and he answered, “But don’t shoot too soon.”  Lulu, who was inside the carriage, was frightened nearly to death, but where I was, out under the open sky, with my pistol cocked and my sabre buckled on, countless stars twinkled above me, the glistening trees casting their gigantic shadows on the broad, moon-lit way—­all that made me brave away up on my lofty seat!  Then I thought of him and wondered, if he had met me under such circumstances in his youthful years, whether it would not have made so poetic an impression on him that he would have composed sonnets to me and never have forgotten me.  Now perhaps he thinks differently, and has probably risen above such a magic impression.  It may be that higher qualities—­how shall I ever attain them?—­will maintain a right over him, unless eternal fidelity, cleaving to his threshold, finally wins him for me!  Such was my mood on that cold, clear, winter night, in which I found no occasion to shoot off my pistol.  Not until daybreak did I receive permission to fire it.  The carriage stopped and I ran into the forest and bravely shot it off into the dense solitude, in honor of your son.  In the meantime our axle had broken; we felled a tree with an axe we had with us and bound it securely with ropes; then my brother-in-law discovered how handy I was and complimented me.  Thus we went on to Magdeburg.  Precisely at seven o’clock in the evening the fortress gates are closed; we arrived just a minute late and had to wait outside till seven the next morning.  It wasn’t very cold, and the two inside the chaise went to sleep.  In the night it began to snow; I had pulled my cloak over my head and sat quietly in my exposed seat.  In the morning they peeped out of the carriage at me and beheld a snow man; but before they could get thoroughly frightened I threw off the cloak under which I had kept quite warm.  In Berlin I was like a blind man in a throng and was so absent-minded that I could take no interest in anything.  I only longed for a dark place where I shouldn’t be disturbed and could think of the future that was so near at hand.  Oh, mother, mother, think of your son!  If you knew you were to see him in a short time, you too would be like a lightning-rod attracting every flash of lightning.  When we were only a few miles from Weimar, my brother-in-law said he did not wish to make the detour through Weimar, but would rather take another road.  I remained silent, but Lulu would not hear of it; she said it had been promised me and he would have to keep his word.  Oh, mother, the sword hung by a hair over my head, but I managed to escape from under it.

We reached Weimar at twelve o’clock and sat down to dinner, but I couldn’t eat.  The other two lay down on the sofa and went to sleep, for we hadn’t slept in three nights.  “I advise you,” said my brother-in-law, “to take a rest too; it won’t make much difference to Goethe whether you go to see him or not, and there’s nothing remarkable to see in him anyway.”