But no sad fate could await him and Molly, and blithely he sang as he rode in the clear moonlight towards Weimar to visit Molly.
He would fain come unexpected, and unexpected he came.
And welcome they made him. Wine-cups filled to the brim, distinguished company, a comfortable room, all these he found, but it was not as he had pictured it, dreamed of it.
Poor Anthony could not make it out, could not understand them, but we can. We know how one may be in the midst of others and yet be solitary; how one talks as fellow-voyagers in a post-chaise, boring one another, and each wishing the other far away.
One day Molly spoke to him. "I am straight-forward, I will tell you all. Since we were playmates together much has altered. It is not only an outward change in me, you see. Habit and will do not control our affections. I wish you well, Anthony, and would not have you bitter towards me when I am far away, but love, deep love, I cannot feel for you. Fare thee well!"
So Anthony bade her farewell. No tear bedimmed his eye, but he felt he had lost a friend. Within four and twenty hours he was back in Eisenach; the horse that bore him, bore him no more.
"What matter?" said he, "I am lost. I will destroy whatever reminds me of the Lady Holle. The apple tree—I will uproot it, shatter it. Never more shall it bloom and bear fruit."
But the tree was not injured. Anthony lay on his bed, stricken with fever. What can avail him. Suddenly a medicine, the bitterest medicine known to man, cured his fever, convulsing body and soul. Anthony's father was no longer the rich merchant he had been!