The Autobiography of Goethe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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house, arranged only for a family, and with but one open staircase running from top to bottom, a movement and a buzzing like that in a beehive, although everything was managed with moderation, gravity, and severity.
As mediator between the irritable master of the house, who became daily more of a hypochondriac self-tormentor, and his well-intentioned, but stem and precise military guest, there was a pleasant interpreter, a handsome, corpulent, lively man, who was a citizen of Frankfort, spoke French well, knew how to adapt himself to everything, and only made a jest of many little annoyances. Through him my mother had sent a representation to the Count of the situation in which she was placed, owing to her husband's state of mind. He had explained the matter so skilfully – had laid before him the new and scarcely furnished house, the natural reserve of the owner, his occupation in the education of his family – and all that could be said to the same effect, that the Count, who in his capacity took the greatest pride in the utmost justice, integrity, and honourable conduct, resolved here also to behave in an exemplary manner to those upon whom he was quartered, and, indeed, never swerved from this resolution under varying circumstances during the several years he stayed with us.
My mother possessed some knowledge of Italian, a language not altogether unknown to any of the family; she therefore resolved to learn French immediately, for which purpose the interpreter, for whose child she had stood godmother during these stormy times, and who now therefore, as a gossip,5 felt a redoubled interest in our house, devoted every spare moment to his child's godmother – for he lived directly opposite – and above all, he taught her those phrases which she would be obliged to use in her personal intercourse with the Count. This succeeded admirably. The Count was flattered by the pains taken by the mistress of the house at her years, and as he had a cheerful, witty vein in his character, and he liked to exhibit a certain dry gallantry, a most friendly relation arose between them, and the allied godmother and father could obtain whatever they wanted from him.
As I said before, if it had been possible to cheer up my father, this altered state of things would have caused little inconvenience. The Count practised the severest disinterestedness; he even declined receiving gifts which pertained to his situation; the most trifling thing which could have borne the appearance of bribery, he rejected angrily, and even punished. His people were most strictly forbidden to put the proprietor of the house to the least expense. We children, on the contrary, were bountifully supplied from the dessert. To give an idea of the simplicity of those times, I must take this opportunity to mention that my mother grieved us excessively one day by throwing away the ices which had been sent us from the table, because she would not believe it possible for the stomach to bear real ice, however it might be sweetened.
Besides these dainties, which we gradually learned to enjoy and to digest with perfect ease, it was very agreeable for us children to be in some measure released from fixed hours of study and strict discipline. My father's ill-humour increased, he could not resign himself to the unavoidable. How he tormented himself, my mother, the interpreter, the councillors, and all his friends, only to rid him of the Count! In vain they represented to him that under existing circumstances the presence of such a man in the house was an actual benefit, and that the removal of the Count would be followed by a constant succession of officers or of privates. None of these arguments had any effect. To him the present seemed so intolerable, that his indignation prevented his conceiving anything worse that could follow.
In this way his activity, which he had been used chiefly to employ upon us, was crippled. The lessons he gave us were no longer required with the former exactness, and we tried to gratify our curiosity for military and other public proceedings as much as possible, not only at home, but also in the streets, which was the more easily done, as the front door, open day and night, was guarded by sentries who paid no attention to the running to and fro of restless children.
The many affairs which were settled before the tribunal of the Royal Lieutenant had quite a peculiar charm, from his making it a point to accompany his decisions with some witty, ingenious, or lively turn. What he decreed was strictly just, his manner of expressing it whimsical and piquant. He seemed to have taken the Duke of Ossuna as his model. Scarcely a day passed in which the interpreter did not tell some anecdote or other of this kind to amuse us and my mother. This lively man had made a little collection of such Selomonian decisions; but I only remember the general impression, and cannot recall to my mind any particular case.
By degrees we became better acquainted with the strange character of the Count. This man clearly understood his own peculiarities, and as there were times in which he was seized with a sort of dejection, hypochondria, or by whatever name we may call the evil demon, he withdrew into his room at such hours, which were often lengthened into days, saw no one but his valet, and in urgent cases could not even be prevailed upon to receive any one. But as soon as the Evil Spirit had left him, he appeared as before, active, mild, and cheerful. It might be inferred from the talk of his valet, Saint Jean, a small, thin man of lively good-nature, that in his earlier years he had caused a great misfortune when overcome by this temper; and that therefore, in so important a position as his, exposed to the eyes of all the world, he had earnestly resolved to avoid similar aberrations.
The Frankfort Painters.
During the very first days of the Count's residence with us, all the Frankfort artists, as Hirt, Schütz, Trautmann, Nothnagel, and Junker, were called to him. They showed their finished pictures, and the Count bought what were for sale. My pretty, light room in the gable-end of the attic was given up to him, and immediately turned into a cabinet and studio, for he designed to keep all the artists at work for a long time, especially Seekatz of Darmstadt, whose pencil, particularly in simple and natural representations, highly pleased him. He therefore caused to be sent from Grasse, where his elder brother possessed a handsome house, the dimensions of all the rooms and cabinets; then considered with the artists, the divisions of the walls, and fixed accordingly upon the size of the large oil-pictures, which were not to be set in frames, but to be fastened upon the walls like pieces of tapestry. And now the work went on zealously. Seekatz undertook country scenes, and succeeded extremely well in his old people and children, which were copied directly from nature. His young men did not answer so well, they were almost all too thin, and his women failed from the opposite cause. For as he had a little, fat, good, but unpleasant-looking wife, who would let him have no model but herself, he could produce nothing agreeable. He was also obliged to exceed the usual size of his figures. His trees had truth, but the foliage was over minute. He was a pupil of Brinkmann, whose pencil in easel pictures is not contemptible.
Schütz, the landscape painter, had perhaps the best of the matter. He was thoroughly master of the Rhine country, and of the sunny tone which animates it in the fine season. Nor was he entirely unaccustomed to work on a larger scale, and then he showed no want of execution or keeping. His paintings were of a cheerful cast.
Trautmann Rembrandtized some resurrection-miracles out of the New Testament, and alongside of them set fire to villages and mills. One cabinet was entirely allotted to him, as I found from the designs of the rooms. Hirt painted some good oak and beech forests. His cattle were praiseworthy. Junker, accustomed to the imitation of the most elaborate Dutch, was least able to manage this tapestry-work, but he condescended to ornament many compartments with flowers and fruits for a handsome price.
As I had known all these men from my earliest youth, and had often visited them in their studios, and as the Count also liked to have me with him, I was present at the suggestions, consultations, and orders, as well as at the deliveries of the pictures, and ventured to speak my opinion freely when sketches and designs were handed in. I bad already gained among amateurs, particularly at auctions, which I attended diligently, the reputation of being able to tell at once what any historical picture represented, whether taken from Biblical or Profane History, or from Mythology; and even if I did not always hit upon the meaning of allegorical pictures, there was seldom any one present who understood it better than I. Often had I persuaded the artists to represent this or that subject, and I now joyfully made use of these advantages. I still remember writing a circumstantial essay, in which I described twelve pictures which were to exhibit the history of Joseph; some of them were executed.
After these achievements, which were certainly laudable in a boy, I will mention a little disgrace which happened to me
The obsolete word "gossip" has been revived as an equivalent for the German "