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And so he stormed and thundered, ridiculed and slandered his own flesh and blood, until Goechhausen, red with anger, rose and snatched the book from his hand, and closed his lips with her hand, crying: "If you do not cease, Goethe, I will write to your beloved mother, Frau Aja, that a satirist, a calumniator has had the impudence to defame and slur her beloved son in a most sinful and shameful manner!
"Oh, no," answered Goechhausen, "not very ill, only in love with genius, a malady which has attacked us all more or less since that mad fellow Wolfgang Goethe has raged in Weimar, and made it a place of torment to honorable people.
Oh, Goethe oh, Wolf! with what lamb-like innocence we wandered in comfortable sheep's clothing until you came and fleeced us, and infected us with your 'Sturm und Dranger' malady, and made us fall in love with your works!" "Goechhausen, hold your malicious tongue, and do not hide your own joy beneath jest and mockery," cried the duchess.
"I will scratch his eyes out?" cried Goechhausen, "and then the Countess Werther can play Antigone, and lead him around as Oedipus. Why shut your eyes, Einsiedel? I do not scratch quite yet." "I was not thinking of that," said the baron, astonished. "You never think that every one knows; but did you not do it so soon as you understood the Countess Werther should lead blind Oedipus as Antigone?"
The duke begs that you will lock the door of your anteroom when you retire, and that you will upon no condition open it, no matter how much Thusnelda may beg and implore." "Will you not injure my poor Goechhausen, you wanton fellow?" "No! it is not very dangerous, duchess. It is only a harmless surprise, which the duke promised Fraulein von Goechhausen."
Oh, I remember; you flew over the Rhine, and have flown home again quite unchanged." All laughed, the duke louder than any one. "Goechhausen, you are a glorious creature, and the Arminius is to be envied who appropriates this Thusnelda. Oh, I see the charming youth before me, who has the courage to make this German wife his own!"
Not alone for Fraulein Goechhausen was this beautiful May-night of sad experience with witches. There were other places at Weimar. In the neighborhood of the ducal park, in the midst of green-meadows, stood a simple little cottage. Near it flowed the Ilm, spanned by three bridges, all closed by gates, so that no one could reach the cottage without the occupant's consent.
The lights were all extinguished, and Fraulein Goechhausen was, in truth, the only person who had not long since retired in the ducal palace. She was accustomed to be the last, accustomed to traverse the long, lonely corridors, and mount two flights of stairs to her bedroom upon the third story.
"Hush, Goechhausen hush, sweet Philomel," interrupted the duke, "or the Delphic riddle of this costume will be apparent." "It is easily explained," said the duchess. "And from to-day forth it will be a precious palladium," cried the little man with a mild, happy face on the straw by the duchess.
Like a happy child of Nature, refreshed, Goethe went to his room and then again sought the balcony, to throw himself upon the carpet and gaze at the blue starry vault, and enjoy the glories of heaven with thoughtful devotion, and think of Charlotte only of her, not once of the poor Thusnelda von Goechhausen, who passed the night upon the stairs of the Palace Belvedere, and who, at last weary with fright and exhaustion, fell asleep, and was awakened by the Duchess Amelia in the morning, laughingly demanding why she preferred the landing of the stairs for a place of repose.
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