From time to time Goethe worked at a scheme very different from “Die Natürliche Tochter.” Schiller had been greatly impressed by the fragment of “Faust” published in 1790, and in season and out of season urged and entreated him to complete it. Goethe himself had a secret consciousness that this was to be the highest of his achievements, and took advantage of every favourable mood to return to it. He was in no hurry, however, to bring the work to an end. All the deepest elements of his life were being expressed in it, and he could afford to let the harvest ripen slowly.
Early in 1801 Goethe had a serious illness, and for a good many years afterwards he was liable to attacks of a painful malady. Schiller also suffered from bad health, and it was too certain that his life would not be greatly prolonged. The crisis came in the spring of 1805. Schiller and Goethe had both been ill, but on the 29th of April Goethe felt well enough to visit his friend. Schiller was about to go to the play, and Goethe would not hear of his changing his plan. So they parted, never to see one another again. While in his place in the theatre Schiller caught a severe chill, and on the 9th of May he died.
Goethe, who was confined to his room, suspected, when he heard of Schiller’s condition, that the result would be fatal. “Destiny is inexorable,” he said, sadly; “man of little moment.” When the tidings of death were brought to his house, Meyer, who was spending the evening with him, was called out of the room. He had not courage to give so dreadful a message, and went away without taking leave. Something in the manner of the members of his household made Goethe uneasy, but he would not put his doubts at rest by asking any direct question. “I observe,” he said to Christiane, “that Schiller must be very ill.” During the night he was heard to sob loudly. Next morning, again addressing Christiane, he said, “It is true, is it not, that Schiller was very ill yesterday?” Christiane burst into tears. “He is dead?” asked Goethe, in a firm voice. Christiane, still crying, at last told him the bitter truth. “He is dead!” Goethe repeated, and covered his eyes with his hand. He had never lived through a sadder moment, and for several days no one dared to mention Schiller’s name in his presence.
CHAPTER IX.
AT the time of Schiller’s death, days of terrible public disaster were swiftly approaching. In the summer of 1806 the Confederation of the Rhine was formed, and the rickety Holy Roman Empire fell to pieces. Shortly afterwards came the war in which Prussia, as an independent kingdom, was all but annihilated. The decisive battle was fought near Jena on October 14, 1806, and in the morning, standing with his family in the garden behind his house, Goethe heard the distant boom of cannon. Later in the day a skirmish was fought near the garden between some French and Prussian troops. When all was over, the French broke into the town, and plundered the inhabitants to their hearts’ content, for, as the Duke of Weimar was an ally of the King of Prussia, his capital was held by the victors to be fair game. Two wild French soldiers burst into Goethe’s house, and his life would probably have been lost but for the presence of mind of Christiane, who was able to secure help in time to avert a calamity.
On the day after the battle Napoleon himself entered the town, and on the 16th he ordered that the harrying should be brought to an end. He would probably have deprived the Duke of his territory but for the influence of the Duchess, for whom the French Emperor had high respect. The Duke was allowed to retain sovereign power on condition that he should at once withdraw from the Prussian army. Soon afterwards he was compelled to join the Confederation of the Rhine, and he had also to pay a huge indemnity.
Much energy had to be expended before the desolation due to these fearful days could be made good. The people, however, set to work with a will, and in the well-tried Minister, Goethe, they found the guidance and support they needed. He was full of resource and courage, saw exactly what had to be done, and the means of doing it, and stimulated every one by the example of his own zeal and activity. At this great testing-time, when Goethe’s character shone forth in all its radiance, the inhabitants of the Duchy would have been much astonished if they had heard what afterwards became the foolish parrot-cry about his being an “egoist,” a “Pagan,” a man indifferent to the welfare of his neighbours, and caring only for his own culture. They would have felt that, if the cry was true, Goethe’s “egoism” had a strange resemblance to other people’s unselfishness.
Meanwhile, a great event had happened in Goethe’s life. Christiane had become his wife, not only in reality, but in name. Many a time he had felt bitterly that he had committed a terrible mistake in defying, in this matter, the ordinary customs of society. He had paid a heavy penalty for the assertion of his independence; for the presence of Christiane in his house in a position which—although perfectly honourable, so far as his own feeling was concerned—was misunderstood by the rest of the world, had been an occasion of much wretchedness both to her and to him. Moreover, his ideas about the respect due from the individual to great social rules had undergone a complete change. He himself needed no ceremony to bind his conscience, but he felt, as he had not felt eighteen years earlier, that a ceremony might be essential in the interests of the community at large. So, anxious that in a time of public confusion her true position should be put beyond doubt, he wrote to the Court preacher of Weimar, saying that a purpose which had often been in his mind had come to maturity—and might the formal union be concluded on the following Sunday or earlier? On Sunday, October 19, 1806, Goethe and Christiane became, in the face of the world, what they had all along been in their own esteem, husband and wife. The only persons present were their son August and Goethe’s secretary, Riemer.
August was now a youth of seventeen, and had already been legitimated. He was a handsome young fellow, with dark hair and dark eyes, and endowed with good abilities. He was idolized by his father, and no one could please Goethe better than by showing kindness to his boy. About two years after the marriage August went to Heidelberg to study law, and it was with a heavy heart that Goethe let him go.
About this time Weimar became the home of Johanna Schopenhauer, the novelist, the mother of one of the most illustrious philosophers of the modern world. She was very bright and clever, and had an intense admiration for Goethe. “He is,” she wrote, “the most perfect being I know, even in appearance. A tall, fine figure, which holds itself erect, very carefully clad, always in black or quite dark blue, the hair tastefully dressed and powdered, as becomes his age, and a splendid face with two lustrous brown eyes, which are at once mild and penetrating.” Goethe was grateful to Frau Schopenhauer for receiving his wife with the respect that was her due. Not every woman of her standing was equally considerate.