Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/98

84 I will call it a trial (Prüfung), although this is not the right word. The country family with which I was intimate was related to some families in the city of good note and respectability, and comfortably off as to circumstances. The young townspeople were often at Sesenheim. The older persons, the mothers and aunts, being less movable, heard so much of the life there, of the increasing charms of the daughters, and even of my influence, that they first wished to become acquainted with me, and after I had often visited them, and had been well received by them, desired also to see us once altogether, especially as they thought they owed the Sesenheim folks a friendly reception in return.

There was much discussion on all sides. The mother could scarcely leave her household affairs; Olivia had a horror of the town, for which she was not fitted; and Frederica had no inclination for it: and thus the affair was put off, until it was at last brought to a decision by the fact that it happened to be impossible for me to come into the country; for it was better to see each other in the city, and under some restraint, than not to see each other at all. And thus I now found my fair friends, whom I had been only accustomed to see in a rural scene, and whose image had only appeared to me hitherto before a background of waving boughs, flowing brooks, nodding field-flowers, and a horizon open for miles,—I now saw them, I say, for the first time, in town-rooms, which were indeed spacious but yet narrow, if we take into consideration the carpets, glasses, clocks, and porcelain figures.

The relation of a lover to the beloved object is so decided, that the surrounding objects are of little significance: the heart, nevertheless, desires that these shall be the suitable, natural, and customary objects. With my lively feeling for everything present, I could