Bashan and I - Thomas Mann (best e book reader .txt) 📗

And then again there are sinkages in the ground⁠—mere gravel-pits along the slopes and bottoms of which only a few willow shoots and a little dry sage manage to flourish.

All this has not ceased to exert a magic influence upon me, even though the place, for many a year, has been as a daily haunt to me. In some way I am fantastically moved and touched by all this, for example, by the massed foliage of the ash-trees, which reminds me somehow of the contours of huge bulls. These creeping vines and reedy thickets, this dampness and this drouth, this meagre jungle⁠—to sum up my impressions as a whole⁠—affect me a little like being transported to the landscape of another period of the Earth’s growth, even to a submarine landscape⁠—as though one were wandering at the bottom of the sea. This vision has a certain contact with reality, for water once stood or ran everywhere hereabout, especially in those seepages which have now assumed the shape of square meadow-basins surrounded by nurseries of ash-trees and serve sheep for drink and pasture. One of these ponds lies directly behind my house.

My delectable wilderness is crisscrossed by paths, by strips of trampled grass and also by pebbly trails. Obviously none of these were made, they simply grew through the agency of use. Yet no man could say by whom these paths have been trodden into the soil. It is only now and then, and usually as an unpleasant exception, that Bashan and I meet anyone here. When such meetings do occur, my companion comes to a sudden halt in startled surprise and gives vent to a single muffled bark which gives a pretty clear expression to my own feelings in connection with the encounter. Even on fine sunny afternoons in the summer, when great numbers of pedestrians from the city come pouring into the neighbourhood (it is always a few degrees cooler here than elsewhere), we two are able to wander quite undisturbed on the inner ways. The public is apparently unaware of these, besides, the river is a great attraction and draws them mightily. Hugging its banks as closely as possible, that is, when there is no flooding, the human river wanders out into the countryside and then comes rolling back in the evening. At most we chance to stumble upon a pair of lovers kissing in the bushes. With wide, shy, yet insolent eyes, they regard us from their bower, as though stubbornly bent on challenging us, daring us to say anything against their being here, defying us to give any open disapproval of their remote and guerilla lovemaking⁠—intimations which we silently answer in the negative by beating a flank retreat, Bashan with that air of indifference with which all things that do not bear the scent of the wild about them affect him, and I with a perfectly inscrutable and expressionless face which allows no trace either of approval or disapproval to be seen.

But these paths are not the only means of traffic and communication in my domain. You will find streets there, or⁠—to be more precise⁠—preparations that may once have been streets, or were once destined to be such. It is like this: traces of the path-finding and path-clearing axe and of a sanguine spirit of enterprise in the realm of real estate reveal themselves for quite a distance beyond the built-up part of the country and the little villa colony. Some speculative soul had peered deeply into the untold possibilities of the future, and had proceeded upon a bold and audacious plan. The society which had taken this tract of territory in hand some ten or fifteen years before had cherished plans far more magnificent than those which came to pass, for originally the colony was not to have been confined to the handful of villas which now stand there. Building lots were plentiful, for more than a mile downstream everything had been prepared, and is no doubt still prepared for possible buyers and for lovers of a settled suburban manner of life.

The councils of this syndicate had been dominated by large and lofty ideals. They had not contented themselves with building proper jetties along the banks, with the creation of riverside walks and quays and with the planting of parks and gardens. They had gone far beyond all this, the hand of cultivation had invaded the woods themselves, had made clearings, piled up gravel, united the wilderness by means of streets, a few lengthwise and still more crosswise. They are well-planned and handsome streets, or sketches of streets, in coarse macadam, with the hint of a curb and roomy sidewalks. On these, however, no one goes walking but Bashan and myself⁠—he upon the good and durable leather of his four paws⁠—I upon hobnailed boots, because of the macadam.

The villas which should long ago have risen hospitably along these streets, according to the calculations and intentions of the society, have, for the present, refused to materialise, even though I have set so excellent an example as to build my own house in these parts. They have remained absent, I say, for ten, for fifteen years, and so it is small wonder that a certain discouragement has settled down upon the neighbourhood, and that a disinclination for further expenditures and for the completion of that which was so magnificently begun, should make itself felt in the bosom of the society.

Everything had progressed admirably up to a certain point. Things had even gone so far as the christening of the new streets. For these thoroughfares without inhabitants have right and regular names, just like ordinary or orthodox streets in the city or in the civilised suburbs. But I would give much to know what dreamy soul or retrospective “highbrow” of a speculator had assigned them. There is a Goethe and a Schiller, a Lessing and a Heine Street⁠—there is even an Adalbert Stifter Street upon which I stroll with particular sympathy and reverence in my hobnailed boots. Square stakes