Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/200

180 we talked the whole affair over again, and came to a conclusion that we had gratuitously misused your talent to the vexation of others and our own danger, for the sake of a mere paltry love of mischief, when we could have employed it to the advantage of all of us. See, I have here an order for a wedding-poem, as well as for a dirge. The second must be ready immediately, the other can wait a week. Now, if you make these, which is easy for you, you will treat us twice; and we shall long remain your debtors." This proposal pleased me in every respect; for I had already in my childhood looked with a certain envy on the occasional poems, —of which then several circulated every week, and at respectable marriages especially came to light by the dozen,—because I thought I could make such things as well, nay, better than others. Now an opportunity was offered me to show myself, and especially to see myself in print. I did not appear disinclined. They acquainted me with the personal particulars and the position of the family: I went somewhat aside, made my plan, and produced some stanzas. However, when I returned to the company, and the wine was not spared, the poem began to halt; and I could not deliver it that evening. "There is still time till to-morrow evening," they said; "and we will confess to you that the fee which we receive for the dirge is enough to get us another pleasant evening to-morrow. Come to us; for it is but fair that Gretchen, too, should sup with us, as it was she properly who gave us the notion." My joy was unspeakable. On my way home I had only the remaining stanzas in my head, wrote down the whole before I went to sleep, and the next morning made a very neat, fair copy. The day seemed infinitely long to me; and