inquisition touching it. The whited coat, it was imagined, would afford a leading
proof. Every creature that possibly could have the smallest trade with flour or
powder in the castle was submitted to investigation, but in vain.
The baron solemnly protested on his honor, that although this sort of jesting
not been the friendliest, yet he had got over the affair; and with respect to the
effaced all recollection of the matter; and so, without redress, the unlucky
favorite had to pay dear for the satisfaction of pluming himself, a short while, in
feathers not his own.
Our troop, regularly acting every night, and on the whole very decently
with. Erelong their victuals, drink, attendance, lodging, grew inadequate; and
they called upon the baron, their protector, to provide more liberally for them,
and at last make good those promises of comfortable entertainment, which he
had been giving them so long. Their complaints grew louder, and the efforts of
Meanwhile, excepting in rehearsals and hours of acting, Wilhelm scarcely
ever came abroad. Shut up in one of the remotest chambers, to which Mignon
and the harper alone had free access, he lived and moved in the Shakspearian
world, feeling or knowing nothing but the movements of his own mind.
We have heard of some enchanter summoning, by magic formulas, a vast
multitude of spiritual shapes into his cell. The conjurations are so powerful that
the whole space of the apartment is quickly full; and the spirits, crowding on to
the verge of the little circle which they must not pass, around this, and above the
master’s head, keep increasing in number, and ever whirling in perpetual
transformation. Every corner is crammed, every crevice is possessed. Embryos
expand themselves, and giant-forms contract into the size of nuts. Unhappily the
black-artist has forgot the counterword, with which he might command this
flood of sprites again to ebb.
So sat Wilhelm in his privacy: with unknown movements, a thousand feelings
and capacities awoke in him, of which he formerly had neither notion nor
anticipation. Nothing could allure him from this state: he was vexed and restless
if any one presumed to come to him, and talk of news or what was passing in the
world.
Accordingly, he scarce took notice of the circumstance, when told that a
judicial sentence was about being executed in the castle-yard, — the flogging
of a boy, who had incurred suspicions of nocturnal housebreaking, and who, as
he wore a peruke-maker’s coat, had most probably been one of the assaulters of
the Pedant. The boy indeed, it seemed, denied most obstinately; so that they
could not inflict a formal punishment, but meant to give him a slight memorial
as a vagabond, and send him about his business; he having prowled about the
neighborhood for several days, lain at night in the mills, and at last clapped a
ladder to the garden-wall, and mounted over by it.
Our friend saw nothing very strange in the transaction, and was dismissing it
altogether, when Mignon came running in, and assured him that the criminal was
Friedrich, who, since the rencounter with the Stallmeister, had vanished from the
company, and not again been heard of.
Feeling an interest in the boy, Wilhelm hastily arose: he found, in the court-
yard of the castle, the preparations almost finished. The count loved solemnity
on these occasions. The boy being now led out, our friend stepped forward, and
entreated for delay, as he knew the boy, and had various things to say which
might, perhaps, throw light on the affair. He had difficulty in succeeding,
notwithstanding all his statements: at length, however, he did get permission to
speak with the culprit in private. Friedrich averred, that, concerning the assault
in which the Pedant had been used so harshly, he knew nothing whatever. He
had merely been lurking about, and had come in at night to see Philina, whose
room he had discovered, and would certainly have reached, had he not been
taken by the way.
For the credit of the company, Wilhelm felt desirous not to have the truth of
his adventure published. He hastened to the Stallmeister: he begged him to show
favor, and, with his intimate knowledge of men and things about the castle, to
find some means of quashing the affair, and dismissing the boy.
This whimsical gentleman, by Wilhelm’s help, invented a little story, — how
the boy had belonged to the troop, had run away from it, but soon wished to get
back, and be received again into his place; how he had accordingly been trying
in the night to come at certain of his well-wishers, and solicit their assistance. It
was testified by others that his former behavior had been good: the ladies put
their hands to the work, and Friedrich was let go.
Wilhelm took him in, — a third person in that strange family, which for
some time he had looked on as his own. The old man and little Mignon received
the returning wanderer kindly; and all the three combined to serve their friend
and guardian with attention, and procure him all the pleasure in their power.
