Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm Read online

  Chapter One: The White Wall

  In a sprawling old house lived Mr. Hinzelmeier and the beautiful Ms. Abel; they were now going into their twelfth year of marriage, and the people of the city reckoned that they bore between the two of them about 80 years, but they were still young and beautiful and had neither a wrinkle on the forehead nor crow’s feat around the eyes. That these things did not happen normally was clear enough, and if the Himzelmeiers came under discussion, the aunties in the town’s coffee shops would have drunk three more cups than on the first Easter Sunday afternoon. One said, “They have the fountain of youth in their court.” The other: "It is a maiden restoration shop." The third said, “The little boy Hinzelmeier was born into the world with a caul and now the old ones take turns wearing it, night after night!" The little Hinzelmeier of course did not think like that; on the contrary, it came naturally to him before that his parents were always young and beautiful, but he nevertheless got his own nut that he futilely tried to crack.

  One autumn afternoon, when it had already approaching twilight, he sat in the long corridor of the upper floor and played hermit; since the silver-gray cat that otherwise went to school with him had just sneaked down into the garden to look for finches, he had to stop playing professor for the day. He sat there as a hermit in a corner and thought all sorts of things, like where most birds flew and how the world may well look abroad, and still more deep thoughts, because he wanted to give the cat a lecture the next day about this – when he saw his mother, the beautiful Ms. Abel, pass by him. “Hi, mother!” he said, but she did not hear him, walking with rapid steps to the end of the corridor, where she stopped and struck a handkerchief three times against the white wall. Little Hinzelmeier counted in his mind, “One, two,” and no sooner had he counted “three” than he saw the wall open silently and his mother disappear into it; hardly could the end of the handkerchief slip along through before everything went with a gentle clap back together, and now the hermit thought about where his mother went through the wall. In the meantime it gradually became darker, the dusk of his corner had become so great that it had swallowed him completely, when it happened, as before, a gentle clap, and the beautiful Mrs. Abel came out of the wall back into the corridor. The scent of roses struck the boy as she strode over to him. “Mother, mother!” he said, but he did not hold her back; he heard her go down the stairs and into his father’s room, where he had tied his rocking horse in the morning on the brass knob. Now it no longer held him, he jumped through the corridor and rode like the wind down the banister. When he entered the room, it was full of rose fragrance and it seemed almost as if his own mother was a rose, so radiant was her face. Hinzelmeier was very thoughtful.

  "Dear mother," he said finally, "why are you always going through the wall?"

  And as Frau Abel fell silent, the father said, “Why, my son, because the other people always go through the door."

  For little Hinzelmeier that was already obvious, so he wanted to learn more.

  "Where are you going when you go through the wall?" he asked. "And where are the roses?"

  But before he knew it, his father had turned him head over heals onto the rocking horse and his mother sang the beautiful song:

  Hatto from Mainz and Poppo from Trier

  Rode together from Lünebier;

  Hatto hott hott! Always in a trot!

  Poppo hop, hop! Always gallop!

  One, two, three!

  Things seem to flee;

  One, two, three, four!

  Now here’s the door.

  "Untie it! Untie it!” cried Hinzelmeier; and the father untethered the little horse from the oven knob, and the mother sang, and the horseman rode hopping up and hopping down and soon had forgotten all the roses and white walls throughout the world.