Part 2

I mean now to seek, and see her too at the earliest opportunity, or rather, when I think it over, I would rather avoid it. It is better that I see her through the eyes of her lover; perhaps she will not appear to me before my own eyes as she now stands before me, and why should I spoil the fair image for myself?

June 16

Why do I not write to you?—do you ask that, and are yet one of the learned ones yourself. You should guess that I am doing well, and indeed—in short, I have made an acquaintance that touches my heart more nearly. I have—I know not.

To tell you in order how it came about, that I have made acquaintance with one of the most lovable creatures, will be hard. I am pleased and happy, and therefore no good historian.

An angel!—fie! everyone says that of his own, does he not? And yet I am not able to tell you how she is perfect, why she is perfect; enough, she has taken all my senses captive.

So much simplicity with so much understanding, so much goodness with so much firmness, and the peace of the soul amid true life and activity.—That is all foul twaddle that I say of her there, wretched abstractions that express not a single trait of her self. Another time—no, not another time, now at once will I tell you. If I do not do it now, it would never happen. For, between ourselves, since I began to write, I was already three times on the point of laying down the pen, having my horse saddled, and riding out. And yet I swore to myself this morning not to ride out, and yet every moment I go to the window, to see how high the sun still stands.—I could not overcome it, I had to ride out to her. Here I am again, Wilhelm, will eat my supper of bread and butter and write to you. What a delight that is for my soul, to see her in the circle of the dear, lively children, her eight siblings!—If I go on thus, you will be at the end as wise as at the beginning. Hear then, I will force myself into detail.

I wrote you lately how I made the acquaintance of the magistrate S., and how he begged me to visit him soon in his hermitage or rather his little kingdom. I neglected that, and should perhaps never have gone, had not chance revealed to me the treasure that lies hidden in the quiet region.

Our young people had arranged a ball in the country, to which I willingly let myself be persuaded. I offered my hand to a certain good, pretty, otherwise insignificant local girl, and it was agreed that I should take a carriage, drive out to the place of entertainment with my dancing partner and her cousin, and pick up Charlotte S. on the way.—“You will make the acquaintance of a fine lady,” said my companion, as we drove through the wide, cleared forest toward the hunting lodge.—“Take care,” rejoined the cousin, “not to fall in love!”—“How so?” said I.—“She is already promised,” answered the former, “to a very worthy man, who has gone away to settle his affairs, because his father is dead, and to apply for a considerable provision.”—The news was rather indifferent to me.

The sun was still a quarter of an hour from the mountains, when we drove up before the manor gate. It was very sultry, and the ladies expressed their concern about a thunderstorm that seemed to be gathering in white-gray, oppressive little clouds all around the horizon. I deceived their fear with presumptuous weather lore, though I myself began to suspect that our pleasure would suffer a blow.

I had alighted, and a maid who came to the gate begged us to wait a moment, Miss Lottchen would come directly. I went through the courtyard toward the well-built house, and having climbed the stairs before me, and stepped into the door, the most charming spectacle I had ever seen fell upon my eyes. In the anteroom six children, from eleven to two years old, swarmed around a girl of beautiful form, middle height, who wore a simple white dress, with pale-red ribbons on arm and breast. She held a black loaf and cut for her little ones all around, each his piece according to the proportion of his age and appetite, gave it to each with such friendliness, and each cried so unfeignedly his “thank you!”, having reached up with his little hands long before it was cut off, and now with his supper either sprang away, or according to his quieter character calmly went off toward the manor gate, to see the strangers and the carriage in which their Lotte should drive away.—“I beg your pardon,” said she, “for troubling you to come in and keeping the ladies waiting. In dressing and various orders for the house during my absence I forgot to give my children their supper, and they will have their bread cut by no one but me.”

I made her an insignificant compliment; my whole soul rested on the figure, the tone, the bearing, and I had just time to recover from the surprise, when she ran into the room to fetch her gloves and fan. The children looked at me from a little distance sideways, and I went toward the youngest, who was a child of the happiest facial formation. He drew back, as just then Lotte came out at the door and said: “Louis, give the gentleman cousin a hand.”—which the boy did very frankly, and I could not refrain from kissing him heartily, notwithstanding his little snub nose.

