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 hob-nailed 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 hob-nailed boots. Square stakes are visible, such as may be seen in at the corners of the raw and uncompleted streets in the suburbs where there are no corner houses. Little blue enamelled shields with white letters are fastened to these stakes. These shields, alas, are not in the best condition. They have stood here far too long, giving a name to adumbrations of streets in which no one cares to live, and they have been singled out to bear the stigmata of disappointment, fiasco, and arrested development to which they give public expression. They are wrapped in an air of forlorn disquietude and neglect. Nothing has been done for their upkeep nor for their renewal, and the weather and the sun have played havoc with them. The enamel, to a great extent, has split and cracked off, the white letters have been eaten away by rust, so that in place of their smooth and glittering whiteness there are only brown spots and gaps with hideous, jagged edges—disfigurements which tear the image of the name asunder and often render it illegible.