Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/378

366 most unamiable manner in the world. She did it in the established routine, but nothing more and nothing less. Not from love or a desire to please did she accommodate herself to anything, so that this was one of the first things about which my mother complained to me in private. But, since love was as essential to my sister as to any human being, she turned her affection wholly on me. Her care in nursing and entertaining me absorbed all her time: her female companions, who were swayed by her without her intending it, had likewise to contrive all sorts of things to be pleasing and consolatory to me. She was inventive in cheering me up, and even developed some germs of comical humour which I had never known in her, and which became her very well. There soon arose between us a coterie-language, by which we could converse before all people without their understanding us; and she often used this gibberish with great pertness in the presence of our parents.

My father was personally tolerably comfortable. He was in good health, spent a great part of the day in the instruction of my sister, went on with the description of his travels, and was longer in tuning his lute than in playing on it. He concealed at the same time, as well as he could, his vexation at finding, instead of a vigorous, active son, who ought now to take his degree and run through the prescribed course of life, an invalid who seemed to suffer still more in soul than in body. He did not conceal his wish that they would be expeditious with my cure; but one was forced to be specially on one's guard in his presence against hypochondriacal expressions, because he could then become passionate and bitter.

My mother, by nature very lively and cheerful, spent under these circumstances very tedious days. Her little housekeeping was soon provided for. The good woman's mind, inwardly never unoccupied, wished