Part 1

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The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Hamburg Edition, Volume 6

Second Book

October 20, 1771

Yesterday we arrived here. The envoy is indisposed and will therefore remain a few days. If he were not so disagreeable, all would be well. I perceive, I perceive, that fate has appointed me harsh trials. But take heart! A light spirit bears everything! A light spirit? That makes me laugh, how the word comes into my pen. O a little lighter blood would make me the happiest beneath the sun. What! There, where others with their little strength and talent swagger before me in comfortable self-satisfaction, do I despair of my strength, of my gifts? Good God, who bestowed all this upon me, why did you not withhold half and give me self-confidence and contentment?

Patience! Patience! It will get better. For I tell you, my friend, you are right. Since I am driven among the people every day and see what they do and how they go about it, I stand much better with myself. Certainly, because we are made thus, that we compare everything with ourselves and ourselves with everything, so happiness or misery lies in the objects with which we keep company, and nothing is more dangerous than solitude. Our imagination, compelled by its nature to elevate itself, nourished by the fantastical images of poetry, builds up a series of beings, where we are the lowest, and everything outside us appears more glorious, every other more perfect. And this happens quite naturally. We so often feel that something is lacking in us, and just what is missing in us, another often seems to possess, to whom we then also give all that we have, and a certain ideal comfort besides. And thus the happy man is quite complete, the creature of our own making.

Against this, if we but plod straight onward with all our weakness and toil, we very often find that with our sauntering and maneuvering we get further than others with their sailing and rowing—and—that is yet a true feeling of oneself, when one keeps pace with others or even gets ahead.

November 26

I am beginning to feel quite tolerably well here in this respect. The best is that there is enough to do; and then the various people, the manifold new figures, make a motley spectacle before my soul. I have made the acquaintance of Count C..., a man whom I must revere more every day, a broad, great mind, and one who is not cold because he overlooks much; from whose intercourse so much feeling for friendship and love shines forth. He took an interest in me when I delivered a commission to him, and at my first words he noticed that we understood each other, that he could speak with me as with not everyone. Also I cannot sufficiently praise his open demeanor toward me. Such true, warm joy is not in the world, as to see a great soul open itself to one.

December 24

The envoy causes me much annoyance; I foresaw it. He is the most punctilious fool that can exist; step by step and circumstantial like an old maid; a man who is never satisfied with himself, and whom therefore no one can please. I like to work lightly off, and as it stands, so it stands; there he is capable of returning a composition to me and saying: "it is good, but look it through, one always finds a better word, a purer particle."—There one might become the devil's. No 'and', no conjunction may be left out, and of all inversions that sometimes escape me, he is a mortal enemy; if one does not chant his period according to the customary melody, he understands nothing in it. That is a sorrow, to have to do with such a man.

The confidence of Count C... is still the only thing that indemnifies me. He told me lately quite sincerely how dissatisfied he is with the slowness and circumspection of my envoy. The people make it hard for themselves and others. "Yet," said he, "one must resign oneself to it like a traveler who must cross a mountain; certainly, if the mountain were not there, the road would be much more comfortable and shorter; but it is there, and one must get over!"

My old man also senses the preference the Count gives me over him, and that vexes him, and he seizes every opportunity to speak ill of me to the Count; I hold, as is natural, the opposite party, and thereby the matter only grows worse. Yesterday even he provoked me, for I was meant too: for such worldly business the Count is quite good, he has much facility to work and wields a good pen, but in thorough learning he is lacking like all men of letters. Thereupon he made a face as if he would say: "do you feel the sting?" But it had no effect on me; I despised the man who could think and behave so. I withstood him and fought with considerable heat. I said the Count is a man before whom one must have respect, both on account of his character and his knowledge. "I have," said I, "known no one to whom it had so succeeded, to expand his mind, to spread it over countless objects, and yet retain this activity for common life."—that was Spanish villages to his brain, and I took my leave, lest I swallow more gall over a further derangement.

And you are all to blame for this, who chattered me into the yoke and sang so much of activity to me. Activity! If the one who plants potatoes and rides into the city to sell his grain does not do more than I, then may I labor ten years more on the galley to which I am now chained.

