Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/178

158 not felt the smallest inconvenience during the last days of the war. With this feeling, he had promised my mother a gold snuff-box, set with diamonds, which she was to receive as soon as peace should be publicly declared. In the expectation of the happy event, they had laboured now for some years on this present. The box, which was tolerably large, had been executed in Hanau; for my father was on good terms with the gold-workers there, as well as with the heads of the silk establishments. Many designs were made for it: the cover was adorned by a basket of flowers, over which hovered a dove with the olive branch. A vacant space was left for the jewels, which were to be set partly in the dove and partly on the spot where the box is usually opened. The jeweller, to whom the execution and the requisite stones were entrusted, was named Lautensak, and was a brisk, skilful man, who, like many artists, seldom did what was necessary, but usually works of caprice, which gave him pleasure. The jewels were very soon set, in the shape in which they were to be put upon the box, on some black wax, and looked very well; but they would not come off to be transferred to the gold. In the outset, my father let the matter rest: but as the hope of peace became livelier, and finally when the stipulations,—particularly the elevation of the Archduke Joseph to the Roman throne,—seemed more precisely known, he grew more and more impatient; and I had to go several times a week, nay, at last, almost daily, to visit the tardy artist. Owing to my unremitted teasing and exhortation, the work went on, though slowly enough; for, as it was of that kind which can be taken in hand or laid aside at will, there was always something by which it was thrust out of the way, and put aside.

The chief cause of this conduct, however, was a task which the artist had undertaken on his own account. Everybody knew that the Emperor Francis cherished