But then, you must not take it ill if I dabble also in your handicraft.”  Upon this, I told them what I had observed in their occupations, and for which I held myself fit at any rate.  Each one had previously rated his services in money, and I asked them to assist me also in completing my establishment.  Gretchen had listened to all hitherto very attentively, and that in a position which well suited her, whether she chose to hear or to speak.  With both hands she clasped her folded arms, and rested them on the edge of the table.  Thus she could sit a long while without moving any thing but her head, which was never done without some occasion or meaning.  She had several times put in a word, and helped us on over this and that, when we halted in our projects, and then was again still and quiet as usual.  I kept her in my eye, and it may readily be supposed that I had not devised and uttered my plan without reference to her.  My passion for her gave to what I said such an air of truth and probability, that, for a moment, I deceived myself, imagined myself as lonely and helpless as my story supposed, and felt extremely happy in the prospect of possessing her.  Pylades had closed his confession with marriage; and the question arose among the rest of us, whether our plans went as far as that.  “I have not the least doubt on that score,” said I; “for properly a wife is necessary to every one of us, in order to preserve at home, and enable us to enjoy as a whole, what we rake together abroad in such an odd way.”  I then made a sketch of a wife, such as I wished; and it must have turned out strangely if she had not been a perfect counterpart of Gretchen.

The dirge was consumed; the epithalamium now stood beneficially at hand:  I overcame all fear and care, and contrived, as I had many acquaintances, to conceal my actual evening entertainments from my family.  To see and to be near the dear girl was soon an indispensable condition of my being.  The friends had grown just as accustomed to me, and we were almost daily together, as if it could not be otherwise.  Pylades had, in the mean time, introduced his fair one into the house; and this pair passed many an evening with us.  They, as bride and bridegroom, though still very much in the bud, did not conceal their tenderness:  Gretchen’s deportment towards me was only suited to keep me at a distance.  She gave her hand to no one, not even to me; she allowed no touch:  yet she many times seated herself near me, particularly when I wrote, or read aloud, and then, laying her arm familiarly upon my shoulder, she looked over the book or paper.  If, however, I ventured to take on a similar liberty with her, she withdrew, and did not return very soon.  This position she often repeated; and, indeed, all her attitudes and motions were very uniform, but always equally becoming, beautiful, and charming.  But such a familiarity I never saw her practise towards anybody else.