?’
‘Hope that the Emperor marches elsewhere,’ Wilhelm said. ‘What of the Russians? Were they not marching to Austria’s aid?’
‘No one expected Napoléon to move so fast. It’s like black magic, the way he appears days before it’s humanly possible to arrive.’
‘But didn’t the Austrians have scouts?’ Jakob asked. ‘How could General Mack not know the Grand Army was marching up behind him?’
‘Napoléon moved so fast,’ Aunt Zimmer said again.
‘But what of the Austrian army?’ Ludwig asked. ‘I thought it was meant to be the best in the world.’ He was drawing soldiers fighting on the page before him, quick vigorous sketches that sprang to life under his quill.
‘The dispatch courier said the cannon smoke was so thick the Austrians could not see to shoot,’ Aunt Zimmer said. ‘It was like a rain of death.’
‘What happens now?’ Karl asked.
Aunt Zimmer lifted her hands and let them drop in her lap.
‘The Emperor will probably have the Austrian general shot,’ Ferdinand said. ‘He’d have been better dying with honour on the battlefield than giving up so easily.’
‘I don’t think it could have been easy for him,’ Dortchen said.
Ferdinand glanced at her in sudden interest. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘What does the Kurfürst say?’ Wilhelm asked.
‘He’s not happy. With Prussia at our back, Bavaria at our front, and Austria and France glowering at each other from either side, we’re like a sausage in a bread roll,’ Aunt Zimmer said.
‘Don’t mention sausages,’ Lotte said, pulling a face. ‘I never want to see one again.’
Her comment relieved the atmosphere of gloom and anxiety. Wilhelm grinned at her and rumpled her hair, and Ludwig drew a picture of a girl with tangled dark curls chasing a giant sausage with a fork.
‘Ah, Lottechen, if I’d not had the pig killed before we came to Cassel, we’d not have anything to eat at all,’ Frau Grimm said, shaking a fat finger at her daughter.
‘That’s why Dortchen’s here. She’s come to show me how to make bread soup, so we can have something besides sausages for supper,’ Lotte told her aunt. ‘She had to bring all the other ingredients with her, as our pantry is bare.’
‘You’re a good girl,’ Aunt Zimmer told Dortchen, and blew her a kiss.
‘She is indeed,’ Wilhelm said, smiling at her. ‘The soup smells delicious.’
Embarrassed, Dortchen tried to deflect attention away from herself. ‘Oh, bread soup is easy enough. At least I don’t have to throw myself into the pot like the sausage in the story.’
‘Don’t say that word!’ Lotte put both her hands over her ears.
‘What story is that?’ Wilhelm asked.
‘You don’t know it? The story about the little mouse, the little bird and the sausage?’
Wilhelm shook his head. ‘Won’t you tell it to us?’
Heat rushed up into her face as she realised that the whole family was now staring at her. She shook her head and stirred the soup.
‘Dortchen knows ever so many stories,’ Lotte said. ‘Go on, tell us!’
But Dortchen shook her head again and, taking the pan off the trivet, said she had better be getting home. ‘Just sprinkle the chives and the fried bread on top of the soup when you serve it,’ she told Lotte. ‘See you tomorrow.’
As she put on her cloak and gathered up her jug and bowls, Wilhelm said to her, ‘I’d like to hear one of your stories some time. I’m interested in old stories and songs and such things. Friends of mine are collecting folk songs at the moment, for a book they are writing. Do you and your sisters know any songs?’
Shyly, Dortchen nodded. ‘Hanne and Gretchen know ever so many.’
‘Perhaps one day they could come to tea and sing them to me and Jakob,’ he suggested, then he glanced around the tiny room. With five tall boys pushing back their chairs so they could stretch out their legs, and stout Frau Grimm in her rocking chair, there was barely room for Dortchen and Lotte to turn around. He frowned, then shrugged a little. ‘Well, never mind. Goodnight, Dortchen, and thank you for cooking us supper.’
‘It was nothing. Lotte cooked as much as me.’
He smiled briefly and turned away, asking Aunt Zimmer, ‘Any news about a job at the palace?’
Aunt Zimmer shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Willi. You know the Kurfürst was impressed with the letter Jakob wrote for the ambassador from Paris. But all the jobs have been taken already.’
‘By sons of barons,’ Wilhelm said.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
‘Oh, sister, I just do not know how we’re to manage,’ Frau Grimm cried. ‘If it wasn’t for Dortchen coming by tonight with some eggs and cream, we’d not have had a bite to eat.’
‘And bread soup is not much for hungry boys,’ Aunt Zimmer said. She took out some coins from her reticule and laid them on the dresser. ‘Buy some beef and a cabbage at market tomorrow. But you’d best make it last. With all this war about, it’s going to be a lean winter.’
As Dortchen slipped out the door, she saw Wilhelm press his lips together in humiliation.
That evening, as they cleared the supper table together, Dortchen told her sisters about how poor the Grimms were since their father had died.
‘What can we do?’ Lisette asked. ‘It’s not as if we have much coin to spare. And Father would never permit us to give food out of our own pantry.’
Dortchen thought of the food she had smuggled over the road that very afternoon. ‘They’re hungry,’ she said, sweeping crumbs from the table into her hand. ‘We should invite them for supper.’
