Many a time Alide tried to express to Goethe her joy and gratitude, but nothing that she wrote could satisfy her, and it was with many misgivings that she finally dispatched to him a letter. Even this, as soon as it was fairly off, she would have recalled had it been possible. She had not read it over, and had written it so rapidly that she had no recollection of a single word it contained. The next morning, however, all her fears were lost in the glad thought with which she awoke. "He receives it to-day! How near we are together! It is almost as if I could stretch out my hand and press his own there in Strasburg. Perhaps he will come to me when he has read it!" And all day this idea gained in strength upon her, until she had firmly convinced herself that she would see him before night. She even told her sister that Goethe would be with them that evening.
"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Rahel. "And the Stockmars and the Hellers coming to-morrow! But how do you know? Will Max be with him?"
"One question at a time," said Alide, gently, who was a little startled out of her visionary faith by her sister's eagerness. "I cannot answer for Max, and Herr Goethe has not told me he would come; but I think he will be here."
"Oh, pshaw!" said Rahel. "It is one of your ridiculous fancies, Alide. I do not believe a word of it."
CHAPTER VII
IN STRASBOURG
Never before had Goethe found his varied occupations in the city so wearisome as when he resumed them after his brief holiday at the parsonage. Not long before, he had written to a friend that "for the first time he knew what it was to be happy without his heart being engaged. Pleasant people and manifold studies left him no time for feeling. His life was like a sledge-journey, splendid and sounding, but with just as little for the heart as it had much for eyes and ears." But now all was different; he had hone of his previous animation to impart to anything that he attempted. Perhaps had he been able to remain by Alide's side, the fancy so suddenly enkindled would have burnt itself out; but now that he was separated from her, it developed into an absorbing passion which deprived him of all spirit for his ordinary pursuits. Her every charm was infinitely magnified by distance and by the most powerful of imaginations. He found himself forever contrasting the tedium of this enforced absence with the blissful consciousness of life and youth, and "that highest grace of love," which he had known in her presence. He was obliged to renounce his sketching, for it gave his mind too much scope to lose itself in idle reverie as he sat listlessly before his canvas. At any other period of his life, his restlessness, his longing, his depression, and his feverish excitement would have found their surest and safest vent in composition,—in the production of those inimitable songs, each one of which has crystallized a subtle, and what had hitherto appeared an indescribable, condition or emotion of the heart. But just now he had become the disciple of the cynical Herder, who "had so spoiled his hopes and fancies respecting himself that he began to doubt his own capabilities." This master "had torn down the curtain which concealed from Goethe the poverty of German literature, and had, ruthlessly destroyed many of his prejudices; in the sky of his fatherland were but few stars of importance left, and the rest he was now taught to regard as so many transient candle-snuffs." Thus there was nothing left him but to pursue with diligence his serious studies. He devoted himself to jurisprudence as assiduously as was required to take his degree with credit, and he was able finally to interest himself in medicine, because it "disclosed glimpses of Nature, if it did not reveal her on every side." Moreover, he was attached to this science by intercourse and habit.
His appearance changed as conspicuously as his feelings. No one would have recognized this pale, moping youth, as he pored over his books or roused himself to attend a medical lecture or to study every form of disease in the city hospitals, as the wild, buoyant lad who had illustrated with his inspiriting presence and his inexhaustible gifts a day of sunshine at the Duroc parsonage. In society he became so reserved and indifferent that he acquired the nicknames of the "wolf" and the "bear." It was no feeble sentiment that such a man could entertain, for he threw the whole force of his passionate nature into all that attracted and possessed him. He was literally consumed by this hidden fire. One consolation indeed was his,—he could write to her daily, and he could transport himself in imagination to her presence while thus holding communication with her, or even while studying the sketches for the alteration of her home. He busied himself with a thousand plans for the improvement and embellishment of that beloved dwelling, with a thousand fantastic decorations for her own room, and meantime he sent her constantly a new book, a curious ornament, a rare engraving with which to adorn it when all was completed.
Once, and once only, did he receive a letter from her. He had never seen her handwriting, and, coming as it did with half a dozen letters from his family, the modest little missive was thrown carelessly aside until he had read all the details of his home in Frankfort. Then he took it up, vaguely wondering whence it could have come; but he had no sooner broken the seal than the blood rushed into his face, and with a little cry of joy he pressed it to his lips, and read it over and over long after he could repeat it by heart.
"My dear Herr Goethe," wrote Alide, "I have tried many times to write you my thanks for all your goodness to me, for the precious tokens of your affectionate remembrance which you have so constantly sent me, since that happy day, now nearly a month ago, that you passed with us. But everything looks so cold, almost curt, on paper, that I have not dared to send you such poor scraps as I have written. Now, however, I will not let you any longer think me so ungrateful, and I will not read my letter over, so that I may find courage to send it. Besides, when I remember how indulgent you are to me, how you seem to see clearly only that which is genuine in one's heart, I am greatly reassured. Indeed, you are already more like an old friend than many with whom I have been all my life familiar. Do you know, Herr Goethe, that ever since that day I have been as happy as one in a dream? In the morning I awake with a light heart, and think, 'What, then, do I possess which I never knew before?' and then with a great rush of joy it all comes upon me, and with it the hopeful feeling that I shall see you soon again. I do not grow impatient,—it seems to me that I could wait for centuries, knowing that in the end my friend will surely come. Formerly I was hasty, petulant, sometimes even rude; but now nothing vexes me, nothing can come between me and this wonderful new happiness. But I did not mean to write so much when I began. I only wished to thank you for all your gifts, especially the 'Book of Songs,' and, above all, your letters. I must not write again; but do not think of me as sad or impatient, or any other than the happiest girl in the world.
Alide Duroc."