The Romance of the Canoness A Life-History

Excerpt

In June, 1864, a visit I had promised to pay one of the friends of my youth led me into the heart of the province of Brandenburg. I could travel by the railway as far as the little city of St. ----, but from this place was compelled to hire a carriage for two or three miles, as the estate, which my friend had owned several years, did not even possess the advantage of a daily stage. So, on reaching St. ----, I applied to the landlord of the "Crown-Prince"--who was also postmaster--for a carriage, and, as it was past three o'clock in the afternoon, and the drive over shadeless roads in the early heat of summer would not be particularly agreeable, I begged him not to hurry, but give me time to have a glimpse of the little city and its environs.

The landlord replied that the poor little place had no sights worth looking at. As a native of a great capital who had removed to the province, he displayed a compassionate contempt for his present residence. The situation was not bad, and the "lake" the most abundantly stocked with fish in the whole Mark. If I kept straight on in that direction--he pointed across the square marketplace on which his hostelry stood--I should get a view of the water just beyond the city-wall.

To a traveler who is less thoroughly familiar with the local history of the Mart than my friend, Theodor Fontane, and who suddenly finds himself transferred from the capital to the province, one of these little cities looks very much like another. The first feeling amid the neat little houses--most of them only a story high, while walking over the rough pavement kept as clean as the floor of an old maid's room, or passing through the quiet squares planted with acacias or ancient lindens, where nothing is stirring save flocks of noisy sparrows--is a secret doubt whether real people actually dwell here, people who take an active interest in the life of the present day, or whether we have not strayed into a pretty, gigantic toy village, which has merely been set up here for a time and will soon be taken down and packed into boxes like Nuremberg carvings.

This impression of fairy illusion and enchantment, which would speedily vanish, was enhanced by the sultry calm, portending an approaching thunder-storm, that brooded over the streets and squares and kept the inhabitants indoors. Here and there I saw behind the glittering window-panes the face of an old woman or a fair-haired young girl, not peering out between the pots of geranium and cactus to look after the stranger with provincial curiosity, but gazing into vacancy with a strange expression of gentle melancholy. The few persons I met in the street also wore this pensive look, as if some great universal calamity had happened, which quenched the cheerfulness of even the most indifferent.

I therefore pursued my walk somewhat cheerlessly, and not until I had reached the wall, which rose to a moderate height on both sides of the ancient city-gate, did the oppression of this sultry afternoon calm abandon me. Not less than four rows of the most magnificent old trees, among which several huge maples and chestnuts stretched their gigantic branches skyward, cast a broad belt of shade over the dreary little place, and were not only animated by the notes of birds, but by the shouts and laughter of countless children, who had seen the light of the world in the silent houses. Their nurses sat knitting and gossiping on the numerous benches; yet even on their faces I fancied I perceived the sorrowful expression I had noticed in the other inhabitants of the city.

It would have been pleasant to linger here in the shade among the little ones. But I remembered that I must do my duty as a tourist and see the lake, which even the postmaster had mentioned approvingly....