“So he was once a happy man?” I asked.
“Ah, if only I could be like that again,” he replied. “How happy I used to feel in those days—so merry, like a fish in water.”
“Henry!” cried an old woman who now came up the path. “Henry, where are you? We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come and eat.”
“Is that your son?” I asked, stepping forward.
“Indeed he is my poor son,” she said. “God has given me a heavy cross to bear.”
“How long has he been that way?” I asked.
“Quiet like that,” she said, “he has been only for the past six months. God be thanked that he is as he is now. The year before, he was a raving maniac and they had to keep him chained in the madhouse. Now he does no harm, but he is always troubled, his kings and emperors on his mind. He was such a good, quiet lad who helped toward my support and could write a pretty hand, but suddenly he became despondent and fell into a violent fever, and from that into raving madness, and now he is as you see him. If I were to tell you, sir—”
I interrupted her flood of words with the question, “What sort of time was it that he praises so highly, when he was so happy, so content?”
“The fool,” she cried, with a pitying smile. “He means the time he was deranged, the time he spent in the madhouse, when he didn’t know what was going on around him—that’s the time he is forever praising so highly.”
It struck me like a thunderbolt. I pressed a coin into her hand and hurried away.
“So that was when you were happy!” I cried aloud, as I hastened back to town. “When you felt like a fish in water!” Oh dear God in heaven, hast Thou made it man’s fate that he cannot be happy until he has found his reason and lost it again? Poor wretch! Yet how I envy him his dim mind, envy him pining away in his confusion. He goes out hopefully in the winter to pick flowers for his queen and grieves when he finds none and can’t grasp when he finds none…and I? I go out without hope in my heart, with no purpose, and return home as I went. He can see the man he would be if only the Netherlands would pay him. Fortunate fellow! He can ascribe his lack of bliss to an earthly hindrance. He doesn’t feel, he doesn’t even know, that his misery lies in his destroyed heart, in his disordered mind—a fate from which all the kings on earth cannot save him!
The miserable wretch should perish who dares to mock a sick man journeying to a far-off healing spring that will only make his sickness worse and the rest of his days more painful; and so should he who looks down arrogantly on a man with a sorely afflicted heart who, to rid himself of his guilty conscience and cast off the sufferings of his soul, makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher. Every step he takes on an unbeaten track is balm to his fearful soul, and with every day of his journey endured, his heart rests lightened of many anxieties. And you dare to call it madness, you sophists on your downy cushions? Madness?
O God, Thou dost see my tears. Why didst Thou, Who made man poor, have to give him brothers who would rob him even of the little he has, of the little faith he has in Thee, Thou all-loving God? For what is faith in a healing root or in the tears of the grapevine but faith in Thee, in that Thou hast imbued all that surrounds us with the powers of salvation and the forces that ease pain, of which we stand in hourly need.
Father Whom I know not, Father Who once filled my whole soul but has turned His face from me now—call me unto Thee. Be silent no longer. Thy silence will not deter this thirsting soul. Could any man—could any father—be angry with a son who comes back unexpectedly and throws his arms around his neck, crying, “Here I am, returned to thee, my father. Be not angry that I interrupted my wanderings, which according to Thy will, I should have endured longer. The world is the same everywhere—in effort and work, in reward and joy—but what concern is it of mine? Only where Thou art can I be content. There I will suffer and rejoice.” Wouldst Thou, dear heavenly Father, cast out such a man?
December 1st
William! The fellow I wrote to you about, that fortunate unfortunate man, was once secretary to Lotte’s father, and his passionate love for her—which he nurtured, concealed, but finally disclosed, and because of which he was dismissed—drove him mad. Try to feel, as you read these dry words, with what derangement they filled me when Albert mentioned it to me just as casually as you read about it now.
December 4th
I beg of you…look…I am done for. I cannot endure it a moment longer. Today I was with her…she was sitting…she was playing the piano…different pieces, and with so much expression…with so much…with so much…What do you want me to do? Her little sister was sitting on my knee, dressing her doll. Tears rushed to my eyes. I leaned forward and suddenly could see nothing but Lotte’s wedding ring, and my tears flowed. And all of a sudden, as if by chance, she began to play that old, heavenly sweet melody, and I was consoled. And my soul was filled with the recollection of things past, of other times when I had listened to the song, and the dark intervals, the grief, the hopes dashed, and then…I started to pace the room, up and down, my heart stifled with the pressure of these memories. “For God’s sake,” I said, turning on her with a vehemence I could not control, “for God’s sake, stop!”
She did and stared at me wide-eyed. “Werther,” she said, with a little smile that cut me to the quick, “Werther, you are ill. Your favorite things are repugnant to you. Go. I beg of you, go and try to calm down.” I tore myself away and…dear God, Thou seest my misery. Put an end to it, I beseech Thee!
December 6th
How the sight of her haunts me! Awake and dreaming, she fills my whole being. Here, when I close my eyes, here, behind my forehead, where we assemble our insight, I see her dark eyes. Here! I cannot express it adequately. I close my eyes and there they are…hers—like an abyss in front of me, inside me. They fill my whole mind.
What is man, this exalted demigod? Doesn’t he lack power just when he needs it most? Whether he is uplifted by joy or engulfed by suffering, is he not stopped in both conditions and brought back to dull, cold consciousness just when he is ready to lose himself in the abundance of the infinite?
Editor To Reader
How I wish there was enough material left, covering our friend’s last strange days, so that it would not be necessary to interrupt with narrative the flow of the letters he left behind.
I made a point of collecting precise reports from those who of necessity had a thorough knowledge of his story. It is simple, and except for a few details, all the accounts tally. Opinions differ only in accordance with the personalities and opinions of the characters involved.
There is nothing left to do but relate conscientiously what we were able to find out as a result of our meticulous efforts and include, in their proper place, letters that the departed left behind, not overlooking the smallest evidence we may have come across, since it is very difficult to uncover the true motive of even a single action when it takes place among people who are not cut of conventional cloth.
Ill humor and listlessness became more and more deeply rooted in Werther’s soul until finally they took possession of his entire personality. The harmony of his spirit was utterly destroyed, and an inner passion and vehemence that confused all the forces of his nature resulted in the most objectionable effects, leaving him in the end with nothing but a feeling of exhaustion out of which he tried to rise with an even greater fear than he had felt when previously seeking to combat his misery.
His anxiety destroyed all the remaining forces of his intellect, his liveliness, his wit; he became sorry company, waxing ever more unfortunate and unjust as he became increasingly unhappy. At any rate, that is what Albert’s friends say. They declare that Werther could no longer evaluate that decent, quiet man who had at last taken possession of a happiness long desired with the attitude that had to accompany it—the wish to preserve this happiness in the future—not Werther, who expended his all daily only to suffer starvation at nightfall.
Albert, they say, underwent no such change. He was the same man Werther had known from the beginning and learned to appreciate and respect. He loved Lotte above all else; he was proud of her and liked to see everyone else recognize her as a paragon among women. Who can blame him if he did his best to avoid any traces of suspicion and had no desire to share his treasure with anyone, not even in the most innocent fashion? They admit that Albert often left his wife’s room
