It grows dark before my eyes; I can scarcely hear; it has me by the throat like an assassin. My wildly beating heart tries to give breath to my afflicted senses and succeeds only in confusing them further…. William, then I don’t know where I am! And when my melancholy gets the better of me and Lotte grants me the miserable consolation of giving way to my anguish in a flood of tears, as happens sometimes—then I have to get away, out, out…and I wander disconsolately in the fields. At moments such as these I like to climb a steep mountain or hack my way through uncleared forest, through hedges that hurt me, through brambles that scratch me! Then I feel a little better. A little better. And when I lie down to rest on the way, exhausted and thirsty, or when in the dark of night, with the full moon shining above me, I sit down on the branch of a deformed tree to rest my sore feet for a moment and sleep in an enervating stillness into the dawn—William, a solitary cell, a hair shirt, and a crown of thorns would be balm for which my soul is pining. Adieu! I can see no end to this misery but the grave!
September 3rd
I must leave here. Thank you, William, for encouraging me in my feeble decision. For the last two weeks I have been going around with the idea of leaving. I must get away. She is in town again, staying with a friend. And Albert…and—I must get away!
September 10th
What a dreadful night! William, now I know I can bear anything. I shall not see her again. Oh, why can’t I fall on your neck and, in tears and rapture, confide to you, best of friends, the tumultuous passion that is breaking my heart! Here I sit, breathless, trying to calm down, waiting for the dawn when the horses will stand saddled outside. But she sleeps peacefully and has no idea that she will never see me again. I have succeeded in freeing myself, William, and found the strength, in the course of a conversation that lasted two hours, not to betray what was on my mind. And oh, dear God, what a conversation!
Albert had promised me that he and Lotte would come out into the garden after supper. I stood on the terrace under the tall chestnuts and saw the sun set for the last time across the delightful valley and the gentle stream. How often I have stood there with her and watched that magnificent sight—and now…I walked up and down the path that was so dear to me. A mysterious attraction often drew me there, even before I knew Lotte, and how delighted we were in those early days of our friendship when we discovered that both of us were drawn to this spot, which is really one of the most romantic ones any gardener could possibly produce.
First you have the wide view between the chestnuts. I seem to recall having written to you about it—how two lines of tall beeches finally wall it in, and the path is darkened by the adjoining shrubbery, until all ends in an enclosure that has a mysterious aura of loneliness. I can still feel the sense of seclusion I experienced when I entered it for the first time, one day at noon. Fleetingly I sensed then what a setting it would be one day for my bliss and pain.
I had languished for about half an hour in the bitter-sweet thought of reunion and separation when I heard the two of them coming up the terrace steps. I ran to meet them, and I shivered as I took her hand and kissed it. We reached the terrace just as the moon rose above the wooded hills. We talked about this and that and without noticing it, drew nearer to the gloomy enclosure. Lotte entered it and sat down; Albert sat on one side of her, I on the other.
But I could not remain seated; I was much too restless. So I rose and stood in front of them, walked up and down, sat down again. I was in a miserable state. Lotte drew our attention to the beautiful effect of the moonlight. Beyond the beeches, it was illuminating the entire terrace for us, a marvelous sight, made all the more striking by the fact that we were sitting in profound darkness. We were silent, and after a little while she said, “I never walk in the moonlight, never, without being reminded of my dead. In the moonlight I am always filled with a sense of death and of the hereafter. We live on”—and now she spoke with glorious feeling—“but, Werther, do we meet again? Shall we recognize each other? What do you feel? What do you believe?”
“Lotte,” I said, stretching out my hand to her, and my eyes were filled with tears, “we shall meet again. Here and there…we shall meet again.” I could say no more. William, did she have to ask me that just when my heart was full of this dreadful separation?
“And I often wonder,” she went on, “if our dear departed ones can see us. Do they know it, when all goes well with us, that we remember and love them? I can feel my mother with me always when I sit with her children…my children…in the quiet of evening, and they crowd around me as they used to crowd around her. Then, when I look up to heaven, my eyes filled with tears of longing, and wish that she could look down at us, if only for a moment, and see how I have kept the promise I made to her when she was dying…that I would be a mother to her children—oh, with what a wealth of feeling my heart cries out to her then, ‘Forgive me, beloved, if I cannot be to them what you were. I do my best…I dress them and feed them and…oh, what more can we do than cherish and love one another? If you could see the harmony between us, oh my blessed mother, you would praise and thank the good Lord to whom you prayed for the well-being of your children with your last bitter tears.’”
That is what she said. But William, who can possibly repeat what she said? How can cold, dead letters express the heavenly revelation of her spirit? Albert interrupted her gently by saying, “Dear Lotte, you take these things too much to heart. I know that such ideas mean a great deal to you, but please…”
“Oh, Albert,” she said, “I know you haven’t forgotten the evenings when we sat at the little round table…. Papa was away and we had sent the little ones to bed. You often brought a good book with you, but seldom had the opportunity to read aloud from it because…oh, wasn’t it worth more than anything to listen to her? What a wonderful spirit she had, what a beautiful, gentle soul she was—and never, never idle. God knows the tears I have shed, kneeling at my bedside and praying to God that He might make me like her.”
“Lotte!” I cried, kneeling down beside her, and my tears fell on her hand as I took it in mine. “Lotte, the grace of God is upon you, and you are filled with the spirit of your mother.”
“If only you had known her,” she said, pressing my hand. “She deserved that you should have known her!”
It took my breath away. Never had anyone said anything so glorious to me.
“And she had to die in the prime of life,” Lotte continued, “when her youngest son was not yet six months old. She was not ill for long. She was so calm, so resigned. Only when she saw her children did she feel pain, especially the baby. When the end was near, she said to me, ‘Bring them up to me,’ and I did as she asked. The younger ones, they didn’t know…and the older ones, who didn’t comprehend…they stood around her bed. She lifted her hand and prayed for them and kissed them one by one and sent them away again. Then she said to me, ‘Be a mother to them.’
I promised her I would and gave her my hand on it. ‘You promise a great deal, my child,’ she said. ‘A mother’s heart…a mother’s eyes…your tears of gratitude have told me often that you know what they mean. Feel like that for your brothers and sisters, and for your father have the loyalty and obedience of a wife and you will be a comfort to him.’ She asked after him. He had gone out, torn by his anguish, to hide his unbearable grief.
“Albert, you were in the room. She could hear someone walking up and
