Unterm Birnbaum
By Theodor Fontane
In a village in the Oderbruch in the 1830s, the innkeeper Hradscheck is deep in debt and his wife longs for a better life. When a travelling agent who came to collect money vanishes one winter night, the village begins to talk. A short crime novel by Fontane, more interested in conscience and gossip than in detection.
Summary written with Claude Opus 5.5.