"You must ask papa and Otto to come in and see me once more," she went on, with great effort. "But first, mamma, will you promise me, and you too, Rahel, before I go, to forgive him,—forgive him even in your thoughts?—for it is not he who was to blame: he was generous and true to the last; but it was not to be. I did not think this would be the end of all those happy days. But, believe me, it is not his fault. Tell me that you forgive him,—that you forgive me."
What could Madame Duroc answer in the anguish of such a moment, save that she would grant that touching prayer, for the sake of the very child who had been his victim? But the effort had been too much for Alide, and before her mother's words died in her ears she had relapsed into a swoon.
And yet that hour was not the last, it was only the crisis of Alide's existence. Slowly, gradually, and painfully they won her back to life. It was a colorless and joyless life enough; and nevertheless she learned that it could be endured, yes, even cherished, without the element of hope or the possibility of happiness. The tender devotion of those around her made her accuse herself on her knees to Heaven, of basest ingratitude, if for a moment she succumbed to the hungry longing and pain of her heart and wished that she had been permitted to drift away from all trouble and desire. She learned the significance and the beauty of those divine words,—duty and resignation; and, as the slow time wore away, she even found that a quiet pleasure could steal into certain days and shed a subdued radiance over her sheltered, monotonous life. She found herself capable of a sympathy with the happiness of others, a calm and serious enjoyment of much that had formerly delighted her, and a pious satisfaction in the daily victory over her own heart.
There was no need for her to retire behind the grated walls of a convent. Hers were the constant chastity, the exalted faith, the meek submission of the nun; but she found ample scope for the exercise of all womanly virtue among those whose love had rescued her from the grave, in her own pastoral home, where on every side she came in personal contact with human trouble and human joy.
CHAPTER XVIII
LETTERS
A few weeks after Goethe's arrival in Frankfort he wrote the following letter to Alide:
"FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN, Sept. 25, 1771.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,—I have only an hour ago, and in a quite accidental manner, heard of your recent illness. I can think of nothing else until I have expressed the sympathy and concern which I feel for you, and begged you to send me, as soon as you are able, a reassuring word of your convalescence, or, still better, your complete restoration. Fortunately for me, the tidings that you were already on the road to recovery came at the same time with those of your attack: so I have been spared the anxiety and suspense of thinking that a life which is so dear to me is actually endangered. Nevertheless, a strange, superstitious dread still haunts my heart, and my spirit is unaccountably oppressed. I cannot help associating this illness, which comes so soon after my departure, with the rupture of our affectionate, intimate relations. Can it be that you have suffered through me,—you whom I retain in my memory as an ideal of all that is precious and lovely in woman? I torment myself with a thousand questions, a thousand useless surmises. Can it be I who was to blame? I, who would not wittingly injure a hair of that golden little head which I have so often pressed to my lips? Surely, my friend, this may not be. And yet why does the thought constantly recur to my mind? Was it not yourself who saw that our union was incongruous, impossible? And since my return to Frankfort I am more than ever convinced that all your views were just and correct. I feel ceaselessly impelled to a larger and wider circle of activity; all is restless and at boiling heat within me, everything seethes and ferments in my mind and spirit. What I shall accomplish I scarcely know as yet, but I feel that I shall accomplish much. I cannot sufficiently admire your courage in confronting the necessity of our situation and daring to utter the truth for the sake of our future welfare at the risk of so much present pain. Meantime, dear friend, to whom I owe so many memorable hours of tranquil happiness, do we not clasp hands in closest, warmest friendship still? I long to hear from you the reassuring word, and am, with heartfelt wishes for your speedy restoration to health,
Your true
"Goethe."
"Please present my sincere regards to your dear parents, and recall me to the recollection of my good Fräulein Rahel."
In due time he received the following reply:
"SESENHEIM, October 8, 1771.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,—It is true that I have been ill; but I am already fast regaining my former health and spirits, and I cannot be grateful enough that my strength held out to the end. It was not till all was over that I succumbed. I feel as one who has been dead, and I seem to have won the right to speak to you from my heart without reserve or timidity, for the last time. No, you are not to blame for the rupture of our relations: reassure yourself on that point, dear friend. I have not to reproach you with a harsh word, an unkind look, throughout the course of our year's intimacy. Always gentle, generous, and noble, I will hold you in my memory as I knew you. But when you praised me, Goethe, in the arbor, for my 'heroism in speaking the truth fearlessly and simply,' every word I had uttered was a lie. God pardon me! but never for a moment, since I had first learned to love you, had I felt that I could not for your sake sacrifice parents, home, and life itself to follow and to serve you. A word, a gesture, a single impulse of the old tenderness, would have brought me to your side again, and made me deny every word I had that minute spoken. But it was not to be, and I knew it before I began. It was not there that I renounced you. I could easily then assume indifference, for the blow had long since been struck. It was in Strasburg, the day after your visit from Herr Breitkopf, that I said farewell to you in my heart. From that morning I knew that all was at an end between us. I watched you closely, jealously, and everything confirmed my fears. As soon as I was assured of the truth, I took my resolution. Dearly as I loved you, I could not have borne from you the cold neglect, the daily slights and wounds, which I foresaw from a continuation of our existing relations. I wronged you, Goethe: you were generous and upright to the last; but I knew that to ask me in marriage was a sacrifice of your dearest hopes and aspirations. Could I accept a union without love or sympathy? Not only for your sake, but selfishly for my own, I knew that I must reject it absolutely then and there. I thank God again and again that my purpose held firm, my strength endured till the end. Cease to reproach yourself, dear friend: these are events that could not have been foreseen. How could we choose but love each other? But you were destined for a lofty career, and God will chasten me for my foolish weakness.
"I have indeed been very ill, and caused my poor mother and all around me much anxiety. I am glad to be well again, for their sake and for my own. I could not have died with that lie upon my lips. I have not suffered much: it was nothing but a great weariness and exhaustion; and it has now passed away entirely.
"Rahel is to be married in a fortnight. Poor papa and mamma will be so lonely without her that it is a comfort to me to be with them. As long as I feel that my life is useful and almost necessary to these who are so dear to me, I cannot be quite unhappy. But I shall always be alone. The heart that has once loved Goethe can never love again.
"Pray do not write to me; it is best that we should remain apart. Only believe in the friendship of
"ALIDE DUROC."
"Alide's answer," says Goethe, "to the letter in which I had bidden her adieu tore my heart. I now for the first time became aware of her bereavement, and saw no possibility of alleviating it. She was ever in my thoughts; I felt that she was wanting to me, and, worst of all, I could not forgive myself. Gretchen had been taken from me, Annette had left me; but now for the first time I was guilty: I had wounded to its very depths one of the most beautiful and tender of hearts. And that period of gloomy repentance, bereft of the love which had so invigorated me, was agonizing, insupportable. But man will live. Under the broad, open sky, on the heights or in the valleys, in the fields and through the woods, my mind regained some of its calmness. I almost lived on the road, wandering between the mountains and the plains. Often I went alone, or in company, right through my native city, as though I were a stranger in it, dining at one of the great inns in the High Street, and after dinner pursuing my way. I turned more than ever to the open world and to nature; there alone I found comfort."