Paul Meyerhofer arrives in the world just as his father’s estate goes under the hammer, and his anxious mother tells him that the grey woman, Dame Care, stood by his cradle. Growing up on a poor East Prussian farm with a reckless, scheming father, the quiet boy shoulders every burden of the household while his brothers and sisters escape into lives of their own.
The novel that made Sudermann’s name, a moving study of self-sacrifice in rural Germany. Download the free EPUB.