Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  At this instant his left arm was laid hold of, and he felt a smart twinge of pain in it. Mignon had hid herself in the place: she had seized him, and bit his arm. She rushed past him, down stairs, and disappeared.

  On reaching the open air, almost all of them discovered that they had drunk too liberally. They glided asunder without taking leave.

  The instant Wilhelm gained his room, he stripped, and, extinguishing his candle, hastened into bed. Sleep was overpowering him without delay, when a noise, that seemed to issue from behind the stove, aroused him. In the eye of his heated fancy, the image of the harnessed King was hovering there: he sat up that he might address the Spectre; but he felt himself encircled with soft arms, and his mouth was shut with kisses, which he had not force to push away.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  Next morning Wilhelm started up with an unpleasant feeling, and found himself alone. His head was still dim with the tumult, which he had not yet entirely slept off; and the recollection of his nightly visitant disquieted his mind. His first suspicion lighted on Philina; but, on second thoughts, he conceived that it could not have been she. He sprang out of bed: and, while putting on his clothes, he noticed that the door, which commonly he used to bolt, was now ajar; though whether he had shut it on the previous night, or not, he could not recollect.

  But what surprised him most was the Spirit’s veil, which he found lying on his bed. Having brought it up with him, he had most probably thrown it there himself. It was a gray gauze: on the hem of it he noticed an inscription broidered in dark letters. He unfolded it, and read the words, “For the first and the last time! Flee, Youth! Flee!” He was struck with it, and knew not what to think or say.

  At this moment Mignon entered with his breakfast. The aspect of the child astonished Wilhelm, we may almost say frightened him. She appeared to have grown taller over night: she entered with a stately, noble air, and looked him in the face so earnestly, that he could not endure her glances. She did not touch him, as at other times, when, for morning salutation, she would press his hand, or kiss his cheek, his lips, his arm, or shoulder; but, having put his things in order, she retired in silence.

  The appointed time of a first rehearsal now arrived: our friends assembled, all of them entirely out of tune from yesternight’s debauch. Wilhelm roused himself as much as possible, that he might not at the very outset violate the principles he had preached so lately with such emphasis. His practice in the matter helped him through; for practice and habit must, in every art, fill up the voids which genius and temper in their fluctuations will so often leave.

  But, in the present case, our friends had especial reason to admit the truth of the remark, that no one should begin with a festivity any situation that is meant to last, particularly that is meant to be a trade, a mode of living. Festivities are fit for what is happily concluded: at the commencement, they but waste the force and zeal which should inspire us in the struggle, and support us through a long-continued labor. Of all festivities, the marriage festival appears the most unsuitable: calmness, humility, and silent hope befit no ceremony more than this.

  So passed the day, which to Wilhelm seemed the most insipid he had ever spent. Instead of their accustomed conversation in the evening, the company began to yawn: the interest of Hamlet was exhausted; they rather felt it disagreeable than otherwise that the play was to be repeated next night. Wilhelm showed the veil which the royal Dane had left: it was to be inferred from this, that he would not come again. Serlo was of that opinion; he appeared to be deep in the secrets of the Ghost: but, on the other hand, the inscription, “Flee, youth! Flee!” seemed inconsistent with the rest. How could Serlo be in league with any one whose aim it was to take away the finest actor of his troop?

  It had now become a matter of necessity to confer on Boisterous the Ghost’s part, and on the Pedant that of the King. Both declared that they had studied these sufficiently: nor was it wonderful; for in such a number of rehearsals, and so copious a treatment of the subject, all of them had grown familiar with it: each could have exchanged his part with any other. Yet they rehearsed a little here and there, and prepared the new adventurers, as fully as the hurry would admit. When the company was breaking up at a pretty late hour, Philina softly whispered Wilhelm as she passed, “I must have my slippers back: thou wilt not bolt the door?” These words excited some perplexity in Wilhelm, when he reached his chamber; they strengthened the suspicion that Philina was the secret visitant: and we ourselves are forced to coincide with this idea; particularly as the causes, which awakened in our friend another and a stranger supposition, cannot be disclosed. He kept walking up and down his chamber in no quiet frame: his door was actually not yet bolted.

