When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and disorder.  I could scarcely reach my room.  A thousand ideas floated through my mind.  At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my heart.  It was to die.  Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your husband—­you—­myself.

What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband?  He may be so for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you—­to wish to tear you from his embrace.  Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the punishment—­but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin.  I have inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine; yes, Charlotte, you are mine.  I do not dream, I do not rave.  Drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer.  We shall exist; we shall see each other again.

I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made sacred by your touch.  How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte.  Since the first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you.  This ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday.  How confused it all appears.  Little did I think then that I should journey on this road.  But peace, I pray you, peace.

Both my pistols are loaded.  The clock strikes twelve.  I say Amen.  Charlotte!  Charlotte!  Farewell!  Farewell!

* * * * *

Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

Goethe’s prestige was enormously increased by the publication in 1796 of “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” ("Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre").  Representing the fruit of twenty years’ labour, it was, like “Faust,” written in fragments during the ripest period of his intellectual activity.  The story of “Wilhelm Meister” is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of his prose works.  It is more mellow than “Werther,” and the action moves slower.  Incident follows incident in a leisurely fashion.  The keen psychological analysis in the story is assumed to have been derived from Goethe’s own experience.  “Wilhelm Meister” was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few years ago, but with no marked success.

I.—­On the Road

The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking forward as to the last of her life.  Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved, was departing on a long journey in connection with his father’s business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.

“I am miserable,” she exclaimed, “miserable for life!  I love him, and he loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive it.  Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me—­”

Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father’s business, and earn his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn.  This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo, manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.