After years abroad, he returns to the lost yet familiar valley in the Black Forest. He walks the old paths through deep snow, remembering the bitter inheritance dispute over the family estate and Minna, who chose his brother over him. He listens for the call of the dark spirits that roam during the Rauhnächte, this liminal time between Christmas and Epiphany, gazes at the incessantly falling snow, and waits, marked by illness, for his brother, for a reconciliatory conversation.