Delphi Collected Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe \(Illustrated\) pdfdrive com

CHAPTER X.

When our friends began to think of going home, they looked about them for

their clergyman; but he had vanished, and was nowhere to be found.

“It  is  not  polite  in  the  man,  who  otherwise  displayed  good  breeding,”  said

Madam  Melina,  “to  desert  a  company  that  welcomed  him  so  kindly,  without

taking leave.”

“I have all the time been thinking,” said Laertes, “where I can have seen this

singular man before. I fully intended to ask him about it at parting.”

“I, too, had the same feeling,” said Wilhelm; “and certainly I should not have

let  him  go,  till  he  had  told  us  something  more  about  his  circumstances.  I  am

much mistaken if I have not ere now spoken with him somewhere.”

“And you may in truth,” said Philina, “be mistaken there. This person seems

to have the air of an acquaintance, because he looks like a man, and not like Jack

or Kit.”

“What is this?” said Laertes. “Do not we, too, look like men?”

“I know what I am saying,” cried Philina; “and, if you cannot understand me,

never mind. In the end my words will be found to require no commentary.”

Two  coaches  now  drove  up.  All  praised  the  attention  of  Laertes,  who  had

ordered them. Philina, with Madam Melina, took her place opposite to Wilhelm:

the rest bestowed themselves as they best could. Laertes rode back on Wilhelm’s

horse, which had likewise been brought out.

Philina was scarcely seated in the coach, when she began to sing some pretty

songs, and gradually led the conversation to some stories, which she said might

be  successfully  treated  in  the  form  of  dramas.  By  this  cunning  turn,  she  very

soon  put  her  young  friend  into  his  finest  humor:  from  the  wealth  of  his  living

imaginative  store,  he  forthwith  constructed  a  complete  play,  with  all  its  acts,

scenes,  characters,  and  plots.  It  was  thought  proper  to  insert  a  few  catches  and

songs;  they  composed  them;  and  Philina,  who  entered  into  every  part  of  it,

immediately fitted them with well-known tunes, and sang them on the spot.

It was one of her beautiful, most beautiful, days: she had skill to enliven our

friend with all manner of diverting wiles; he felt in spirits such as he had not for

many a month enjoyed.

Since that shocking discovery had torn him from the side of Mariana, he had

continued  true  to  his  vow  to  be  on  his  guard  against  the  encircling  arms  of

woman; to avoid the faithless sex; to lock up his inclinations, his sweet wishes,

in his own bosom. The conscientiousness with which he had observed this vow

---

gave  his  whole  nature  a  secret  nourishment;  and,  as  his  heart  could  not  remain

without affection, some loving sympathy had now become a want with him. He

went  along  once  more,  as  if  environed  by  the  first  cloudy  glories  of  youth;  his

eye  fixed  joyfully  on  every  charming  object,  and  never  had  his  judgment  of  a

lovely form been more favorable. How dangerous, in such a situation, this wild

girl must have been to him, is but too easy to conceive.

Arrived at home, they found Wilhelm’s chamber all ready to receive them; the

chairs  set  right  for  a  public  reading;  in  midst  of  them  the  table,  on  which  the

punch-bowl was in due time to take its place.

The German chivalry-plays were new at this period, and had just excited the

attention  and  the  inclination  of  the  public.  Old  Boisterous  had  brought  one  of

this sort with him: the reading of it had already been determined on. They all sat

down; Wilhelm took possession of the pamphlet, and began to read.

The  harnessed  knights,  the  ancient  keeps,  the  true-heartedness,  honesty,  and

downrightness,  but  especially  the  independence  of  the  acting  characters,  were

received  with  the  greatest  approbation.  The  reader  did  his  utmost,  and  the

audience gradually mounted into rapture. Between the third and fourth acts, the

punch arrived in an ample bowl; and, there being much fighting and drinking in

the  piece  itself,  nothing  was  more  natural  than  that,  on  every  such  occurrence,

the company should transport themselves into the situation of the heroes, should

flourish and strike along with them, and drink long life to their favorites among

the dramatis personæ.

Each  individual  of  the  party  was  inflamed  with  the  noblest  fire  of  national

spirit.  How  it  gratified  this  German  company  to  be  poetically  entertained,

according  to  their  own  character,  on  stuff  of  their  own  manufacture!  In

particular, the vaults and caverns, the ruined castles, the moss and hollow trees,

but  above  all  the  nocturnal  gypsy  scenes,  and  the  Secret  Tribunal,  produced  a

quite incredible effect. Every actor now figured to himself how, erelong, in helm

and  harness,  he;  every  actress  how,  with  a  monstrous  spreading  ruff,  she,    —

would  present  their  Germanship  before  the  public.  Each  would  appropriate  to

himself without delay some name taken from the piece or from German history;

and  Madam  Melina  declared  that  the  son  or  daughter  she  was  then  expecting

should not be christened otherwise than by the name of Adelbert or of Mathilde.

Towards  the  fifth  act,  the  approbation  became  more  impetuous  and  louder;

and at last, when the hero actually trampled down his oppressor, and the tyrant

met  his  doom,  the  ecstasy  increased  to  such  a  height,  that  all  averred  they  had

never  passed  such  happy  moments.  Melina,  whom  the  liquor  had  inspired,  was

the noisiest: and when the second bowl was emptied, and midnight near, Laertes

swore through thick and thin, that no living mortal was worthy ever more to put

---

these glasses to his lips; and, so swearing, he pitched his own right over his head,

through a window-pane, out into the street. The rest followed his example; and

notwithstanding  the  protestations  of  the  landlord,  who  came  running  in  at  the

noise,  the  punch-bowl  itself,  never  after  this  festivity  to  be  polluted  by  unholy

drink,  was  dashed  into  a  thousand  shreds.  Philina,  whose  exhilaration  was  the

least noticed, — the other two girls by that time having laid themselves upon

the  sofa  in  no  very  elegant  positions,    —    maliciously  encouraged  her

companions  in  their  tumult.  Madam  Melina  recited  some  spirit-stirring  poems;

and her husband, not too amiable in the uproar, began to cavil at the insufficient

preparation  of  the  punch,  declaring  that  he  could  arrange  an  entertainment

altogether in a different style, and at last becoming sulkier and louder as Laertes

commanded  silence,  till  the  latter,  without  much  consideration,  threw  the

fragments  of  the  punch-bowl  about  his  head,  and  thereby  not  a  little  deepened

the confusion.

Meanwhile the town-guard had arrived, and were demanding admission to the

house. Wilhelm, much heated by his reading, though he had drunk but little, had

enough  to  do,  with  the  landlord’s  help,  to  content  these  people  by  money  and

good words, and afterwards to get the various members of his party sent home in

that  unseemly  case.  On  coming  back,  overpowered  with  sleep  and  full  of

chagrin,  he  threw  himself  upon  his  bed  without  undressing;  and  nothing  could

exceed his disgust, when, opening his eyes next morning, he looked out with dull

sight upon the devastations of the by-gone day, and saw the uncleanness, and the

many bad effects, of which that ingenious, lively, and well-intentioned poetical

performance had been the cause.

---