Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/101

Rh he new hangings. His people were skilful, quiet, and orderly: but in truth, as, during the whole day and a part of the night there was no quiet with him, one complainant quickly following another, arrested persons being brought in and led out, and all officers and adjutants being admitted to his presence,—as, moreover, the count kept an open table every day, it made, in the moderately sized 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 stern 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 to the count a representation 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