  On a sudden Mignon rushed into the room, laid hold of him, and cried, “Master! save the house! It is on fire!” Wilhelm sprang through the door, and a strong smoke came rushing down upon him from the upper story. On the street he heard the cry of fire; and the harper, with his instrument in his hand, came down-stairs breathless through the smoke. Aurelia hurried out of her chamber, and threw little Felix into Wilhelm’s arms.

  “Save the child!” cried she, “and we will mind the rest.”

  Wilhelm did not look upon the danger as so great: his first thought was, to penetrate to the source of the fire, and try to stifle it before it reached a head. He gave Felix to the harper; commanding him to hasten down the stone stairs, which led across a little garden-vault out into the garden, and to wait with the children in the open air. Mignon took a light to show the way. He begged Aurelia to secure her things there also. He himself pierced upwards through the smoke, but it was in vain that he exposed himself to such danger. The flame appeared to issue from a neighboring house; it had already caught the wooden floor and staircase: some others, who had hastened to his help, were suffering like himself from fire and vapor. Yet he kept inciting them; he called for water; he conjured them to dispute every inch with the flame, and promised to abide by them to the last. At this instant, Mignon came springing up, and cried. “Master! save thy Felix! The old man is mad! He is killing him.” Scarcely knowing what he did, Wilhelm darted down stairs; and Mignon followed close behind him.

  On the last steps, which led into the garden-vault, he paused with horror. Some heaps of fire-wood branches, and large masses of straw, which had been stowed in the place, were burning with a clear flame; Felix was lying on the ground, and screaming; the harper stood aside, holding down his head, and leaned against the wall. “Unhappy creature! what is this?” said Wilhelm. The old man spoke not; Mignon lifted Felix, and carried him with difficulty to the garden; while Wilhelm strove to pull the fire asunder and extinguish it, but only by his efforts made the flame more violent. At last he, too, was forced to flee into the garden, with his hair and his eyelashes burned; tearing the harper with him through the conflagration, who, with singed beard, unwillingly accompanied him.

  Wilhelm hastened instantly to seek the children. He found them on the threshold of a summer-house at some distance: Mignon was trying every effort to pacify her comrade. Wilhelm took him on his knee: he questioned him, felt him, but could obtain no satisfactory account from either him or Mignon.

  Meanwhile, the fire had fiercely seized on several houses: it was now enlightening all the neighborhood. Wilhelm looked at the child in the red glare of the flames: he could find no wound, no blood, no hurt of any kind. He groped over all the little creature’s body, but the boy gave no sign of pain: on the contrary, he by degrees grew calm, and began to wonder at the blazing houses, and express his pleasure at the spectacle of beams and rafters burning all in order, like a grand illumination, so beautifully there.

  Wilhelm thought not of the clothes or goods he might have lost: he felt deeply how inestimable to him was this pair of human beings, who had just escaped so great a danger. He pressed little Felix to his heart with a new emotion: Mignon, too, he was about to clasp with joyful tenderness; but she softly avoided this: she took him by the hand, and held it fast.

/>   “Master,” said she (till the present evening she had hardly ever named him master; at first she used to name him sir, and afterwards to call him father), — “Master! we have escaped an awful danger: thy Felix was on the point of death.”

  By many inquiries, Wilhelm learned from her at last, that, when they came into the vault, the harper tore the light from her hand, and set on fire the straw. That he then put Felix down, laid his hands with strange gestures on the head of the child, and drew a knife as if he meant to sacrifice him. That she sprang forward, and snatched it from him; that she screamed; and some one from the house, who was carrying something down into the garden, came to her help, but must have gone away again in the confusion, and left the old man and the child alone.

  Two or even three houses were now flaming in a general blaze. Owing to the conflagration in the vault, no person had been able to take shelter in the garden. Wilhelm was distressed about his friends, and in a less degree about his property. Not venturing to quit the children, he was forced to sit, and see the mischief spreading more and more.

