I had discovered her secret.  The boy showed me a crayon-drawing of a handsome man, behind his mother’s bed, which was hung with elegant silk curtains; remarking at the same time, with a sly look, that this was not papa, but just the same as papa:  and as he glorified this man, and told me many things in his circumstantial and ostentatious manner, I thought I had discovered that the daughter might belong to the father, but the other two children to the intimate friend.  I thus explained to myself her melancholy look, and loved her for it all the more.

My liking for this girl assisted me in bearing the braggadocio of her brother, who did not always keep within bounds.  I had often to endure prolix accounts of his exploits,—­how he had already often fought, without wishing to injure the other, all for the mere sake of honor.  He had always contrived to disarm his adversary, and had then forgiven him; nay, he was such a good fencer, that he was once very much perplexed by striking the sword of his opponent up into a high tree, so that it was not easy to be got again.

What much facilitated my visits to the theatre was, that my free ticket, coming from the hands of the Schultheiss, gave me access to any of the seats, and therefore also to those in the proscenium.  This was very deep, after the French style, and was bordered on both sides with seats, which, surrounded by a low rail, ascended in several rows one behind another, so that the first seats were but a little elevated above the stage.  The whole was considered a place of special honor, and was generally used only by officers; although the nearness of the actors destroyed, I will not say all illusion, but, in a measure, all enjoyment.  I have thus experienced and seen with my own eyes the usage or abuse of which Voltaire so much complains.  If, when the house was very full at such time as troops were passing through the town, officers of distinction strove for this place of honor, which was generally occupied already, some rows of benches and chairs were placed in the proscenium on the stage itself, and nothing remained for the heroes and heroines but to reveal their secrets in the very limited space between the uniforms and orders.  I have even seen the “Hypermnestra” performed under such circumstances.

The curtain did not fall between the acts:  and I must yet mention a strange custom, which I thought quite extraordinary; as its inconsistency with art was to me, as a good German boy, quite unendurable.  The theatre was considered the greatest sanctuary, and any disturbance occurring there would have been instantly resented as the highest crime against the majesty of the public.  Therefore, in all comedies, two grenadiers stood with their arms grounded, in full view, at the two sides of the back scene, and were witnesses of all that occurred in the bosom of the family.  Since, as I said before, the curtain did not fall between the acts, two others, while music