“Cousin?” said I, as I offered her my hand, “do you believe that I am worthy of the happiness to be related to you?”—“Oh,” said she with a light smile, “our cousinship is very distant, and I should be sorry if you were the worst among them.”—On going she gave Sophie, the eldest sister after her, a girl of about eleven years, the charge to watch the children well and greet papa when he came home from his ride. To the little ones she said they should follow their sister Sophie as if it were herself, which some then expressly promised. But a little, pert blonde, of about six years, said: “You are not it, though, Lottchen, we like you better.”—The two eldest boys had climbed up behind on the carriage, and at my intercession she allowed them to ride as far as the forest, if they promised not to tease and to hold on tight.

We had hardly seated ourselves, the ladies welcomed one another, made mutually their observations on the dress, particularly the hats, and properly run down the company one expected, when Lotte had the coachman stop and let her brothers get down, who desired once more to kiss her hand, which the eldest did with all the tenderness peculiar to the age of fifteen, the other with much vehemence and levity. She let the little ones greet once more, and we drove on.

The cousin asked whether she had finished the book she had sent her lately.—“No,” said Lotte, “it does not please me, you may have it back. The previous one was no better either.”—I was astonished when I asked what books they were, and she answered me:—I found so much character in everything she said, I saw with every word new charms, new rays of spirit break forth from her features, which seemed gradually to unfold joyfully, because she felt in me that I understood her.

“When I was younger,” said she, “I loved nothing so much as novels. God knows how well I was, when I could sit in such a corner on Sundays and with my whole heart share in the fortune and misfortune of a Miss Jonny. I do not deny either that the kind still has some attraction for me. But as I so seldom come to a book, it must also be quite to my taste. And the author is dearest to me in whom I find my world again, in whom it goes as around me, and whose story becomes yet so interesting and hearty to me as my own domestic life, which certainly is no paradise, but yet on the whole a source of unspeakable blessedness.”

I endeavored to conceal my emotion over these words. That did not go far, indeed: for as I heard her speak in passing, with such truth, of the Vicar of Wakefield, of the—, I came quite beside myself, told her all I must, and noticed only after some time, as Lotte turned the conversation to the others, that these had sat with open eyes, as if they were not there, the while. The cousin looked at me more than once with a mocking little nose, which I cared nothing for.

The conversation fell upon the pleasure of dancing.—“If this passion is a fault,” said Lotte, “I gladly confess to you, I know nothing above dancing. And when I have something on my mind and drum a contredanse on my out-of-tune piano, then all is well again.”

How I feasted in the discourse upon the black eyes—how the lively lips and the fresh, merry cheeks attracted my whole soul—how I, sunk wholly in the glorious sense of her speech, often did not hear at all the words with which she expressed herself—of that you have a notion, because you know me. In short, I alighted from the carriage like one dreaming, when we stopped before the pleasure house, and was so lost in dreams in the dusking world around, that I scarcely heeded the music which sounded down to us from the illuminated hall.

The two gentlemen Audran and a certain N. N.—who remembers all those names—who were the cousin’s and Lotte’s dancers, received us at the gate, seized their ladies, and I led mine upstairs.

We wound ourselves in minuets around one another; I asked one lady after another, and just the most intolerable could not get to offering one her hand and making an end. Lotte and her dancer began an English dance, and how well I felt when she too began the figure with us in the row, you may feel. You must see her dance! See, she is so with her whole heart and whole soul in it, her whole body a harmony, so careless, so unconstrained, as if that were properly all, as if she thought and felt nothing else; and in that moment certainly all else vanishes before her.

I begged her for the second contredanse; she promised the third, and with the most lovable frankness in the world assured me that she liked to dance German very much.—“It is the custom here,” she continued, “that every couple that belongs together stays together in the German, and my partner waltzes badly and thanks me if I spare him the work. Your lady also cannot and will not, and I saw in the English that you waltz well; if you then will be mine for the German, go and ask it of my gentleman, and I will go to your lady.”—I gave her my hand upon it, and we arranged that her dancer should in the meantime entertain my dancer.

Now it began, and we delighted ourselves a while in manifold windings of the arms. With what charm, with what lightness she moved! And when we came to the waltzing and rolled around one another like the spheres, it went indeed at first, because few can do it, a bit confusedly together. We were wise and let them rave, and when the most awkward had cleared the plan, we fell in and held out bravely with still another couple, with Audran and his dancer. Never has it gone so lightly from the spot for me. I was no longer a man. To have the most lovable creature in one’s arms and fly around with her like weather, that all around perished, and—Wilhelm, to be honest, yet I did swear the oath, that a girl whom I loved, on whom I had claims, should never waltz with another than with me, even if I must go to ruin over it. You understand me!

