I know not how long I may have lain, when my sister entered, was frightened at my gestures, and did all that she could to comfort me.  She told me that a person connected with the magistracy had waited below with my father for the return of the family friend, and that, after they had been closeted together for some time, both the gentlemen had departed, had talked to each other with apparent satisfaction, and had even laughed.  She believed that she had heard the words, “It is all right:  the affair is of no consequence.”—­“Indeed!” I broke out, “the affair is of no consequence for me,—­for us:  for I have committed no crime; and, if I had, they would contrive to help me through:  but the others, the others,” I cried, “who will stand by them?”

My sister tried to comfort me by circumstantially arguing that if those of higher rank were to be saved, a veil must also be cast over the faults of the more lowly.  All this was of no avail.  She had scarcely left than I again abandoned myself to my grief, and ever recalled alternately the images, both of my affection and passion, and of the present and possible misfortune.  I repeated to myself tale after tale, saw only unhappiness following unhappiness, and did not fail in particular to make Gretchen and myself truly wretched.

The family friend had ordered me to remain in my room, and have nothing to do with any one but the family.  This was just what I wanted, for I found myself best alone.  My mother and sister came to see me from time to time, and did not fail to assist me vigorously with all sorts of good consolation; nay, even on the second day they came in the name of my father, who was now better informed, to offer me a perfect amnesty, which indeed I gratefully accepted:  but the proposal that I should go out with him and look at the insignia of the empire, which were now exposed to the curious, I stubbornly rejected; and I asserted that I wanted to know nothing, either of the world or of the Roman Empire, till I was informed how that distressing affair, which for me could have no further consequences, had turned out for my poor acquaintance.  They had nothing to say on this head, and left me alone.  Yet the next day some further attempts were made to get me out of the house, and excite in me a sympathy for the public ceremonies.  In vain! neither the great galaday, nor what happened on the occasion of so many elevations of rank, nor the public table of the emperor and king,—­in short, nothing could move me.  The Elector of the Palatinate might come and wait on both their majesties; these might visit the electors; the last electoral sitting might be attended for the despatch of business in arrear, and the renewal of the electoral union,—­nothing could call me forth from my passionate solitude.  I let the bells ring for the rejoicings, the emperor repair to the Capuchin Church, the electors and emperor depart, without on that account moving one step from my chamber.  The final cannonading, immoderate as it might be, did not arouse me; and as the smoke of the powder dispersed, and the sound died away, so had all this glory vanished from my soul.