Part 5

Unhappy man! Are you not a fool? Are you not deceiving yourself? What is the meaning of this raging, endless passion? I have no prayer but to her; no other form appears to my imagination than hers, and all in the world around me I see only in relation to her. And this affords me many a happy hour—until I must tear myself away from her again! Ah, Wilhelm! How often my heart drives me—when I have sat with her, for two or three hours, and feasted upon her figure, her bearing, the heavenly expression of her words, and then by degrees all my senses become strained, it grows dark before my eyes, I can scarcely hear, and something grips me by the throat like an assassin, then my heart, with wild beats, seeks to give air to my oppressed senses and only increases their confusion—Wilhelm, I often know not whether I am in the world! And—if now and then melancholy does not gain the upper hand and Lotte allows me the wretched comfort of weeping out my anguish upon her hand—then I must away, must go out, and then wander far across the fields; to climb a steep hill is then my delight, to hew a path through an impassable wood, through the hedges that wound me, through the thorns that tear me! Then I feel somewhat better! Somewhat! And when sometimes I remain lying by the way from weariness and thirst, sometimes in the deep night, when the high full moon stands above me, I sit down in the lonely wood upon a crooked-grown tree, to afford my wounded soles some relief, and then slumber in a fainting rest in the twilight! O Wilhelm! The lonely dwelling of a cell, the hair shirt and the girdle of thorns were comforts for which my soul languishes. Farewell! I see no end to this misery but the grave.

September 3

I must away! I thank you, Wilhelm, that you have determined my wavering resolve. For fourteen days I have been turning over the thought of leaving her. I must away. She is again in the town at a friend's. And Albert—and—I must away!

September 10

That was a night! Wilhelm! Now I have overcome all. I shall not see her again! O that I could not fly to your neck, and express to you with a thousand tears and raptures, my best friend, the feelings that storm my heart. Here I sit and gasp for breath, seek to compose myself, await the morning, and at sunrise the horses are ordered.

Ah, she sleeps peacefully and does not think that she will never see me again. I have torn myself away, have been strong enough, in a conversation of two hours, not to betray my purpose. And God, what a conversation!

Albert had promised me to be in the garden with Lotte directly after supper. I stood on the terrace beneath the tall chestnut trees and watched the sun, which now for the last time sank for me over the lovely valley, over the gentle river. So often had I stood here with her and gazed upon that very glorious spectacle, and now—I walked up and down the avenue that was so dear to me; a secret sympathetic draw had so often held me here, before I yet knew Lotte, and how we rejoiced when, at the beginning of our acquaintance, we discovered our mutual liking for this little spot, which is truly one of the most romantic I have seen produced by art.

First you have, between the chestnut trees, the wide prospect—Ah, I remember, I think I have already written you much of this, how high beech walls at last enclose one, and through an adjoining bosquet the avenue grows ever darker, until at last all ends in a closed little spot, around which hover all the terrors of solitude. I still feel how secret it seemed to me when I first stepped into it at a high noon; I faintly foreboded what a scene of bliss and pain this was yet to become.

I had been revelling for about half an hour in the languishing, sweet thoughts of parting, of meeting again, when I heard them ascend the terrace. I ran to meet them, with a shudder I took her hand and kissed it. We had just stepped up, when the moon rose behind the bushy hill; we spoke of various things and unawares drew near the dark cabinet. Lotte stepped in and sat down, Albert beside her, I too; but my unrest would not let me sit long; I stood up, stepped before her, walked up and down, sat down again: it was an anxious state. She drew our attention to the beautiful effect of the moonlight, which at the end of the beech walls illuminated the whole terrace before us: a glorious sight, which was so much the more striking because a deep twilight enclosed us round about. We were silent, and after a while she began: "never do I walk by moonlight, never, but the thought of my departed meets me, but the feeling of death, of futurity comes over me." "We shall be!" she continued, with the voice of the most glorious feeling; "but, Werther, shall we find each other again? Know each other again? What do you surmise? What do you say?"

