The coffee served to enliven us for several hours, but the game gradually slackened; conversation failed; the mother slept in the great chair; the strangers, weary from travelling, nodded here and there; and Pylades and his fair one sat in a corner.  She had laid her head on his shoulder, and had gone to sleep; and he did not keep long awake.  The younger cousin, sitting opposite to us by the slate, had crossed his arms before him, and slept with his face resting upon them.  I sat in the window-corner, behind the table, and Gretchen by me.  We talked in a low voice:  but at last sleep overcame her also; she leaned her head on my shoulder, and sank at once into a slumber.  Thus I now sat, the only one awake, in a most singular position, in which the kind brother of death soon put me also to rest.  I went to sleep; and, when I awoke, it was already bright day.  Gretchen was standing before the mirror arranging her little cap:  she was more lovely than ever, and, when I departed, cordially pressed ray hands.  I crept home by a roundabout way; for, on the side towards the little Stag-ditch, my father had opened a sort of little peep-hole in the wall, not without the opposition of his neighbor.  This side we avoided when we wanted not to be observed by him in coming home.  My mother, whose mediation always came in well for us, had endeavored to palliate my absence in the morning at breakfast, by the supposition that I had gone out early; and I experienced no disagreeable effects from this innocent night.

Taken as a whole, this infinitely various world which surrounded me produced upon me but a very simple impression.  I had no interest but to mark closely the outside of the objects, no business but that with which I had been charged by my father and Herr von Koenigsthal, by which, indeed, I perceived the inner course of things.  I had no liking but for Gretchen, and no other view than to see and take in every thing properly, that I might be able to repeat it with her, and explain it to her.  Often when a train was going by, I described it half aloud to myself, to assure myself of all the particulars, and to be praised by my fair one for this attention and accuracy:  the applause and acknowledgments of the others I regarded as a mere appendix.

I was indeed presented to many exalted and distinguished persons; but partly, no one had time to trouble himself about others, and partly, older people do not know at once how they should converse with a young man and try him.  I, on my side, was likewise not particularly skilful in adapting myself to people.  I generally won their favor, but not their approbation.  Whatever occupied me was completely present to me, but I did not ask whether it might be also suitable to others.  I was mostly too lively or too quiet, and appeared either importunate or sullen, just as persons attracted or repelled me; and thus I was considered to be indeed full of promise, but at the same time was declared eccentric.