Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/432

400 were found in all the public gardens far and near, and more than one invitation for this or that pleasant day was received. On one such occasion I found an opportunity to recommend myself very rapidly to a family which I was visiting for only the second time. We were invited, and arrived at the appointed hour. The company was not large: some played and some walked as usual. Afterward, when they were to go to supper, I saw our hostess and her sister speaking to each other with animation, and as if in a peculiar embarrassment. I accosted them, and said, "I have indeed no right, ladies, to force myself into your secrets; but perhaps I may be able to give you good counsel, or even to serve you." Upon this they disclosed to me their painful dilemma; namely, that they had invited twelve persons to table, and that just at that moment a relation had returned from a journey, who now, as the thirteenth, would be a fatal memento mori, if not for himself, yet certainly for some of the guests." The case is very easily mended," replied I: "permit me to take my leave, and stipulate for indemnification." As they were persons of consequence and good breeding, they would by no means allow this, but sent about in the neighbourhood to find a fourteenth. I suffered them to do so; yet when I saw the servant coming in at the garden-gate without having effected his errand, I stole away and spent my evening pleasantly under the old linden-trees of the Wanzenau. That this self-denial was richly repaid me was a very natural consequence.

A certain kind of general society is not to be thought of without card-playing. Salzmann renewed the good instructions of Madame Böhme; and I was the more docile as I had really seen, that by this little sacrifice, if it be one, one may procure one's self much pleasure, and even a greater freedom in society than one would otherwise enjoy. The old piquet, which