“See, Charlotte, I do not shudder to take the cold and fatal cup, from which I shall drink the draught of death.  Your hand presents it to me, and I do not tremble.  All, all is now concluded:  the wishes and the hopes of my existence are fulfilled.  With cold, unflinching hand I knock at the brazen portals of Death.  Oh, that I had enjoyed the bliss of dying for you! how gladly would I have sacrificed myself for you; Charlotte!  And could I but restore peace and joy to your bosom, with what resolution, with what joy, would I not meet my fate!  But it is the lot of only a chosen few to shed their blood for their friends, and by their death to augment, a thousand times, the happiness of those by whom they are beloved.

“I wish, Charlotte, to be buried in the dress I wear at present:  it has been rendered sacred by your touch.  I have begged this favour of your father.  My spirit soars above my sepulchre.  I do not wish my pockets to be searched.  The knot of pink ribbon which you wore on your bosom the first time I saw you, surrounded by the children —­ Oh, kiss them a thousand times for me, and tell them the fate of their unhappy friend!  I think I see them playing around me.  The dear children!  How warmly have I been attached to 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 then think that I should journey this road.  But peace!  I pray you, peace!

“They are loaded —­ the clock strikes twelve.  I say amen.  Charlotte, Charlotte! farewell, farewell!”

A neighbour saw the flash, and heard the report of the pistol; but, as everything remained quiet, he thought no more of it.

In the morning, at six o’clock, the servant went into Werther’s room with a candle.  He found his master stretched upon the floor, weltering in his blood, and the pistols at his side.  He called, he took him in his arms, but received no answer.  Life was not yet quite extinct.  The servant ran for a surgeon, and then went to fetch Albert.  Charlotte heard the ringing of the bell:  a cold shudder seized her.  She wakened her husband, and they both rose.  The servant, bathed in tears faltered forth the dreadful news.  Charlotte fell senseless at Albert’s feet.

When the surgeon came to the unfortunate Werther, he was still lying on the floor; and his pulse beat, but his limbs were cold.  The bullet, entering the forehead, over the right eye, had penetrated the skull.  A vein was opened in his right arm:  the blood came, and he still continued to breathe.

From the blood which flowed from the chair, it could be inferred that he had committed the rash act sitting at his bureau, and that he afterward fell upon the floor.  He was found lying on his back near the window.  He was in full-dress costume.

The house, the neighbourhood, and the whole town were immediately in commotion.  Albert arrived.  They had laid Werther on the bed:  his head was bound up, and the paleness of death was upon his face.  His limbs were motionless; but he still breathed, at one time strongly, then weaker —­ his death was momently expected.