"Lotte," said I, as I offered her my hand and my eyes filled with tears, "we shall see each other again! Here and there again!"—I could say no more—Wilhelm, must she ask me that, when I had this anxious farewell in my heart!

"And whether the dear departed know of us," she continued, "whether they feel, when it goes well with us, that we remember them with warm love? O! The form of my mother ever hovers around me, when at the still evening I sit among her children, among my children, and they are gathered about me, as they were gathered about her. When I then look up to heaven with a longing tear and wish that she might look in for a moment, how I keep my word, that I gave her in the hour of death: to be the mother of her children. With what feeling I cry out: 'forgive me, dearest, if I am not to them what you were to them. Ah! I do all that I can; they are clothed, fed, ah, and, what is more than all that, tended and loved. Could you see our harmony, dear saint! You would with the warmest thanks glorify the God whom you besought with your last, bitterest tears for the welfare of your children.'"—She said that! O Wilhelm, who can repeat what she said! How can the cold, dead letter represent this heavenly blossom of the spirit! Albert gently interrupted her: "it affects too deeply, dear Lotte! I know your soul clings strongly to these ideas, but I beg you"—"O Albert," said she, "I know you do not forget the evenings when we sat together at the little round table, when papa was away, and we had sent the little ones to sleep. You often had a good book and could so seldom come to read anything—was not the society of this glorious soul more than all? The beautiful, gentle, cheerful and ever active woman! God knows my tears, with which I often threw myself down in my bed before Him: might He make me like her."

"Lotte!" I cried, as I threw myself before her, took her hand and bathed it with a thousand tears, "Lotte! The blessing of God rests upon you and the spirit of your mother!" "If you had known her," said she, pressing my hand—"she was worthy to be known by you!"—I thought I should faint.

Never was a greater, prouder word spoken over me—and she continued: "and this woman had to depart in the bloom of her years, when her youngest son was not six months old! Her illness did not last long; she was calm, resigned, only her children pained her, especially the little one. As it drew toward the end and she said to me: 'bring them up to me!' and how I led them in, the little ones, who knew nothing, and the eldest, who were without sense, how they stood about the bed, and how she lifted her hands and prayed over them, and kissed them one after another and sent them away and said to me: 'be their mother!'—I gave her my hand upon it!—'You promise much, my daughter,' said she, 'the heart of a mother and the eye of a mother. I have often seen by your grateful tears that you feel what that is. Have for your siblings, and for your father, the fidelity and obedience of a wife. You shall comfort him.'—She asked after him; he had gone out, to hide from us the intolerable sorrow he felt, the man was quite torn apart.

Albert, you were in the room. She heard someone walk and asked and called you to her, and as she looked at you and at me, with the comforted, calm glance, that we should be happy, be happy together."—Albert fell upon her neck and kissed her and cried: "we are so! We shall be so!"—the calm Albert was quite beside himself, and I knew nothing of myself. "Werther," she began, "and this woman should be gone! God! When I sometimes think how one lets the dearest of one's life be carried away, and none but the children feel it so sharply, who still long complained that the black men had carried mother away!" She stood up, and I was awakened and shaken, remained sitting and held her hand.—"We will go," said she, "it is time."—She would draw her hand back, and I held it faster.—"we shall see each other again" I cried, "we shall find each other, under all forms we shall know each other. I go," I continued, "I go willingly, and yet, if I should say forever, I could not bear it. Farewell, Lotte! Farewell, Albert! We shall see each other again."—"Tomorrow, I think," she replied in jest.—I felt that tomorrow! Ah, she knew not, as she drew her hand from mine—She went down the avenue, I stood, watched them in the moonlight and threw myself upon the earth and wept myself out and sprang up and ran out upon the terrace and still saw there below, in the shadow of the tall linden trees, her white dress shimmer toward the garden gate, I stretched out my arms, and it vanished.

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext "The Sorrows of Young Werther—Book 1" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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