We took some turns walking in the hall, to catch breath. Then she sat down, and the oranges which I had set aside, which now were the only remaining ones, did excellent effect, only that with every slice which she gave out of courtesy to an impertinent neighbor, a stitch went through my heart.

At the third English dance we were the second couple. As we danced through the row and I, God knows with how much bliss, hung on her arm and eye, which were full of the truest expression of the most open, purest pleasure, we come to a woman who had been remarkable to me because of her lovable mien on a no longer quite young face. She looks at Lotte smiling, lifts a threatening finger and names the name Albert twice in passing with much meaning.

“Who is Albert?” said I to Lotte, “if it is not presumption to ask.”—She was about to answer, when we had to part to make the great eight, and it seemed to me that I saw some reflection on her brow, as we crossed thus before one another.—“Why should I deny it to you,” said she, as she offered me her hand for the promenade. “Albert is a worthy man, to whom I am as good as betrothed.”—now that was nothing new to me (for the girls had told me on the way) and yet was so wholly new, because I had not thought it in relation to her, who had become so dear to me in so few moments. Enough, I confused myself, forgot myself and came in between the wrong couple, so that all went topsyturvy and Lotte’s whole presence and pulling and dragging were needed to bring it quickly into order again.

The dance was not yet ended, when the lightnings, which we had long seen gleam on the horizon and which I had always given out for weather-cooling, began to grow much stronger and the thunder drowned the music. Three ladies ran out of the row, whom their gentlemen followed; the disorder became general, and the music ceased. It is natural, when a misfortune or something terrible surprises us in pleasure, that it makes stronger impressions on us than otherwise, partly because of the contrast, which can be felt so vividly, partly and still more, because our senses are once opened to susceptibility and therefore take an impression the quicker. To these causes I must ascribe the wonderful grimaces into which I saw several ladies break out. The cleverest sat down in a corner, with her back toward her, and hid her head in the first lap. A third pushed herself between both and embraced her little sisters with a thousand tears. Some wanted to go home; others, who knew still less what they did, had not so much presence of mind to check the impertinences of our young rakes, who seemed very busy to catch away all the anxious prayers, destined for heaven, from the lips of the fair distressed. Some of our gentlemen had gone down to smoke a pipe in quiet; and the rest of the company did not decline, when the hostess hit on the clever notion of assigning us a room that had shutters and curtains. Scarcely were we arrived there, when Lotte was busy placing a circle of chairs, and, when the company had sat down at her request, to make the proposal for a game.

I saw many who, in hope of a juicy forfeit, pursed his little mouth and stretched his limbs.—“We play counting!” said she. “Now pay attention! I go in the circle from the right to the left, and so you count also around, each the number that comes to him, and that must go like wildfire, and whoever sticks or errs, gets a box on the ear, and so to a thousand.”—now that was merry to see: she went with outstretched arm in the circle. “One,” began the first, the neighbor “two,” “three” the next, and so on. Then she began to go faster, always faster; there one missed: smack! a box on the ear, and over the laughter the next too: smack! and always faster. I myself got two slaps and believed with inward pleasure to observe that they were stronger than she was wont to measure out to the others. A general laughter and frolicking ended the game, before the thousand was yet counted out. The most intimate drew one another aside, the thunderstorm was over, and I followed Lotte into the hall. On the way she said: “Over the boxes on the ear they have forgotten the weather and all!”—I could answer her nothing.—“I was,” she continued, “one of the most timorous, and while I put on a brave face to give the others courage, I have become courageous.”—We stepped to the window. It thundered aside, and the glorious rain whispered on the land, and the most refreshing fragrance rose to us in full measure of a warm air. She stood leaning on her elbows, her gaze pierced the region; she looked to heaven and on me, I saw her eye full of tears, she laid her hand on mine and said: “Klopstock!”—I immediately remembered the glorious ode that lay in her thoughts, and sank into the stream of emotions which she poured over me in this watchword. I could not bear it, bent over her hand and kissed it under the most blissful tears. And looked again into her eye—Noble one! Had you seen your apotheosis in this glance, and might I now never hear your so often profaned name again!

June 19

Where I stayed with my narration lately, I no longer know; this I know, that it was two o’clock at night when I went to bed, and that, if I could have talked you asleep instead of writing, I might perhaps have kept you until morning.

