Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/257

Rh sire of removing from the city. Even what she has confessed regarding you, my friend, does her honour: I have read her deposition in the secret reports myself, and seen her signature." "The signature!" exclaimed I, "which makes me so happy and so miserable. What has she confessed, then? What has she signed?" My friend delayed answering, but the cheerfulness of his face showed me that he concealed nothing dangerous. "If you must know, then," replied he at last, "when she was asked about you, and her intercourse with you, she said quite frankly, 'I cannot deny that I have seen him often and with pleasure; but I have always treated him as a child, and my affection for him was truly that of a sister. In many cases I have given him good advice; and, instead of instigating him to any equivocal action, I have hindered him from taking part in wanton tricks, which might have brought him into trouble.'"

My friend still went on making Gretchen speak like a governess; but I had already for some time ceased to listen to him, for I was terribly affronted that she had set me down in the reports as a child, and believed myself at once cured of all passion for her. I even hastily assured my friend that all was now over. I also spoke no more of her, named her no more: but I could not leave off the bad habit of thinking about her, and of recalling her form, her air, her demeanour; though now, in fact, all appeared to me in quite another light. I felt it intolerable that a girl, at the most only a couple of years older than me, should regard me as a child; while I conceived I passed with her for a very sensible and clever youth. Her cold and repelling manner, which had before so charmed me, now seemed to me quite repugnant: the familiarities which she had allowed herself to take with me, but had not permitted me to return, were altogether odious. Yet all would have been well enough, if by