Goethe walked up and down the garden, congratulating himself on his unexpected luck, and breathing hard at the thought that he should so soon see again the young people. Lost in his reflections, he did not hear a step approach, and, raising his head suddenly, he found Madame Duroc directly in front of him. "Fritz," she began, and then, for the first time looking him full in the face, the words died away upon her lips. He saw that it was useless to try to conceal himself any longer, and, doffing his hat, he stood before her in the sunshine, with his eyes cast to the ground and his face covered with blushes.
After a pause she exclaimed, with displeasure, "I am looking for Fritz, and whom do I find? Is it you, young sir? How many forms have you, then?"
He raised his eyes and looked at her so honestly and respectfully that her anger was appeased. "In earnest, only one," he replied, gravely; and then added, with a merry smile, "but in sport, as many as you like."
"Which sport I will not spoil," said she, graciously, smiling in her turn. "Go out behind the garden into the meadow until it strikes twelve, then come back, and I shall already have contrived the joke."
He obeyed, and, after passing beyond the hedges of the village gardens, he was embarrassed by seeing some country-people advancing towards him along the footpath. By his side was a hill crowned by a small wood, and, springing up the elevation, he plunged into the grove, in order to conceal himself till the appointed time. He found himself at once in a little sylvan paradise. The soft turf was mottled with broken sunlight and strewn with the first fall of leaves; patches of the deep-blue sky were shining between the restless foliage and waving branches, and on every side a heaven-bright picture, set in a bushy frame, opened before him. Below, was the lively village, and at no great distance, as seen from this point, stood the gray parsonage, embosomed in its prosperous fields. Beyond, lay Drusenheim, with its old-fashioned inn, and its glittering tiled roof that caught the sunlight, while far away rose into sight the steeple of Strasburg Minster. He could catch between the trees a glimpse of the flowing shimmer of the Rhine, and could distinguish in the hazy distance its woody islands, with their magical tints of yellow and russet and green. In the opposite direction waved the noble outlines of the Vosges, their purple hollows and dazzling light-green pasture-slopes streaked with shifting shadows.
It was evident that he had not been the first to appreciate this rare combination of lovely vistas, for benches had been placed around, so that one could admire at leisure from every point. Seating himself upon one of these, under a tall elm, he saw fastened on the trunk an oblong little board with the inscription, "Alide's Rest." His heart beat violently at the sudden recollection. A light footstep startled him from his reverie, and, looking around, he saw Alide, who, aglow with youth and beauty, "most highly realized his fair dream."
"Why, Fritz, what are you doing here?" she cried, from below the hill.
"Not Fritz," exclaimed Goethe, running to meet her, "but one who craves forgiveness of you a thousand times."
She looked at him in wonder, almost in alarm, and fetched her breath quickly; but, endeavoring to conceal her emotion with a laugh, she said, "You wicked man! how you frighten me!"
"The first disguise has led me into the second," cried he; "the former would have been unpardonable had I but known, in any degree, to whom I was coming. But this one you will certainly forgive, for it is the shape of persons whom you treat so kindly."