While the World Is Still Asleep (The Century Trilogy Book 1) by Petra Durst-Benning

My nephew works as the caretaker in a sanatorium there. It’s a special hospital for people with lung diseases. They say the climate there is excellent. It could be just the thing for Josephine’s cough. Joachim—that’s my nephew—could arrange something for your daughter. A few weeks there, a small room, medical attention . . .”
    “A sanatorium at the edge of the empire? Wonderful!” said the smith sarcastically. “And who’ll help me in the workshop? Who’ll pay for it? I’m not spending a cent on such an extravagance.”
    “Do you think I expect you to?” Frieda replied coldly. “If it helps the girl recover her health, I’m happy to pay whatever it costs. If you agree, Josephine could travel down there in mid-October. My nephew tells me that a room will be free then. And Oskar Reutter from the emporium on the corner will be going to Stuttgart on business at that time; he would be an ideal traveling companion for Josephine.”
    “Looks like you’ve put a lot of thought into this. But why wait? You might as well take the worthless thing with you right now. Then at least I won’t have to look at her anymore. I can always find another helper.”
    None of the adults knew that Josephine was eavesdropping behind the door and heard every word with a stony face and a broken heart.

    The evening before she left, Josephine took the small, cheap suitcase Gundel had borrowed from her employer and stuffed her underwear, socks, and three dresses inside. Her hand already on the doorknob, she cast one last look around the room. Sadly, there was nothing that she wanted to take along. No book, no worn-out but beloved toy, not a single memento. She just wanted to be gone, gone from her father’s hatred and her mother’s coldness. Gone from the house, gone from the walls that seemed to accuse her day in and day out, gone from that gloomy place where even the air despised her.
    When she went to the pharmacy to say good-bye to Clara, she was told by her friend’s mother that Clara was busy.
    The train departed very early in the morning and the journey proved uneventful. The steaming locomotive stopped only once, just before Nuremberg, on an open stretch of track. No one knew why. “Just a technical failure, I’m sure,” said her traveling companion, Oskar Reutter, as he shared the food he’d brought for the journey with her. “The train is the greatest invention of our century. The railway network has been growing steadily, and soon, trains will be able to travel to the farthest corners of our empire. Distances that once seemed insurmountable are turning into nothing more than lines on a map. It is truly a blessing!”
    Josephine could only agree as she—a girl who had never before left the Luisenstadt district—sat watching the many different landscapes pass by from the comfort of the train compartment. An unfamiliar sense of elation—of freedom and distance, of inspiration and boundlessness—came over her. She already felt as if she could breathe more easily.
    Beyond Nuremberg, Oskar Reutter pointed out a large building to her. “Mr. Joseph Obermaier’s telegraphic equipment factory. They’re building the future there,” he said enthusiastically. “We live in exciting times!”
    They went their separate ways in Stuttgart once the emporium owner had ensured that Josephine was settled in the right train for the next leg of her journey.
    Two hours later, Josephine arrived in Pforzheim. Mr. Reutter had explained to her that the railway had not penetrated beyond that point into the Black Forest region but that there were always people with wagons offering their services outside Pforzheim station. She would have to bargain hard, of course, but one of them would certainly be willing to drive her the final stretch to Schömberg.
    In fact, the wagon drivers in the Black Forest seemed no different than the men who brought their horses to her father’s forge, Josephine realized. Encouraged by this, she walked