"Is that all?" asked he, good-humoredly. "Of course I will do my best to oblige you; only they must promise in their turn to be very attentive, and not to grow impatient if I require two or three hours to myself."
She led him joyfully among the family group, where he was thanked on all sides for his amiability, and Alide received her share of reflected admiration and homage from those who perceived her influence over him. As few of them were familiar with English literature, and he was in the period of his first enthusiasm for Shakspeare, he selected "Hamlet" as the subject of the evening's diversion. Never had Alide seen him more inspired than he appeared this night. He delivered every part with eloquent expression; but when he uttered the words of Hamlet himself he seemed to be in living reality the beautiful melancholy poet-prince, whose nobly-dowered, ill-balanced nature had been so "horribly shaken with thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul."
The attention of the whole company was strained to its utmost; they were enveloped by an atmosphere which they had never before breathed, and transported to scenes hitherto unimagined. Their ears were spell-bound by the thrilling modulations of that strangely sympathetic voice, which alone filled the room, no less with its gravest tones of awe and grief and its deepest murmurs of tenderness than with its irresistible force in the "very torrent and tempest of passion." Alide sat directly opposite Goethe: throughout every act she remained motionless, with her eyes fixed upon his face, utterly unconscious of any other presence. And yet, though her attitude remained unchanged, and her hands lay quietly crossed in her lap, any one who had watched her attentively would have seen that she was a prey to a succession of various and powerful emotions. From time to time she sighed deeply, and a passing color tinged her cheeks.
"For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more."
"No more but so?"
The blood fled from her eager face, her thin white fingers stirred convulsively, as she heard the wise, kind, chilling answer of Laertes:
"Think it no more.
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal."
A pathetic, bewildered expression clouded her countenance, until soon, forgetful of herself and suddenly responsive to some lofty thought, some heroic passion, the light and color rippled again over brow and cheek, and a faint smile of irrepressible delight played upon her lips. When it was over, all crowded around Goethe with enthusiastic applause, while most of them added their thanks to Alide for having procured them so memorable an entertainment. In her graceful manner she did not deny herself the little pride of having shone through him.
There was much discussion at table about the play. This chance company of moderately-cultivated and ordinarily intelligent people were perhaps better able to form a correct and impartial judgment than if they had been a society of critics and Shakspeare's compatriots. Each one of Goethe's listeners heard the drama with a mind totally unbiased by any preconceived idea, and it broke upon them with all the freshness and beauty of a new work of art, the final result of the philosophy and aspiration of centuries. An Englishman would have been highly amused at the naïf admiration, the frank suggestions, the astonishment and enthusiasm of this foreign circle.
"Do you not find rather inconsistent with Hamlet's tender and sensitive temperament, Herr Goethe," suggested old Mr. Burkhardt, "the summary manner in which he disposes of the body of Polonius?"