Part 4

Since he had to pass through the lime trees to reach the tavern where they had laid out the body, he was seized with horror at the place he had otherwise so loved. That threshold where the neighbors' children had so often played was besmirched with blood. Love and fidelity, the fairest human feelings, had turned to violence and murder. The strong trees stood bare and frosted, the beautiful hedges that arched over the low churchyard wall were stripped of leaves, and the gravestones peered out through the gaps, covered with snow.

As he drew near the tavern, before which the whole village was assembled, a sudden outcry arose. From afar they caught sight of a troop of armed men, and each cried out to bring the perpetrator forward. Werther looked and was not long in doubt. Yes, it was the servant who had loved that widow so deeply, the one he had come upon some time before wandering with silent fury and secret despair.

"What have you done, unhappy man!" Werther cried, stepping toward the prisoner.—The latter looked at him quietly, was silent, and at last replied with perfect composure: "No one shall have her, she shall have no one."—They brought the prisoner into the tavern, and Werther hurried away.

By this terrible, violent shock, all that lay within his nature was shaken to its depths. From his sorrow, his ill humor, his indifferent surrender, he was torn for a moment; irrepressibly sympathy took hold of him, and an unspeakable desire seized him to save the man. He felt him to be so unhappy, he found him, as a criminal, so guiltless himself, he placed himself so deeply in his situation, that he surely believed he could convince others of it too. Already he wished to be able to speak for him, already the most vivid plea pressed toward his lips; he hastened to the hunting lodge and on the way could not refrain from uttering aloud, half under his breath, all that he meant to set before the magistrate.

When he entered the room, he found Albert present, which disconcerted him for a moment; but he soon recovered himself and presented his sentiments to the magistrate with fervor. The latter shook his head several times, and though Werther brought forward with the greatest liveliness, passion, and truth all that one human being can say in excuse of another, yet, as is easily imagined, the magistrate was unmoved thereby. Rather, he would not let our friend finish, contradicted him eagerly, and reproached him for defending a murderer; he showed him that in this way every law would be abolished and all security of the state destroyed; he added further that in such a matter he could do nothing without taking upon himself the greatest responsibility, that all must proceed in order, in the prescribed course.

Werther did not yet give in, but only begged that the magistrate might look the other way if anyone were to help the man escape! In this too the magistrate refused him. Albert, who at last joined the conversation, also took the old man's side. Werther was outvoted, and with a terrible anguish he took his leave, after the magistrate had said to him several times: "No, he is not to be saved!"

How deeply these words must have struck him we see from a little note found among his papers, certainly written on that very day:

"You are not to be saved, unhappy man! I see well that we are not to be saved."

What Albert had last said concerning the prisoner's case in the magistrate's presence had been most distasteful to Werther; he believed he had noticed some sensitiveness toward himself in it, and though on further reflection his keenness did not fail to perceive that both men might be right, yet it was to him as if he must renounce his innermost being, were he to confess it, were he to grant it.

A scrap relating thereto, which perhaps expresses his whole relation to Albert, we find among his papers:

"What help is it that I tell myself, again and again, he is worthy and good—but it tears my inward vitals; I cannot be just."

Because it was a mild evening and the weather began to incline toward thawing, Lotte walked back with Albert on foot. On the way she looked about here and there, as if missing Werther's company. Albert began to speak of him, finding fault with him even as he did him justice. He touched upon his unhappy passion and wished it might be possible to send him away.—"I wish it too, for our sakes," said he, "and I beg you," he continued, "see to giving his behavior toward you another direction, to diminishing his frequent visits. People are taking notice, and I know there has been talk here and there."—Lotte was silent, and Albert seemed to have felt her silence, for at least from that time he mentioned Werther no more to her, and when she mentioned him, he dropped the conversation or turned it elsewhere.

The futile attempt Werther had made to save the unhappy man was the last flaring up of the flame of a dying light; he sank only the deeper into pain and inactivity; particularly he was almost beside himself when he heard that he might perhaps be called as a witness against the man, who now began to deny everything.

All that had ever befallen him unpleasantly in his active life, the annoyance at the legation, all that had otherwise gone wrong with him, whatever had ever wounded him, rose and fell in his soul. He found himself, through all this, as if entitled to inactivity; he found himself cut off from all prospect, incapable of seizing any handle by which the business of common life is taken hold of; and so he advanced at last, given up wholly to his strange feeling, mode of thought, and an endless passion, in the eternal sameness of a sorrowful intercourse with the lovely and beloved creature whose peace he disturbed, storming against his own powers, wearing them out without aim or prospect, ever drawing nearer to a sorrowful end.

