Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/529

Rh Since the prince directed my attention to this view yesterday, I have felt pleasure in observing the manner in which the inhabitants of the mountain and of the valley mutually comprehend each other, and how both so plainly speak their wants and their wishes in this place. The mountaineer, for example, has cut the timber of his forests into a thousand forms, and applied his iron to multifarious uses; while the inhabitant of the valley meets him with his various wares and merchandise, the very materials and object of which it is difficult to know or conjecture."

"I am aware," observed the prince, "that my nephew devotes his attention wholly to these subjects, for at this particular season of the year he receives more than he expends; and this, after all, is the object and end of every national financier, and, indeed, of the pettiest household economist. But excuse me, my dear, I never ride with any pleasure through the market or the fair; obstacles impede one at every step: and my imagination continually recurs to that dreadful calamity which happened before my own eyes, when I witnessed the conflagration of as large a collection of merchandise as is accumulated here. I had scarcely—"

"Let us not lose our time," said the princess, interrupting him, as her worthy uncle had more than once tortured her with a literal account of the very same misfortune. It had happened when he was upon a journey, and had retired, fatigued, to bed, in the best hotel of the town, which was situated in the marketplace. It was the season of the fair, and in the dead of the night he was awoke by screams and by the columns of fire which approached the hotel.

The princess hastened to mount her favourite palfrey, and led the way for her unwilling companion, when she rode through the front gate down the hill, in place of passing through the back gate up the mountain.