A year after the great novel "The Legacy," this second masterpiece by the almost completely forgotten significant Swiss author from Winterthur was published in 1952, a novella meticulously crafted down to the last detail. The framing narrative, based on autobiographical childhood experiences, includes a bolder, harsher, yet simultaneously poetic refugee story, a Jewish story, which is subtly and without pretentiousness elevated to the realm of the mythical. The detailed afterword by Elsbeth Pulver, the rediscoverer and great connoisseur of the author's work, reveals the text in this first-ever reissue in an equally exciting and profound manner.