Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 1.djvu/174

 CHAPTER V. morning the rope-dancers, not without much parade and bustle, having gone away, Mignon immediately appeared, and came into the parlour as Wilhelm and Laertes were busy fencing. "Where hast thou been hid?" said Wilhelm, in a friendly tone. "Thou hast given us a great deal of anxiety." The child looked at him, and answered nothing. "Thou art ours now," cried Laertes: "we have bought thee." "For how much?" inquired the child quite coolly. "For a hundred ducats," said the other: "pay them again, and thou art free." "Is that very much?" she asked. "Oh, yes! thou must now be a good child." "I will try," she said.

From that moment she observed strictly what services the waiter had to do for both her friends; and after next day, she would not any more let him enter the room. She persisted in doing everything herself, and accordingly went through her duties, slowly, indeed, and sometimes awkwardly, yet completely, and with the greatest care.

She was frequently observed going to a basin of water, and washing her face with such diligence and violence, that she almost wore the skin from her cheeks; till Laertes, by dint of questions and reproofs, learned that she was striving by all means to get the paint from her skin, and that, in her zealous endeavours toward this object, she had mistaken the redness produced by rubbing for the most obdurate dye. They set her right on this point, and she ceased her efforts; after which, having come again to her 128