Gretl Quotes

“In the fading light of a snowy winter’s evening, with church bells and timepieces sounding the hour, a story has been set in motion by turns magical, terrifying, and urgent as a ticking clock. Karl, an apprentice clockmaker who has missed a deadline that may well be his last; Fritz, the write, who has begun a story he can’t control; and Gretl, the innkeeper’s daughter, whose courage will soon need to match her kindness.”

“Meanwhile Karl has been preparing the place in the mechanism of the great clock that was set aside for his masterpiece. Feverish with excitement, he hurried down the staircase of the clock tower and across the square to the inn. The old cat Putzi had come outside with Gretl, but he didn’t like the cold, and he sat on the windowsill, cleaning his ears, wondering if this man would let him in again for a snooze by the stove. But Karl didn’t notice him.

“Now as it happened, there was one other person awake, and that was Gretl, the landlord’s little daughter. She couldn’t sleep at all, and the reason for that was Fritz’s story. There was one thing she couldn’t get out of her mind. It wasn’t the clockwork in the dead Prince’s breast; it wasn’t the hoses foaming from terror or the dead driver behind the, it was the young Prince Florian.”