ABSTRACT
During his weeks in Venice in 1790 Goethe, in the company of his young servant Paul Götze, makes an excursion by gondola out to the Lido, where, in unconsecrated ground among the dunes, the rather neglected Jewish cemetery is situated. Wandering about, Götze finds a broken, weather-beaten skull, which he shows to the Geheimrat. Goethe takes it carefully in his hands and announces that it is not the skull of a human being but of a sheep. He knocks the earth out and, turning it this way and that, looks again and again into the cavity. His eyes sparkle and he radiates happiness, as though he had made some momentous discovery; it is a long time since Götze has seen his master like this.