  In this anxious state he passed some hours. Felix had fallen asleep on his bosom: Mignon was lying at his side, and holding fast his hand. The efforts of the people finally subdued the fire. The burned houses sank, with successive crashes, into heaps; the morning was advancing; the children awoke, and complained of bitter cold; even Wilhelm, in his light dress, could scarcely brook the chillness of the falling dew. He took the young ones to the rubbish of the prostrate building, where, among the ashes and the embers, they found a very grateful warmth.

  The opening day collected, by degrees, the various individuals of the party. All of them had got away unhurt: no one had lost much. Wilhelm’s trunk was saved among the rest.

  Towards ten o’clock Serlo called them to rehearse their “Hamlet,” at least some scenes, in which fresh players were to act. He had some debates to manage, on this point, with the municipal authorities. The clergy required, that, after such a visitation of Providence, the playhouse should be shut for some time; and Serlo, on the other hand, maintained, that both for the purpose of repairing the damage he had suffered, and of exhilarating the depressed and terrified spirits of the people, nothing could be more in place than the exhibition of some interesting play. His opinion in the end prevailed, and the house was full. The actors played with singular fire, with more of a passionate freedom than at first. The feelings of the audience had been heightened by the horrors of the previous night, and their appetite for entertainment had been sharpened by the tedium of a wasted and dissipated day: every one had more than usual susceptibility for what was strange and moving. Most of them were new spectators, invited by the fame of the play: they could not compare the present with the preceding evening. Boisterous played altogether in the style of the unknown Ghost: the Pedant, too, had accurately seized the manner of his predecessor; nor was his own woful aspect without its use to him; for it seemed as if, in spite of his purple cloak and his ermine collar, Hamlet were fully justified in calling him a “king of shreds and patches.”

  Few have ever reached the throne by a path more singular than his had been. But although the rest, and especially Philina, made sport of his preferment, he himself signified that the count, a consummate judge, had at the first glance predicted this and much more of him. Philina, on the other hand, recommended lowliness of mind to him; saying, she would now and then powder the sleeves of his coat, that he might remember that unhappy night in the castle, and wear his crown with meekness.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Our friends had sought out other lodgings, on the spur of the moment, and were by this means much dispersed. Wilhelm had conceived a liking for the garden-house, where he had spent the night of the conflagration: he easily obtained the key, and settled himself there. But Aurelia being greatly hampered in her new abode, he was obliged to retain little Felix with him. Mignon, indeed, would not part with the boy.

  He had placed the children in a neat chamber on the upper floor: he himself was in the lower parlor. The young ones were asleep at this time: Wilhelm could not sleep.

  Adjoining the lovely garden, which the full moon had just risen to illuminate, the black ruins of the fire were visible; and here and there a streak of vapor was still mounting from them. The air was soft, the night extremely beautiful. Philina, in issuing from the theatre, had jogged him with her elbow, and whispered something to him, which he did not understand. He felt perplexed and out of humor: he knew not what he should expect or do. For a day or two Philina had avoided him: it was not till to-night that she had given him any second signal. Unhappily the doors, that he was not to bolt, were now consumed: the slippers had evaporated into smoke. How the girl would gain admission to the garden, if her aim was such, he knew not. He wished she might not come, and yet he longed to have some explanation with her.

  But what lay heavier at his heart than this, was the fate of the harper, whom, since the fire, no one had seen. Wilhelm was afraid, that, in clearing off the rubbish, they would find him buried under it. Our friend had carefully concealed the suspicion which he entertained, that it was the harper who had fired the house. The old man had been first seen, as he rushed from the burning and smoking floor, and his desperation in the vault appeared a natural consequence of such a deed. Yet, from the inquiry which the magistrates had instituted touching the affair, it seemed likely that the fire had not originated in the house where Wilhelm lived, but had accidentally been kindled in the third from that, and had crept along beneath the roofs before it burst into activity.

