The Romance of the Canoness

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.