Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 1 (of 2)Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
General
Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 1 (of 2)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Bildungsromans; German fiction -- Translations into English; Self-realization -- Fiction
Happy was the wild boy, now roaming free about the world, where his
feats of waggery never failed to secure him a good reception. His lucky
star first led him in the Christmas season to a cloister, where the
friar, whose business it had been to arrange processions, and to
entertain the Christian community by spiritual masquerades, having just
died, Serlo was welcomed as a helping angel. On the instant he took up
the part of Gabriel in the Annunciation, and did not by any means
displease the pretty girl, who, acting the Virgin, very gracefully
received his most obliging kiss, with external humility and inward
pride. In their Mysteries, he continued to perform the most important
parts, and thought himself no slender personage, when at last, in the
character of Martyr, he was mocked of the world, and beaten, and fixed
upon the cross.
Some pagan soldiers had, on this occasion, played their parts a little
_too_ naturally. To be avenged on these heathen in the proper style, he
took care at the Day of Judgment to have them decked out in gaudy
clothes as emperors and kings; and at that moment when they, exceedingly
contented with their situation, were about to take precedence of the
rest in heaven, as they had done on earth, he, on a sudden, rushed upon
them in the shape of the Devil; and to the cordial edification of all
the beggars and spectators, having thoroughly curried them with his
oven-fork, he pushed them without mercy back into the chasm, where, in
the midst of waving flame, they met with the sorriest welcome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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