And that splendid misery, that boredom among the loathsome people who here live beside one another! The rank-seeking among them, how they only watch and pay heed to gain a little step on one another; the most wretched, pitiable passions, quite without a rag. There is a woman, for example, who entertains everyone with her nobility and her country, so that every stranger must think: that is a fool who prides herself on the little nobility and the reputation of her country. But it is much worse: just this woman is here from the neighborhood an office-clerk's daughter.—See, I cannot comprehend the human race, that has so little sense as to prostitute itself so flatly.

Though I notice daily more, my friend, how foolish it is to measure others by oneself. And because I have so much to do with myself and this heart is so stormy—ah, I gladly let the others go their path, if they would but let me go mine.

What vexes me most are the wretched civil relations. Though I know as well as anyone how necessary the distinction of ranks is, how much advantage it affords me myself: only it should not just stand in my way, where I might yet enjoy a little joy, a gleam of happiness on this earth. I lately met a Miss von B. on a walk, an amiable creature who has retained much nature amid the stiff life. We pleased each other in our conversation, and when we parted, I begged her permission to visit her at home. She granted me this with so much frankness that I could scarcely await the fitting moment to go to her. She is not from here and lives with an aunt in the house. The physiognomy of the old lady pleased me not. I showed her much attention, my conversation was mostly directed to her, and in less than half an hour I had pretty well learned what the young lady afterward herself confessed to me: that the dear aunt in her age lacks everything, no decent fortune, no spirit and no support but the row of her ancestors, no shelter but the rank in which she has palisaded herself, and no pleasure but to look down from her story over the bourgeois heads. In her youth she is said to have been beautiful and frittered her life away, first with her obstinacy tormented many a poor lad, and in her riper years crouched under the obedience of an old officer, who for this price and a tolerable maintenance spent the iron century with her and died. Now she sees herself alone in the iron one and would not be regarded, were her niece not so amiable.

January 8, 1772

What sort of people are those whose whole soul rests on ceremony, whose thinking and striving goes for years toward having trouble about a chair higher up at table—no, rather the labors pile up, just because one is kept from advancing important matters by the small annoyances. Last week there was a quarrel at the sleigh-ride, and the whole sport was spoiled.

The fools, who do not see that it does not really depend on the place at all, and that he who has the first, so seldom plays the first role! How many a king is ruled by his minister, how many a minister by his secretary! And who then is the first? He, methinks, who overlooks the others and has so much power or cunning to harness their forces and passions to the execution of his plans.

January 20

I must write to you, dear Lotte, here in the room of a low peasant inn, into which I have fled from a heavy storm. As long as I wander in the sorry nest of D..., among the strange, to my heart quite strange people, I have had no moment, not one, in which my heart bade me write to you; and now in this hut, in this solitude, in this confinement, while snow and hail rage against my little window, here you were my first thought. As I stepped in, your figure, your memory overwhelmed me, o Lotte! So holy, so warm! Good God! The first happy moment again.

If you saw me, my dearest, in the flood of distraction! How dried up my senses become! Not a moment of fullness of heart, not a blessed hour! Nothing! Nothing! I stand like before a cabinet of curiosities and see the little men and horses move before me, and often ask myself if it is not optical deception. I play along, rather, I am played with like a marionette and sometimes grasp my neighbor's wooden hand and shrink back. In the evening I resolve to enjoy the sunrise, and do not get out of bed; by day I hope to delight in the moonlight, and remain in my room. I do not rightly know why I rise, why I go to sleep.

The leaven that set my life in motion is lacking; the charm that kept me lively in deep nights is gone, that woke me from sleep in the morning, is away.