Of his confusion, his passion, his restless driving and striving, his weariness of life, some surviving letters are the strongest testimonies, which we shall insert here.

December 12

Dear Wilhelm, I am in a state such as those unhappy ones must have been in, of whom men believed they were driven about by an evil spirit. Sometimes it seizes me; it is not fear, not desire—it is an inward, unknown raging, that threatens to rend my breast, that presses my throat shut! Alas! Alas! And then I wander forth into the dreadful nightly scenes of this misanthropic season.

Yesterday evening I had to go out. A thaw had suddenly set in; I had heard the river had overflowed, all the brooks swollen, and from Wahlheim downward my beloved valley flooded! After eleven at night I ran out. A fearful sight, to see from the rock the churning floods whirl in the moonlight, over fields and meadows and hedges and all, and up and down the wide valley a stormy sea in the howling of the wind! And then when the moon emerged again and rested above the black cloud, and before me the flood rolled and sounded in frightful, splendid reflection: then a shudder came over me, and again a longing! Ah, with open arms I stood toward the abyss and breathed down into it! Down! And lost myself in the bliss of hurling my torments, my sufferings down into it! To roar away like the waves! O!—And you could not lift your foot from the ground, and end all torments!—My hour is not yet run out, I feel it! O Wilhelm! How gladly would I have given my humanity to rend the clouds with that stormwind, to grasp the floods! Ha! And is not perhaps this bliss granted once to the imprisoned?

—And as I looked down sorrowfully at a spot where I had rested with Lotte under a willow, on a hot walk—that too was flooded, and scarce could I recognize the willow! Wilhelm! And her meadows, I thought, the country about her hunting lodge! How now disordered by the raging stream, our arbor! I thought. And the sunshine of the past glanced in, like a prisoner's dream of flocks, meadows, and honors. I stood!—I do not chide myself, for I have courage to die.—I would have—now I sit here like an old woman who gathers her wood from fences and her bread at doors, to prolong and ease a dying, joyless existence for one more moment.

December 14

What is this, my dear? I am afraid of myself! Is not my love for her the holiest, purest, most brotherly love? Have I ever felt a culpable wish in my soul?—I will not protest—and yet, dreams! O how truly those men felt who ascribed such contradictory effects to foreign powers! This night! I tremble to say it, I held her in my arms, pressed close to my breast, and covered her love-lisping mouth with endless kisses; my eye swam in the drunkenness of hers! God! Am I culpable, that even now I feel a bliss, calling back these glowing joys with full inwardness? Lotte! Lotte!—And with me it is over! My senses confuse themselves, for eight days now I have had no power of reflection, my eyes are full of tears. I am well nowhere, and well everywhere. I wish for nothing, desire nothing. I were better gone.

The resolve to leave the world had, in this time, under such circumstances, gained ever more strength in Werther's soul. Since his return to Lotte it had always been his last outlook and hope; yet he had told himself it should be no precipitate, no rash deed, he would take this step with the best conviction, with the calmest possible resolution.

His doubts, his strife with himself, appear from a little note, probably a begun letter to Wilhelm, found among his papers without date:

Her presence, her fate, her sharing in mine, press the last tears from my seared brain. To lift the curtain and step behind it! That is all! And why the lingering and trembling? Because one knows not how it looks behind? And returns not? And that this is the property of our spirit, to suspect confusion and darkness whereof we know nothing certain.

At length he became more and more familiar and reconciled with the sorrowful thought, and his purpose firm and irrevocable, whereof the following ambiguous letter, which he wrote to his friend, gives witness.

December 20

I thank your love, Wilhelm, that you took the word so. Yes, you are right: I were better gone. The proposal you make for a return to you pleases me not entirely; at least I should like to make a detour first, especially since we have to hope for continued frost and good roads. Also I am very glad that you will come to fetch me; only delay yet fourteen days, and expect still a letter from me with further particulars. It is needful that nothing be plucked before it is ripe. And fourteen days more or less do much. To my mother you shall say: that she should pray for her son, and that I beg her forgiveness for all the annoyance I have caused her. That was now my fate, to grieve those to whom I owed joy. Farewell, my dearest! All the blessing of heaven upon you! Farewell!

What passed in Lotte's soul in this time, how her sentiments were toward her husband, toward her unhappy friend, we scarce dare express in words, though we may well form a silent conception of it from knowledge of her character, and a beautiful feminine soul can think itself into hers and feel with her.

