What a poor little stiff speech it was, contrasted with the ardor and fluency of his first passionate declaration! She listened quietly, retaining to the end the same steadfast, unmoved expression. They had reached the arbor, and they entered in silence and seated themselves side by side. It was greener and shadier than when they had first met there in the autumn; the golden lights that fell upon their two youthful figures were rarer, but not less brilliant. A blue July haze hung over the landscape.
"I have a confession to make to you, dear friend," said Alide. Her voice was low, even, and natural, save for a somewhat monotonous ring. "It will give you pain, you will think me heartless and weak and foolish, but some day you will thank me that I have spoken in season. A curious change has taken place in me since I returned from Strasburg. I was able to conceal from you, yes, even from myself, how difficult that restricted conventional town-life was to me, but I was as happy as Rahel when it was brought to an end. To see papa once more, the dear old manse, the open meadows,—all this made my heart stir and leap as nothing had since I left them. I had not been at peace with myself in the city. Everything I had been accustomed to cherish seemed there of so little account. And even you, Goethe, your enthusiasms were not mine, your convictions were far different. Whenever you spoke of the Cathedral, I felt a shock and a pang. All the sacred mysteries of our faith, so inestimably precious to me, were naught to you. I was distressed by a thousand conflicting ideas and emotions, I who had been used to see all things simply and clearly. No, I was not happy there; but here I have regained my former contentment and tranquillity. You, dear friend, will advance on a brilliant, an unexampled career; but if I be drawn from my proper element I shall suffocate and die. Is it not better to part at the beginning of the roads, before they diverge too widely? I also have seen something of unhappy marriages. You are not the man, Goethe, to whom a woman should give herself with reserve and restrictions. If I cannot say, 'Wherever you go, I will follow; for you I will sacrifice my parents, my home, my pursuits, my life,—and it will be no sacrifice, but a free and joyous gift,'—if I cannot say that, I know that I have no right to call myself your wife."
She paused, but Goethe was so amazed and bewildered that he made no reply. He had listened to her in a sort of stupor, with his eyes fixed upon the prospect below him, of which he saw nothing. Alide had made her "confession" with as little sentiment as if she were reciting a studied part: her face was unnaturally white, her hands rested listlessly upon her straw hat, which she had taken off and laid upon her lap. But after she had finished speaking, in the moment of silence that ensued, the blood rushed into her cheeks, and a smile, as of the dawning of a new hope, kindled her whole countenance. Still, he neither spoke nor turned towards where she sat. The light died from her face, and a violent shudder ran through her frame; she raised her hand, passed it twice quickly over her brow and eyes, and then, almost involuntarily outstretching it towards Goethe, clasped his own, and, with a supplicating note in her voice strangely at variance with her cold words, she cried, "But, oh, Goethe! surely you will not withdraw from me your friendship?"
He started, and looked at her for the first time during their interview: her cheeks were still flushed, her eyes glittered with a peculiar light which he had never seen in them before. Something of his old tenderness of manner returned as he beheld the beautiful, agitated little face.
"You foolish child," he began, and kissed the icy hand that rested upon his own. "But no: I have not the right to speak to you in this way. You are no child, but a noble, true-hearted woman. To speak the truth as you have done, Alide, simply and fearlessly, requires something heroic. But I will not abide by what you have said: perhaps you have not considered deeply enough your own feelings, perhaps you have judged hastily our mutual position. It is quite natural that you should experience pleasure in seeing your father and your home again, even after so short a separation. Your ideas are somewhat exalted, my child: it is not expected of any woman that she should give up the instincts of her heart, the tender associations of her childhood, even for the man she is to wed. But take time, and reflect again, Alide. I shall not be present to disturb your choice. At the end of a fortnight I will return, and then, if your feelings have changed, you will know that I am still and always your own."
"But they will not change," she answered, with a quiet smile, as she rose to her feet.
They left the arbor in silence, as they had entered, and returned to the house. On the way, however, she began to talk composedly of other things. She made him pluck for her a wild flower that grew on the edge of the brook, saying she had never remarked it before, and asking him its botanical name and genus. He, on his part, was so excited and confounded by what had taken place between them that he could not speak naturally of anything. A burden had been lifted from his heart and his brain, but nevertheless he could not repress a feeling of indignation at seeing her so cold and indifferent. "To think that I was about to sacrifice myself for one so volatile as that!" he said to himself. Then, repeating unwittingly the very words that had occurred to her when they parted at Strasburg, he thought, "This is the end. Can it be that she really does not care?" And he looked at her keenly and scrutinizingly.
No, there was not a trace of passion or grief on that pale, serene face.
The fortnight passed for Goethe in a whirl of activity. A day or two after his visit to Sesenheim he took his degree, gaining his doctorate, and carrying the victory with honor over his worthy opponent. He made preparations at once for leaving Strasburg and returning to his father's home in Frankfort. But, much as the presence of Alide had troubled him of late, in her absence he could not cease to recall her myriad attractions and lovable qualities: at every turn he missed her gentle, affectionate companionship, her equable serenity, her tender, unobtrusive kindness for himself. He wrote to her several times, but, receiving no reply, he waited impatiently for the day of his return to the parsonage, when he was to bid farewell to her for months or forever, according to her own wish. Her silence, however, left him little doubt as to her final decision. "Those were painful days," he wrote later, "of which I remember nothing. When I held out my hand to her from my horse, the tears were in her eyes, and I felt sad at heart."
All was over: she would never cease to think of him with grateful affection and esteem, but she could never be his.