Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/22

16 dour of youth! What a gain to have enriched my imagination with this perfect model of manhood! Now I can people the woods, the meadow, and the hills, with similar fine forms. I can see him as Adonis chasing the boar, or as Narcissus contemplating himself in the mirror of the spring.

But alas! my imagination cannot furnish as yet a Venus holding him from the chase, a Venus bewailing his death, or a beautiful Echo casting one sad look more on the cold corpse of the youth before she vanishes for ever. I have therefore resolved, cost what it will, to see a female form in the state in which I have seen my friend.

When, therefore, we reached Geneva, I made arrangements, in the character of an artist, to complete my studies of the nude figure, and to-morrow evening my wish is to be gratified.

I cannot avoid going to-day with Ferdinand to a grand party. It will form an excellent foil to the studies of this evening. Well enough do I know those formal parties, where the old women require you to play at cards with them, and the young ones to ogle with them; where you must listen to the learned, pay respect to the parson, and give way to the noble; where the numerous lights show you scarcely one tolerable form, and that one hidden and buried beneath some barbarous load of frippery. I shall have to speak French, too,—a foreign tongue,—the use of which always makes a man appear silly, whatever he may think of himself, since the best he can express in it is nothing but commonplace and the most obvious of remarks, and that, too, only with stammering and hesitating lips. For what is it that distinguishes the blockhead from the really clever man, but the peculiar quickness and vividness with which the latter discerns the nicer shades and proprieties of all that comes