Goethe’s servant had not yet returned from the city; no one was there to announce the duke, and, if there had been, Charles August would have preferred coming unannounced into his friend’s presence; he desired to surprise him. Noiselessly he crept up the stairway, and threw the door open.
“Welcome, my Wolf! A thousand welcomes! To my arms, beloved brother!”
“His highness the duke! How unexpected an honor!”
Goethe rose hastily from the sofa, and bowed profoundly to the duke, who still stood before him with extended arms.
“And in this manner you receive your friend, Wolf? Truly, I came running here like a lover to a rendezvous with his adored, and now you receive me with a cold greeting?”
“I beg leave to assure your highness, that the heart of your humble servant is also filled with joy, in beholding his dear master once more, and that this moment reconciles me to my return, and—”
“Wolf, tell me are you playing a comedy? Are you only jesting, or has your sojourn in Rome really made you the stiff and courtly old fellow you appear to be?”
“I a stiff old fellow? I a courtly old fellow?” asked Goethe, with sparkling eyes; and now he was again the Goethe with the Apollo countenance, as he had been in Rome and Castel Gandolfo—once more the poet of Italy, and no longer the privy-councillor of Weimar.
As the friends now looked at each other—as the duke’s merry brown eyes encountered Goethe’s fiery, passionate gaze—the last vestiges of the privy-councillor fell from the poet. His handsome countenance brightened, and with a cry of joy he sprang forward, threw himself into the duke’s arms and kissed his eyes and lips.