A single female creature have I found here, a Miss von B..., she resembles you, dear Lotte, if one can resemble you. "Ah!" you will say, "the man applies himself to pretty compliments!" It is not wholly untrue. For some time I have been very courteous, because I cannot be otherwise, have much wit, and the ladies say no one knows so finely to praise as I (and to lie, add you, for without that it does not go, understand you?). I meant to speak of Miss B... She has much soul, which looks fully out of her blue eyes. Her rank is a burden to her, which satisfies none of her heart's wishes. She longs out of the tumult, and we fantasize many an hour in rural scenes of unmixed bliss; ah! and of you! How often must she do homage to you, must not, does it freely, hears so gladly of you, loves you.—O were I sitting at your feet in the dear, intimate little room, and our little darlings tumbled about me, and if they grew too loud for you, I would gather them to rest about me with a eerie tale.

The sun sets gloriously over the snow-glittering region, the storm has passed over, and I—must shut myself again in my cage.—Adieu! Is Albert with you? And how—? God forgive me this question!

February 8

We have had the most abominable weather for eight days, and it is beneficial to me. For as long as I have been here, no fine day has appeared in the sky that someone had not spoiled or made distasteful to me. When it now rains and drifts and chills and thaws: ha! I think, it cannot become worse at home than it is outside, or vice versa, and so it is good. When the sun rises in the morning and promises a fine day, I never refrain from crying out: there they have again a heavenly good, for which they can destroy one another! There is nothing for which they would not destroy one another. Health, good name, cheerfulness, recreation! And mostly out of silliness, incomprehension and narrowness and, if one listens to them, with the best intention. Sometimes I might beg them on my knees not to rage so madly in their own entrails.

February 17

I fear my envoy and I will not endure together much longer. The man is utterly intolerable. His way of working and doing business is so ridiculous that I cannot refrain from contradicting him and often doing a thing after my own head and manner, which then, as is natural, is never right to him. Thereupon he lately accused me at court, and the minister gave me a gentle rebuke indeed, but it was yet a rebuke, and I stood on the point of requesting my dismissal, when I received a private letter from him, a letter before which I knelt and adored the high, noble, wise spirit. How he sets right my too great sensitivity, how he honors my exaggerated ideas of efficacy, of influence on others, of penetrating in affairs as youthful good courage, seeks not to root them out, only to soften and direct them where they may have their true play, do their vigorous effect. Also I am strengthened for eight days and become at one with myself. The peace of the soul is a glorious thing and the joy in oneself. Dear friend, if only the jewel were not as fragile as it is beautiful and precious.

February 20

God bless you, my dears, give you all the good days that he takes from me!

I thank you, Albert, that you deceived me: I waited for news when your wedding day would be, and had resolved on that day solemnly to take Lotte's silhouette from the wall and bury it among other papers. Now you are a pair, and your image is still here! Well, so let it remain! And why not? I know, I am indeed with you, am to you undiminished in Lotte's heart, have, yes I have the second place therein and will and must keep it. O I should go mad, if she could forget—Albert, in that thought lies a hell. Albert, farewell! Farewell, angel of heaven! Farewell, Lotte!

March 15

I have had an annoyance which will drive me away from here. I gnash my teeth! Devil! It is not to be made good, and you are alone to blame for it, who spurred and drove and tormented me to take a post that was not to my mind. Now I have it! Now you have it! And that you may not again say my exaggerated ideas spoil everything, here you have, dear sir, a narrative, plain and neat, as a chronicler would record it.