What happened on our drive home from the ball, I have not yet told, and have today no day for it either.

It was the most glorious sunrise. The dripping forest and the refreshed field around! Our companions nodded off. She asked me whether I would not also be of the party; on her account I should be unconcerned.—“So long as I see these eyes open,” said I and looked at her firmly, “so long is there no danger.”—And we have both held out until her gate, where the maid opened quietly and assured on her question that father and little ones were well and all still slept. There I left her with the request to be allowed to see her that same day; she granted it to me, and I have come—and since that time sun, moon and stars may calmly pursue their business, I know neither that it is day nor that it is night, and the whole world is lost around me.

June 21

I live such happy days as God spares to his saints; and whatever may become of me, I may not say that I have not enjoyed the joys, the purest joys of life.—you know my Wahlheim; there I am fully established, from there I have only half an hour to Lotte, there I feel myself and all the happiness that is given to man.

Had I thought, when I chose Wahlheim for the object of my walks, that it lay so near to heaven! How often have I seen the hunting lodge, which now encloses all my wishes, on my wide wanderings, now from the mountain, now from the plain across the river!

Dear Wilhelm, I have reflected on various things, on the desire in man to spread out, to make new discoveries, to roam; and then again on the inner drive, to submit willingly to restriction, to go along in the rut of habit and care neither for right nor left.

It is wonderful: how I came here, and looked from the hill into the beautiful valley, how it attracted me all around.—there the little wood!—ah could you mingle in its shadows!—there the peak of the mountain!—ah could you from there survey the wide region!—the chained hills and intimate valleys!—oh could I lose myself in them!—I hastened thither, and returned, and had not found what I hoped. O it is with the distance as with the future! A great dawning whole rests before our soul, our feeling dissolves therein like our eye, and we long, ah! to give our whole being, to fill ourselves with the bliss of a single, great, glorious feeling.—and ah! when we hasten thither, when the there now becomes here, all is as before, and we stand in our poverty, in our limitation, and our soul thirsts for the slipped refreshment.

So the most restless vagabond at last longs again for his fatherland and finds in his hut, on the breast of his wife, in the circle of his children, in the cares for their sustenance the bliss which he sought in vain in the wide world.

When in the morning I go out with sunrise to my Wahlheim and there in the inn garden pick my sugar peas myself, sit down, string them, and meanwhile read in my Homer; when in the little kitchen I choose a pot, cut out butter for myself, set the pods on the fire, cover them and sit down to them, sometimes to shake them: then I feel so vividly how the wanton suitors of Penelope slaughter, divide and roast oxen and swine. There is nothing that fills me with so quiet, true a feeling as the traits of patriarchal life, which I, thank God, can weave without affectation into my way of living.

How well is it with me, that my heart can feel the simple, harmless bliss of the man who brings a head of cabbage on his table, that he grew himself, and now not the cabbage alone, but all the good days, the beautiful morning when he planted it, the lovely evenings when he watered it, and when he had his joy in the advancing growth, all enjoys again in one moment.

June 29

The day before yesterday the physician came here out of the town to the magistrate and found me on the floor among Lotte’s children, as some crawled around on me, others teased me, and as I tickled them and raised a great outcry with them. The doctor, who is a very dogmatic wire-puppet, who in talking folds his ruffles and pulls out a curl without end, found this beneath the dignity of a sensible man; that I noticed by his nose. But I let myself be disturbed in nothing, let him treat very reasonable matters and built the children their card-houses again, which they had broken. Also he went thereafter around in the town and complained, the magistrate’s children were already unruly enough, Werther now spoiled them completely.

Yes, dear Wilhelm, the children are nearest to my heart on earth. When I look at them and see in the little thing the germs of all virtues, of all forces, which they will once so needfully require; when I behold in the obstinacy future steadfastness and firmness of character, in the roguishness good humor and lightness to slip over the dangers of the world, all so unspoiled, so whole!—always, always then I repeat the golden words of the teacher of men: “If ye become not as one of these!” and now, my best, they, who are our equals, whom we should regard as our models, we treat as subjects. They shall have no will!—have we none then? And where lies the privilege?—because we are older and more sensible!—good God from thy heaven, thou seest old children and young children, and nothing more; and in which thou hast more joy, that thy son has long since proclaimed. But they believe in him and hear him not—that is also something old!—and form their children after themselves and—Adieu, Wilhelm! I will not rave further about it.

July 1

“Stories of the world, in your language.”