‘Father would never permit it,’ Hanne said. ‘You know how he hates company.’
‘What about for coffee and cakes?’ Dortchen suggested. ‘We could do it one Friday when Father has gone to his church meeting.’ As her sisters hesitated, she added, ‘Wilhelm, the second eldest, he said he’d like to hear you sing.’
‘We can have some music, and maybe a reading. Father could not possibly object if Mother sits with us,’ Gretchen said.
‘They’re interested in old stories too – perhaps I could tell them one,’ Dortchen said.
Gretchen laughed. ‘Dortchen, you’re only twelve. Much too young to be entertaining gentlemen.’
‘But—’
‘You and Röse and Mia couldn’t possibly come,’ Lisette agreed. ‘For one thing, we simply haven’t room in the parlour. By the time we have us three, and the three eldest Grimm boys and Mother, well, we couldn’t fit a mouse in there.’
Dortchen threw down the cloth and went out of the room. No one noticed she had gone.
The hall seemed very full of black-clad young men the following Friday. Dortchen sat with Mia and Röse on the steps, peering through the banisters, as the eldest three Grimm brothers unwound their scarves and gave their tall hats to Frau Wild, who dropped first a scarf, then a hat, then another scarf. Wilhelm politely gathered them all up and hung them for her on the hatstand.
‘Thank you so much for having us,’ Jakob said. ‘You’re very kind.’ He looked tired; his dark hair was rumpled and his fingers were stained with ink.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Karl looked with admiration at the three young women in their best pale muslins.
‘We thought, if you liked, we could do it every few weeks,’ Gretchen said. ‘We can invite a few of the other young people we know in town, so you can make some new friends.’
‘We’ve brought a book to show you,’ Wilhelm said, holding up a slim leather-bound volume. ‘It’s a collection of folk songs by some friends of ours that has only just this month been published. We even contributed a few poems.’
‘Though I wouldn’t have let my name be associated with it if I had known what an unscholarly production it was,’ Jakob said.
‘Clemens said that it wasn’t about preserving a historical artefact,’ Wilhelm answered him. ‘What he and Achim wanted to do was renew and revitalise the old songs so that they regained meaning for us all today.’
‘Yet didn’t he also say they wanted to prove an enduring sense of folk spirit among the German people?’ Jakob asked. ‘Wouldn’t that aim have been better met by actually collecting the songs and tales in their original form? As far as I can tell, they’ve rewritten many of the songs and even made up some of their own.’
‘Well, they are poets in their own right,’ Wilhelm argued.
‘Then they should publish a book of their own poems, not one which claims to preserve old folk songs,’ Jakob said.
‘I guess you’re right,’ Wilhelm replied, though in a rather uncertain tone.
Lisette cast Hanne and Gretchen a look. ‘Won’t you come through to the sitting room? It’s cold out here in the hall. Perhaps, Herr Grimm, you could read us one of your poems?’
‘They’re not mine,’ Jakob said. ‘I didn’t see fit to write my own composition for a book that was meant to be a collection of folk songs. All I did was send Herr Brentano and Herr von Arnim a few old counting rhymes I remembered from my childhood.’
‘Oh,’ Lisette answered. ‘Well, perhaps you could share some other poems with us?’
‘Perhaps we could sing some of the songs?’ Hanne suggested, as Lisette led the way into the sitting room. As the Grimm brothers followed the girls in, Dortchen saw Jakob turn to Wilhelm and make a very similar grimace to Lisette’s.
Karl, who went in last, did not shut the door behind him. A narrow wedge of lamplight was cast out into the hall, falling through the balustrades and onto Dortchen’s face. She pressed her face against the wooden struts, unable to hear what was being said within.
‘A book of folk songs,’ Röse said in a voice of deep disgust. ‘I thought you said that the elder Grimm brothers were of a sober cast of mind, Dorothea. Indeed, I am glad now that I am not to be part of this so-called reading circle. No doubt they will soon be reading novels.’ She stood up. ‘I am going to go and study Schwager’s sermons.’
‘That sounds like fun,’ Mia said.
‘Fun! Indeed, I should hope not,’ Röse replied. ‘I do find the frivolous turn of your mind quite distressing, Maria.’
‘I find the way you prose on all the time more than quite distressing,’ her younger sister retorted. ‘In fact, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.’
‘That’s from gorging yourself all morning. Gluttony is a cardinal sin, you know.’
‘So is vainglory,’ Dortchen answered swiftly.
Röse sniffed and stomped upstairs.
‘I’m going to see if Old Marie has made any more strudel,’ Mia said, running down the steps. Dortchen stayed where she was, looking through the staircase at the half-open door, straining her ears to listen.
‘What a shame no music has been provided with the songs,’ Hanne was saying. ‘Though I know some of them. The words do seem a little different. Shall I see if I can remember the tunes?’ She began to play the old piano.
‘It’s called “The Boy’s Magic Horn”,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Isn’t that beautiful? I do think they’ve done something rather fine, Jakob.’
A low rumble from Jakob in response, then Hanne’s clear voice rang out, singing, ‘Up there, in the high house, a lovely girl is peeping …’