  Seated in a grove, our friend was meditating all these things, when he heard a low footfall in a neighboring walk. By the melancholy song which arose along with it, he recognized the harper. He caught the words of the song without difficulty: it turned on the consolations of a miserable man, conscious of being on the borders of insanity. Unhappily our friend forgot the whole of it except the last verse: —

  “Wheresoe’er my steps may lead me, Meekly at the door I’ll stay: Pious hands will come to feed me, And I’ll wander on my way. Each will feel a touch of gladness When my aged form appears: Each will shed a tear of sadness, Though I reck not of his tears.”

  So singing, he had reached the garden-door, which led into an unfrequented street. Finding it bolted, he was making an attempt to climb the railing, when Wilhelm held him back, and addressed some kindly words to him. The old man begged to have the door unlocked, declaring that he would and must escape. Wilhelm represented to him that he might indeed escape from the garden, but could not from the town; showing, at the same time, what suspicions he must needs incur by such a step. But it was in vain: the old man held by his opinion. Our friend, however, would not yield; and at last he brought him, half by force, into the garden-house, in which he locked himself along with him. The two carried on a strange conversation; which, however, not to afflict our readers with repeating unconnected thoughts and dolorous emotions, we had rather pass in silence than detail at large.

  CHAPTER XV.

  Undetermined what to do with this unhappy man, who displayed such indubitable symptoms of madness, Wilhelm would have been in great perplexity, had not Laertes come that very morning, and delivered him from his uncertainty. Laertes, as usual, rambling everywhere about the town, had happened, in some coffee-house, to meet with a man, who, a short time ago, had suffered under violent attacks of melancholy. This person, it appeared, had been intrusted to the care of some country clergyman, who made it his peculiar business to attend to people in such situations. In the present instance, as in many others, his treatment had succeeded: he was still in town, and the friends of the patient were showing him the greatest honor.

  Wilhelm hastened to find out this person: he disclosed the case to him, and agreed with him about the terms. The harper was to be brought over to him, under certain pretexts. The separation deeply pained our friend; so used was he to see the man beside him, and to hear his spirited and touching strains. The hope of soon beholding him recovered,
served, in some degree, to moderate this feeling. The old man’s harp had been destroyed in the burning of the house: they purchased him another, and gave it him when he departed.

  Mignon’s little wardrobe had in like manner been consumed. As Wilhelm was about providing her with new apparel, Aurelia proposed that now at last they should dress her as a girl.

  “No! no! not at all!” cried Mignon, and insisted on it with such earnestness, that they let her have her way.

  The company had not much leisure for reflection: the exhibitions followed close on one another.

  Wilhelm often mingled with the audience, to ascertain their feelings; but he seldom heard a criticism of the kind he wished: more frequently the observations he listened to distressed or angered him. Thus, for instance, shortly after “Hamlet” had been acted for the first time, a youth was telling, with considerable animation, how happy he had been that evening in the playhouse. Wilhelm hearkened, and was scandalized to learn that his neighbor had, on that occasion, in contempt of those behind him, kept his hat on, stubbornly refusing to remove it till the play was done; to which heroical transaction he still looked back with great contentment.

  Another gentleman declared that Wilhelm played Laertes very well, but that the actor who had undertaken Hamlet did not seem too happy in his part. This permutation was not quite unnatural; for Wilhelm and Laertes did resemble one another, though in a very distant manner.

  A third critic warmly praised his acting, particularly in the scene with his mother; only he regretted much, that, in this fiery moment, a white strap had peered out from below the Prince’s waistcoat, whereby the illusion had been greatly marred.

  Meanwhile, in the interior of the company, a multitude of alterations were occurring. Philina, since the evening subsequent to that of the fire, had never given our friend the smallest sign of closer intimacy. She had, as it seemed on purpose, hired a remote lodging: she associated with Elmira, and came seldomer to Serlo, — an arrangement very gratifying to Aurelia. Serlo continued still to like her, and often visited her quarters, particularly when he hoped to find Elmira there. One evening he took Wilhelm with him. At their entrance, both of them were much surprised to see Philina, in the inner room, sitting in close contact with a young officer. He wore a red uniform with white pantaloons; but, his face being turned away, they could not see it. Philina came into the outer room to meet her visitors, and shut the door behind her. “You surprise me in the middle of a very strange adventure,” cried she.