Born in 1894, Heinrich von Dortmann had known of automobiles for as long as he could remember. His own father had been one of the first German nobles to own one, an imported Rolls-Royce from England with a side-valve engine, known as the Silver Ghost. To this he had added a German-made Duesenberg, and was the envy of many men for many kilometers. Yet somehow the younger Dortmann had never quite accustomed himself to the advance of the modern age. He still resisted the idea of paving the drive, used his own auto only when necessity demanded, and continued to travel anywhere up to ten kilometers by horseback.

Not only was his garden renowned, so were his stables. He and his wife and daughter were all accomplished and at home in the saddle. Besides a full-time gardener, a full-time groom was also on his permanent staff at Lebenshaus.

He often contemplated that he would have been better suited to life in a different age. The era of the kaisers would have done nicely, he thought to himself, sometime during the last century, before the Great War engulfed all Europe.

There were moments his fantasies carried him back and he almost imagined that Lebenshaus was of another time when life moved at a slower pace and things were simpler than they seemed insistent to become these days. The drive back here from the city always represented more to him than the shift from urban noise to rural simplicity. He felt as though he were traveling backward in time as well.

If he could not halt the tempo of the world, at least he could make his own home a refuge, which the name he had given the estate signified. He and his family did not have to keep up with the frenetic beat of Berlin’s drums. Nor did they have to let unpleasant events sweep them into their train. He was determined to maintain the serenity of this place and to offer it to whoever likewise sought retreat from the pace of this hurried and impersonal century.

As the baron and his daughter drove home, he recalled Sabina’s enthusiasm when they had talked about going to Berlin.

He had been pondering the future then too as he made his way slowly along the pathway between well-trimmed hedges and ornamentally pruned shrubs and flowering trees of the large Frühlingsgarten bordering his home. He stooped down to work the soil around a couple of his roses, but his thoughts were on the upcoming trip into the city.

It was good land, he thought… his land.

But for how much longer?

Resting upon one knee, he plunged his hand into the rich brown loam he had been cultivating, then raised his hand with fingers spread open, letting the dirt sift through them and fall back to the ground, relishing the very color and texture and smell of the soil of his garden.