So much is certain: she was firmly resolved within herself to do all to remove Werther, and if she hesitated, it was a heartfelt, friendly consideration, because she knew how much it would cost him, indeed that it would be well-nigh impossible for him. Yet in this time she was pressed more to be in earnest; her husband was wholly silent on this relation, as she too had ever been silent thereon, and so much the more was it her concern to prove to him by deed how her sentiments were worthy of his.

On the same day that Werther wrote the last inserted letter to his friend—it was the Sunday before Christmas—he came in the evening to Lotte and found her alone. She was busy setting in order some playthings she had prepared as Christmas gifts for her little siblings. He spoke of the pleasure the little ones would have, and of the times when the unexpected opening of the door and the appearance of a trimmed tree with wax candles, sweetmeats, and apples, set one in paradisiacal delight.—"They shall," said Lotte, hiding her embarrassment under a dear smile, "they shall also get gifts, if you are clever; a wax candle and something more."—"And what do you call being clever?" he cried; "how shall I be? How can I be? Best Lotte!"—"Thursday evening," said she, "is Christmas eve, then come the children, my father too, then each gets his own, then you come too—but not before."—Werther started.—"I beg you," she continued, "it is so now, I beg for my peace's sake, it cannot, it cannot remain so."—He turned his eyes from her and walked up and down the room and muttered "it cannot remain so!" between his teeth.—Lotte, who felt the terrible state into which these words had thrown him, sought by all manner of questions to divert his thoughts, but in vain.—"No, Lotte," he cried, "I shall not see you again!"—"Why so?" she replied, "Werther, you can, you must see us again, only moderate yourself. O why must you be born with this vehemence, this unconquerably clinging passion for all you once lay hold of! I beg you," she continued, taking him by the hand, "moderate yourself! Your spirit, your learning, your talents, what manifold enjoyments do they offer you! Be a man, turn this sorrowful attachment from a creature who can do nothing but pity you."—He gnashed his teeth and looked at her darkly.—She held his hand.—"Only a moment of calm sense, Werther!" said she. "Feel you not that you deceive yourself, that you wilfully ruin yourself? Why then me, Werther? Just me, the possession of another? Just that? I fear, I fear, it is only the impossibility of possessing me that makes this wish so seductive to you."—He drew his hand from hers, looking at her with a fixed, unwilling glance.—"Wise!" he cried, "very wise! Has perhaps Albert made this observation? Political! Very political!"—"Anyone may make it," she answered, "and should there then be no girl in the wide world to fulfill the wishes of your heart? Master yourself, seek for one, and I swear to you, you shall find her; for long has the restriction wherein you have these times bound yourself alarmed me, for you and for us. Master yourself, a journey will, must divert you! Seek, find a worthy object of your love, and return, and let us together enjoy the bliss of a true friendship."—"That might be," said he with a cold laugh, "printed and recommended to all tutors. Dear Lotte! Leave me yet a little peace, it will all come to pass!"—"Only this, Werther, that you come not before Christmas eve!"—He would have answered, and Albert entered the room. They offered one another a frosty good evening and walked up and down the room beside each other embarrassed. Werther began an insignificant discourse, soon spent, Albert likewise, who then asked his wife about certain errands, and when he heard they were not yet done, said a few words to her which seemed to Werther cold, even harsh. He wished to go, he could not, and lingered till eight, when his ill humor and displeasure ever increased, till the table was laid, and he took hat and stick. Albert invited him to stay, but he, believing only an insignificant compliment, thanked him coldly and went away.

He came home, took the candle from his servant who would have lit him, and went alone into his room, wept aloud, spoke angrily with himself, walked violently up and down, and at last threw himself on the bed in his clothes, where the servant found him, who toward eleven ventured in to ask whether he should pull off the boots, which he then allowed and forbade the servant to come into the room next morning until he called.

Monday morning, the twenty-first of December, he wrote the following letter to Lotte, found sealed on his desk after his death and delivered to her, which I shall insert paragraph by paragraph as circumstances show he wrote it.

