Heidi arrives at the Frankfurt home of Herr Sesemann as a proposed companion for Clara Sesemann, but her first day exposes the gap between the household’s carefully managed routine and the child’s unfamiliarity with its conventions. The encounter establishes Clara Sesemann’s interest in Heidi, Fraulein Rottenmeier’s misgivings, and the directness that will distinguish Heidi in her new surroundings.

Setting and Expectations

Clara Sesemann is introduced in the study, where lessons take place and the family’s books and furnishings give the room a comfortable, lived-in character. She spends the day on an invalid couch, wheeled from room to room, and her thin, pale face and attention fixed on the clock convey the limits of her ordinary routine. Her impatience is unusual: she asks Fraulein Rottenmeier whether it is time yet, anticipating the arrival.

Fraulein Rottenmeier has managed the household and supervised its servants since the mistress of the house died. Herr Sesemann is often away, leaving her in charge, but he has stipulated that his daughter should have a voice in household matters and that nothing should be done against her wishes. That arrangement matters at the first meeting: although Fraulein Rottenmeier evaluates the new child and questions whether she fits the position, Clara Sesemann will make her own choice about what to call her.

Dete brings Heidi upstairs and into the study, holding the child tightly by the hand because she does not know how Heidi will respond to the unfamiliar surroundings. Tinette has summoned them, and Fraulein Rottenmeier rises to inspect the prospective companion. Heidi’s plain woollen frock and misshapen old straw hat contrast with the imposing formality of the housekeeper, whose towering headdress captures Heidi’s astonished attention. The scene sets out the social difference between the child’s mountain upbringing and the household that expects her to adapt.

The First Interview

Fraulein Rottenmeier asks the child’s name after examining her for several minutes. Heidi answers simply, “Heidi.” The housekeeper objects that this is not a Christian name and asks what name Heidi received at baptism; Heidi replies that she does not remember. Fraulein Rottenmeier interprets the answer as possible stupidity or sauciness, but Dete intervenes before that judgment can stand.

Dete explains that Heidi is unaccustomed to strangers and speaks as she thinks; she is neither stupid nor saucy, she says, but does not yet understand what good manners require in a gentleman’s house. She presents Heidi as docile and willing to learn, asks Fraulein Rottenmeier to excuse her unfamiliarity, and supplies the formal name: Adelaide, given at baptism after Dete’s dead sister, Heidi’s mother. The exchange reveals both the child’s birth name and the family loss behind it, while showing Dete trying to translate Heidi’s plain responses into terms acceptable to the household.

Fraulein Rottenmeier’s reservations extend beyond manners. She had expected a companion close in age to Clara Sesemann, who is over twelve, and considers Heidi conspicuously young. Dete cannot give an exact age, estimating that Heidi is about ten and somewhat younger than Clara Sesemann. Dete nevertheless insists that Heidi is precisely the unusual child she understood the household to want. Then she leaves, saying her mistress is waiting and promising to return to see how Heidi is getting on. Her departure leaves the child in the care of people she has only just met.

Clara Sesemann Accepts the Name

Heidi remains standing by the door as the interview ends. Clara Sesemann, who has watched without speaking, beckons her over and asks whether she would rather be called Heidi or Adelaide. Heidi answers that she is never called anything but Heidi. Clara Sesemann accepts that preference: she says she will always use that name, which suits the child, and remarks that she has never seen a child like her. The decision is a small but clear contrast with Fraulein Rottenmeier’s emphasis on the proper baptismal name and the expected form of a companion. Clara Sesemann responds to the person before her, not merely to the household’s description of the role.

This welcome does not erase the differences between the girls’ circumstances. Clara Sesemann remains dependent on the invalid couch and follows a settled domestic and educational routine; Heidi has arrived after a long journey from a very different life and has little grasp of the manners expected here. Their first exchange nevertheless gives the new relationship an opening on terms Heidi understands: Clara Sesemann asks what she is called, and then uses the answer she receives.

The First Dinner and Its Consequence

After Dete leaves, Fraulein Rottenmeier gives Heidi an extensive account of rules for behavior, rising and going to bed, moving in and out of rooms, shutting doors, and keeping things tidy. By then Heidi has been awake since before five in the morning and has completed a long journey. As the instructions continue, her eyes close; she leans back in her chair and falls asleep. The difference between the housekeeper’s elaborate expectations and the child’s immediate physical exhaustion turns the lesson in manners into an unintended comic scene.

Clara Sesemann observes that Heidi has been asleep for a long time and is amused; she has not had such an entertaining dinner in a long while. Fraulein Rottenmeier, in contrast, calls the situation insupportable and rings the bell so violently that Tinette and Sebastian hurry in. Even the noise does not wake Heidi. They have difficulty rousing her enough to take her to the room set aside for her, which lies beyond the study, Clara Sesemann’s bedroom, and Fraulein Rottenmeier’s sitting-room. Heidi’s arrival thus ends not with a successful introduction to the household’s rules but with the household having to carry an exhausted newcomer through its formal sequence of rooms. The scene establishes the central tension of her first days in Frankfurt: she is expected to conform to an ordered domestic world, while Clara Sesemann’s welcome begins with an ease and amusement that the housekeeper’s rules cannot command.