The Autobiography of Goethe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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СКАЧАТЬ had once been her delight, and what attention she had excited when she carried me about; and thus I early learned that people very often subject us to a severe atonement for the pleasure which we have afforded them.

      Diseases of Childhood.

      I neither escaped measles, nor chicken-pox, nor any other of the tormenting demons of childhood; and I was assured each time that it was a great piece of good luck that this malady was now past for ever. But, alas! another again threatened in the back-ground, and advanced. All these things increased my propensity to reflection; and as I had already practised myself in fortitude, in order to remove the torture of impatience, the virtues which I had heard praised in the Stoics appeared to me highly worthy of imitation, and the more so, as something similar was commended by the Christian doctrine of patience.

      While on the subject of these family diseases, I will mention a brother about three years younger than myself, who was likewise attacked by that infection, and suffered not a little from it. He was of a tender nature, quiet and capricious, and we were never on the most friendly terms. Besides, he scarcely survived the years of childhood. Among several other children born afterwards, who like him did not live long, I only remember a very pretty and agreeable girl, who also soon passed away; so that, after the lapse of some years, my sister and I remained alone, and were therefore the more deeply and affectionately attached to each other.

      These maladies and other unpleasant interruptions were in their consequences doubly grievous; for my father, who seemed to have laid down for himself a certain calendar of education and instruction, was resolved immediately to repair every delay, and imposed double lessons upon the young convalescent. These were not hard for me to accomplish, but were so far troublesome, that they hindered, and to a certain extent repressed, my inward development, which had taken a decided direction.

      From these didactic and pedagogic oppressions, we commonly fled to my grandfather and grandmother. Their house stood in the Friedberg street, and appeared to have been formerly a fortress; for, on approaching it, nothing was seen but a large gate with battlements, which were joined on either side to the two neighbouring houses. On entering through a narrow passage, we reached at last a tolerably broad court, surrounded by irregular buildings, which were now all united into one dwelling. We usually hastened at once into the garden, which extended to a considerable length and breadth behind the buildings, and was very well kept. The walks were mostly skirted by vine trellises; one part of the space was used for vegetables, and another devoted to flowers, which from spring till autumn adorned in rich succession the borders as well as the beds. The long wall erected towards the south was used for some well-trained espalier peach-trees, the forbidden fruit of which ripened temptingly before us through the summer. Yet we rather avoided this side, because we here could not satisfy our dainty appetites; and we turned to the side opposite, where an interminable row of currant and gooseberry bushes furnished our voracity with a succession of harvests till autumn. Not less important to us was an old, high, wide-spreading mulberry-tree, both on account of its fruits, and because we were told that the silk-worms fed upon its leaves. In this peaceful region my grandfather was found every evening, tending with genial care and with his own hand the finer growths of fruits and flowers; while a gardener managed the drudgery. He was never vexed by the various toils which were necessary to preserve and increase a fine show of pinks. The branches of the peach-trees were carefully tied to the espaliers with his own hands, in a fan-shape, in order to bring about a full and easy growth of the fruit. The sorting of the bulbs of tulips, hyacinths, and plants of a similar nature, as well as the care of their preservation, he entrusted to none; and I still with pleasure recall to my mind how diligently he occupied himself in inoculating the different varieties of roses. That he might protect himself from the thorns, he put on a pair of those ancient leather gloves, of which three pair were given him annually at the Piper's Court, so that there was no dearth of the article. He wore also a loose dressing-gown, and a folded black velvet cap upon his head, so that he might have passed for an intermediate person between Alcinoüs and Laërtes.

      Goethe's Maternal Grandfather.

      All this work in the garden he pursued as regularly and with as much precision as his official business; for, before he came down, he always arranged the list of causes for the next day, and read the legal papers. In the morning he proceeded to the Council House, dined after his return, then nodded in his easy chair, and so went through the same routine every day. He conversed little, never exhibited any vehemence and I do not remember ever to have seen him angry. All that surrounded him was in the fashion of the olden time. I never perceived any alteration in his wainscotted room. His library contained, besides law works, only the earliest books of travels, sea voyages, and discoveries of countries. Altogether I can call to mind no situation more adapted than his to awaken the feeling of uninterrupted peace and eternal duration.

      But the reverence which we entertained for this venerable old man was raised to the highest degree by a conviction that he possessed the gift of prophecy, especially in matters that pertained to himself and his destiny. It is true he revealed himself to no one, distinctly and minutely, except to my grandmother; yet we were all aware that he was informed of what was going to happen, by significant dreams. He assured his wife, for instance, at a time when he was still junior Councillor, that on the first vacancy he would obtain the place left open on the bench of the Schöffen; and soon afterwards when one of those officers actually died of apoplexy, my grandfather gave orders that his house should be quietly got ready prepared on the day of electing and balloting, to receive his guests and congratulators. Sure enough, the decisive gold ball was drawn in his favour. The simple dream by which he had learned this, he confided to his wife as follows: He had seen himself in the ordinary full assembly of Councilmen, where all went on just as usual. Suddenly, the late Schöff rose from his seat, descended the steps, pressed him in the most complimentary manner to take the vacant place, and then departed by the door.

      Something like this occurred on the death of the Schultheiss. They make no delay in supplying this place, as they always have to fear that the Emperor will at some time resume his ancient right of nominating the officer. On this occasion, the messenger of the Court came at midnight to summon an extraordinary session for the next morning; and as the light in his lantern was about to expire, he asked for a candle's end to help him on his way. "Give him a whole one," said my grandfather to the ladies, "he takes the trouble all on my account." This expression anticipated the result – he was made Schultheiss; and what rendered the circumstance particularly remarkable was, that although his representative was the third and last to draw at the ballot, the two silver balls first came out, leaving the golden ball at the bottom of the bag for him.

      Perfectly prosaic, simple, and without a trace of the fantastic or miraculous, were the other dreams, of which we were informed. Moreover, I remember that once, as a boy, I was turning over his books and memoranda, and found among some other remarks which related to gardening, such sentences as these: "To-night N. N. came to me and said – " the name and revelation being written in cipher; or "This night I saw – " all the rest being again in cipher, except the conjunctions and similar words, from which nothing could be learned.

      It is worthy of note also, that persons who showed no signs of prophetic insight at other times, acquired, for the moment, while in his presence, and that by means of some sensible evidence, presentiments of diseases or deaths which were then occurring in distant places. But no such gift has been transmitted to any of his children or grandchildren, who for the most part have been hearty people, enjoying life, and never going beyond the Actual.

      While on this subject, I remember with gratitude many kindnesses I received from them in my youth. Thus, for example, we were employed and entertained in many ways when we visited the second daughter, married to the druggist Melbert, whose house and shop stood near the market, in the midst of the liveliest and most crowded part of the town. There we could look down from the windows pleasantly enough upon the hurly-burly in which we feared to lose ourselves; and though, at first, of all the goods in the shop, nothing had much interest for us but the liquorice, and the little brown stamped cakes made from it, we became in time better acquainted СКАЧАТЬ