Resumen
Resumen de Las hermanas: tres novelas cortas
Para quién es
You will love this if you enjoy psychological fiction, rich and dreamlike imagery, historical settings from Spain to London to the French countryside, and heroines whose inner worlds burn brighter than the world around them.
De qué trata este libro
The Sisters brings together three novellas by Jakob Wassermann, the German novelist who died in 1934. Each follows a woman whose inner life pulls hard against the world around her. Donna Johanna of Castile is set in Spain around the turn of the sixteenth century. Sara Malcolm takes place in London in 1732. Clarissa Mirabel unfolds in the French town of Rhodez in 1817, where a murder sets a whole district on fire with rumor.
What you get here is three portraits of obsession. Johanna clings to a dream of love that can conquer death. Sara follows a vision she cannot even remember. Clarissa is drawn to a man she has seen only once, in a wood. Wassermann tells each story in rich, vivid images, and he keeps asking what is real and what only feels real. Let us begin in Burgos, with the strange birth of the Infanta Johanna.
En este resumen
- 1A strange child becomes a brideFree
- 2A husband flees what he cannot grasp
- 3A nameless girl wakes in London
- 4A town builds a murder from rumor
- 5Clarissa walks into the story
- 6Dreams against a hungry world
Idea clave 1 de 6
A strange child becomes a bride
Johanna is born in Burgos in the same hour that more than a hundred heretics burn beneath her mother's window. Her skin is amber, her eyes are deep and dark, and a mark shaped like a cross lies under her breast. She speaks late, plays alone, and cries out in her sleep. The court decides she is feeble-minded, and her father prefers not to see her.
One stormy night her greyhound bites her leg. She still loves the dog, yet she decides it must die, and she cuts its throat herself. At eleven she is sent to a convent near Burgos, and she returns to court with a name for witchcraft. The only strange habit anyone can prove is her love of the stars, which she watches from a balcony at midnight. At Toledo she sees a pregnant woman burned as a heretic, and the woman's cry never leaves her.
At seventeen she is wanted by suitors from many lands, because she will inherit Castile and Aragon. Her father chooses Philip of Austria, son of the emperor. A Spanish courtier praises her skin so finely that Philip grows curious, and the treaties are sealed. Philip arrives in autumn in white silk on a white horse, and the horse stumbles at the gate. When Johanna first sees him, she stands as still as stone until a lady-in-waiting whispers her back to life.
The wedding is grand, with seven triumphal arches and a papal legate. By morning Philip rushes from the chamber pale and wild, and Johanna lies unconscious. Wassermann explains her refusal not as spite but as a dream of love so total that no ceremony can touch it. She imagines love as a flower that conquers death, and she waits for a Philip who does not yet exist. The young man who actually lives in Burgos has no idea what she is waiting for.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Las hermanas: tres novelas cortas
What is The Sisters by Jakob Wassermann about?
It gathers three novellas about women ruled by an inner vision: a Spanish infanta who waits for a perfect love, a London servant who longs for a golden cup, and a French widow drawn into a murder case.
Are the three novellas connected?
They are separate stories in different countries and centuries. What links them is theme: a woman's dream or obsession meets a world that cannot understand it, and the results shape each heroine's fate.
Is Donna Johanna of Castile a true story?
It is built on the life of Joanna of Castile, the Spanish queen who married Philip of Austria, but Wassermann turns it into a poetic, dreamlike tale. Clarissa Mirabel likewise draws on a famous French murder case of 1817.
Is The Sisters easy to follow?
Each novella has a clear story line with named people, vivid scenes and steady progress. The rich images are a pleasure to listen to, much like a poem, and each tale stays focused on one heroine.
What is the main message of The Sisters?
Wassermann suggests that inner dreams can shape a life more than outward facts, and that crowds and courts often replace truth with what they want to believe, with tragic consequences for the people caught between.