Count C... loves me, distinguishes me, that is known, that I have told you a hundred times. Now I was with him at table yesterday, just on the day when in the evening the noble society of gentlemen and ladies assembles at his house, of which I never thought, nor did it ever strike me that we subordinates do not belong there. Good. I dine with the Count, and after table we walk up and down in the great hall, I speak with him, with Colonel B... who joins us, and so the hour of the company approaches. I think, God knows, of nothing. Then enters the most gracious Lady von S... with her lord husband and well-hatched gosling daughter with the flat chest and pretty stays, make en passant their accustomed, high-noble eyes and nostrils, and as the nation is heartily distasteful to me, I was just about to take my leave and only waited until the Count should be free from the loathsome prattle, when my Miss B. entered. As my heart always opens a little when I see her, I just stayed, placed myself behind her chair and only noticed after some time that she spoke with less openness than usual, with some embarrassment. That struck me. Is she too like all that people, thought I, and was stung and wanted to go, yet stayed because I would gladly have excused her and did not believe it and still hoped for a kind word from her and—what you will. Meanwhile the company filled up. Baron F. with the whole wardrobe from the coronation times of Francis the First, the court counselor R..., here called in qualitate Herr von R..., with his deaf wife etc., not to forget the ill-furnished J..., who patches the gaps of his old-fashioned wardrobe with new-fashioned rags, that comes in crowds, and I speak with some of my acquaintances, who are all very laconic. I thought—and only attended to my B... I noticed not that the women at the end of the hall whispered in each other's ears, that it circulated to the men, that Lady von S. spoke with the Count (all this Miss B. told me afterward), until finally the Count came at me and took me to a window.—"You know," said he, "our wonderful relations; the company is dissatisfied, I noticed, to see you here. I would not for anything"—"Your Excellency," I interposed, "I beg a thousand times for pardon; I should have thought of it sooner, and I know you forgive me this inconsequence; I meant to take my leave before. An evil genius held me back." I added smiling, as I bowed.—The Count pressed my hands with a feeling that said all. I slipped gently out of the noble company, went, seated myself in a cabriolet and drove to M., there to see the sun set from the hill and meanwhile read in my Homer the glorious song of how Ulysses is entertained by the excellent swineherd. That was all good.

In the evening I come back to table, there were still few in the guest room; they were throwing dice in a corner, had folded back the tablecloth. Then the honest Adelin comes in, lays down his hat as he looks at me, steps to me and says softly: "you have had annoyance?"—"I?" said I.—"The Count has shown you out of the company."—"The devil take them!" said I, "I was glad to get into the free air."—"Good," said he, "that you take it on the light shoulder. Only it vexes me, it is already all around."—Then the thing first began to rankle me. All who came to table and looked at me, thought I, look at you therefore! That gave bad blood.

And since now today even, wherever I step, they pity me, since I hear that my enviers now triumph and say: there one saw where it went with the arrogant, who exalted themselves above their little head and thought themselves entitled to set themselves above all relations, and what more of dog's chatter—there one might stab a knife into one's heart; for let one say what one will of independence, him I would see who can bear that knaves speak of him, when they have an advantage over him; if their chatter is empty, ah then one can easily let them be.

March 16

Everything hunts me. Today I meet Miss B... in the alley, I could not refrain from addressing her and, as soon as we were somewhat removed from the company, showing her my sensitivity over her recent behavior.—"O Werther," said she with an inward tone, "could you interpret my confusion so, you who know my heart? What I suffered for your sake, from the moment I stepped into the hall! I foresaw all, a hundred times it sat on my tongue, to tell you. I knew that the von S... and T... with their husbands would depart sooner than remain in your company; I knew the Count may not spoil it with them,—and now the clamor!"—"How, Miss?" said I and hid my fright; for all that Adelin had told me day before yesterday ran through my veins like boiling water in this moment.—"What it has already cost me!" said the sweet creature, while the tears stood in her eyes.—I was no longer master of myself, was about to throw myself at her feet.—"Explain yourself!" cried I.—The tears ran down her cheeks. I was beside myself. She dried them, without wishing to conceal them.—"You know my aunt," she began, "she was present and has—o, with what eyes did she look upon that! Werther, I have endured last night and a sermon this morning about my intercourse with you, and I had to listen while they depreciated, degraded you, and could and might only half defend you." Every word she spoke went through my heart like a sword. She felt not what mercy it would have been to keep all this from me, and now she added what further would be gossiped, what a sort of people would triumph over it.

How one would now tickle and rejoice over the punishment of my arrogance and my contempt of others, which they have long reproached me with. All this, Wilhelm, to hear from her, with the voice of truest sympathy—I was destroyed and am still furious within me. I wished someone would venture to reproach me with it, that I might thrust my sword through his body; if I saw blood, it would be better with me. Ah, I have a hundred times seized a knife, to give air to this oppressed heart. They tell of a noble kind of horses, that when they are terribly heated and hunted, bite open a vein from instinct, to help themselves to breath. So it is often with me, I would open a vein, that might procure me eternal freedom.

March 24

“Stories of the world, in your language.”