"It is resolved, Lotte, I will die, and this I write you without romantic exaggeration, calmly, on the morning of the day on which I shall see you for the last time. When you read this, my best, the cool grave already covers the frozen remains of the restless, unhappy one, who for the last moments of his life knows no greater sweetness than to converse with you. I have had a terrible night, and, ah, a wholesome night. It is that which has confirmed, determined my resolve: I will die! As I tore myself from you yesterday, in the frightful revolt of my senses, as all that pressed toward my heart and my hopeless, joyless existence beside you seized me in ghastly coldness—I scarce reached my room, I threw myself beside myself on my knees, and O God! You granted me the last solace of the bitterest tears! A thousand designs, a thousand prospects raged through my soul, and at last he stood there, firm, whole, the last, sole thought: I will die!—I lay down, and in the morning, in the calm of waking, he still stands firm, still whole strong in my heart: I will die!—it is not despair, it is certainty that I have borne my term, and that I sacrifice myself for you. Yes, Lotte! Why should I conceal it? One of us three must depart, and that will I be! O my best! In this torn heart it has raged wildly round, often—to murder your husband!—you!—myself!—so be it!—when you climb the hill on a fair summer evening, then remember me, as I so often came up the valley, and then look across to the churchyard to my grave, how the wind sways the tall grass in the light of the sinking sun to and fro.—I was calm when I began, now, now I weep like a child, as all that becomes so vivid around me.—"

Toward ten he called his servant, and while dressing told him he would be leaving in a few days, so he should brush the clothes and get everything ready for packing; also he ordered him to collect accounts everywhere, fetch some lent books, and pay some poor, to whom he was wont to give weekly, their allowance two months in advance.

He had his meal brought to his room, and after dinner rode out to the magistrate, whom he did not find at home. He walked thoughtfully up and down the garden and seemed at last to wish to heap all the melancholy of remembrance upon himself.

The little ones would not leave him long in peace; they pursued him, climbed on him, told him that, if tomorrow, and again tomorrow, and one more day, they would fetch the Christmas gifts at Lotte's, and told him wonders their small imagination promised itself.—"Tomorrow!" he cried, "and again tomorrow! And one more day!"—and kissed them all heartily and would have left, when the youngest still wanted to whisper something in his ear. He revealed to him that the big brothers had written fine New Year's wishes, so fine! And one for papa, for Albert and Lotte one, and also one for Mr. Werther; these they would present early on New Year's day. This overcame him, he gave each something, sat down on his horse, bade the old man be greeted, and rode off with tears in his eyes.

Toward five he came home, ordered the maid to see to the fire and keep it up till night. The servant he bade pack books and linen below in the trunk and sew up the clothes. Thereupon he wrote probably the following passage of his last letter to Lotte:

"You expect me not! You believe I shall obey and see you again only on Christmas eve. O Lotte! Today or never more. On Christmas eve you hold this paper in your hand, tremble and bedew it with your dear tears. I will, I must! O how well it is with me that I am resolved."

Lotte in the meantime had fallen into a strange state. After the last conversation with Werther she had felt how hard it would be to part from him, what he would suffer if he withdrew from her.

It had been said as if in passing, in Albert's presence, that Werther would not come again before Christmas eve, and Albert had ridden to an official in the neighborhood, with whom he had business to settle, and where he had to stay the night.

She now sat alone, none of her siblings about her, and gave herself up to her thoughts, which quietly wandered over her circumstances. She saw herself now eternally bound to the man whose love and fidelity she knew, to whom she was heartily devoted, whose peace, whose reliability seemed ordained by heaven itself that a worthy woman should found the happiness of her life thereon; she felt what he would be to her and her children forever. On the other side Werther had become so dear to her; from the very first moment of their acquaintance the harmony of their minds had shown so beautifully, the long-continued intercourse with him, so many situations lived through together, had made an indelible impression on her heart. All that she felt and thought of interest she was used to share with him, and his removal threatened to tear an irreparable gap in her whole being. O, had she been able to transform him into a brother in that moment, how happy she would have been! Had she been permitted to marry him to one of her friends, had she been able to hope to restore wholly his relation to Albert!

She had thought through her friends one by one and found something to object to in each, found none to whom she would have granted him.

Over all these considerations she first felt deeply, without making it clear to herself, that her heartfelt, secret longing was to keep him for herself, and told herself beside that she could not keep him, might not keep him; her pure, beautiful, otherwise so light and easily helping spirit felt the pressure of a melancholy to which the prospect of happiness is closed. Her heart was oppressed, and a gloomy cloud lay over her eye.

Thus it had become half past six when she heard Werther come up the stairs and soon recognized his step, his voice asking for her. How her heart beat, and we may almost say for the first time, at his arrival. She would gladly have had herself denied to him, and as he entered she called to him with a kind of passionate confusion: "You have not kept your word."—"I promised nothing" was his answer.—"Then you should at least have granted my request," she replied, "I begged you for both our sakes."

She did not quite know what she said, no more than what she did, when she sent for some friends, so as not to be alone with Werther. He laid down some books he had brought, asked after others, and she wished now that her friends would come, now that they might stay away. The maid came back and brought word that both begged to be excused.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”