Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/514

480 state of grievous trouble, more especially as she felt a pride in being able to render him happy once more. Accordingly, to his great astonishment, on his birthday, which she was always accustomed to celebrate by presenting him with something useful, she entered his private apartment with a basket filled with rouleaux of money. The different descriptions of coin were packed together separately, and the contents carefully indorsed in a handwriting by no means of the best. It would be difficult to describe his astonishment at finding before him the precise sums he had missed, or at his wife's assurance that they belonged to him. She thereupon circumstantially described the time and the manner of her abstracting them, confessed the amount which she had taken, and told also how much she had saved by her own careful attention. His despair was now changed into joy; and the result was, that he abandoned to his wife all the duty of receiving and paying away money for the future. His business was carried on even more prosperously than before; although, from the day of which we have spoken, not a farthing ever passed through his hands. His wife discharged the duty of banker with extraordinary credit to herself; no false money was ever taken; and the establishment of her complete authority in the house was the natural and just consequence of her activity and care; and, after the lapse of ten years, she and her husband were in a condition to purchase the hotel for themselves.

Sinclair.—And so all this truth, love, and fidelity ended in the wife becoming the veritable mistress. I should like to know how far the opinion is just that women have a tendency to acquire authority.

Amelia.—There it is again. Censure, you observe, is sure to follow in the wake of praise.

Armidoro.—Favour us with your sentiments on this subject, good Eulalia. I think I have observed in