My early affection for Gretchen I had now transferred to one Annette (Aennchen), of whom I can say nothing more than that she was young, handsome, sprightly, loving, and so agreeable that she well deserved to be set up for a time in the shrine of the heart as a little saint, that she might receive all that reverence which it often causes more pleasure to bestow than to receive. I saw her daily without hindrance; she helped to prepare the meals which I enjoyed, she brought, in the evening at least, the wine which I drank, and indeed our select club of noon-day boarders was a warranty that the little house, which was visited by few guests except during the fair, well merited its good reputation. Opportunity and inclination were found for various kinds of amusement. But as she neither could nor dared go much out of the house, the pastime was somewhat limited. We sang the songs of Zachariä, played the Duke Michael of Krüger, in which a knotted handkerchief had to take the place of the nightingale; and so, for a while, it went on quite tolerably. But since such connexions, the more innocent they are, afford the less variety in the long run,—so was I seized with that wicked distemper which seduces us to derive amusement from the torment of a beloved one, and to domineer over a girl's devotedness with wanton and tyrannical caprice. My ill-humour at the failure of my poetical attempts, at the apparent impossibility of coming to a clear understanding about them, and at everything else that might pinch me here and there, I thought I might vent on her, because she truly loved me with all her heart, and did whatever she could to please me. By unfounded and absurd fits of jealousy, I destroyed our most delightful days both for myself and her. She endured it for a time with incredible patience, which I was cruel enough to try to the uttermost. But to my shame and despair I was at last forced to remark that her heart was alienated from me, and that I might now have good ground for the madness in which I had indulged without necessity and without cause. There were also terrible scenes between us, in which I gained nothing; and I then first felt that I had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose her. My passion grew, and assumed all the forms of which it is capable under such circumstances; nay, at last I even took up the rôle which the girl had hitherto played. I sought everything possible in order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again. But it was too late! I had lost her really, and the frenzy with which I revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under which I lost some of the best years of my life; indeed I should perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my poetic talent here shown itself particularly helpful with its healing power.
Die Laune Des Verliebten.
Already, at many intervals before, I had clearly enough perceived my ill-conduct. I really pitied the poor child, when I saw her so thoroughly wounded by me, without necessity. I pictured to myself so often and so circumstantially, her condition and my own, and, as a contrast, the contented state of another couple in our company, that at last I could not forbear treating this situation dramatically, as a painful and instructive penance. Hence arose the oldest of my extant dramatic labours, the little piece entitled, Die Laune des Verliebten (The Lover's Caprice); in the simple nature of which one may at the same time perceive the impetus of a boiling passion.
But before this, a deep, significant, impulsive world had already interested me. Through my adventure with Gretchen and its consequences, I had early looked into the strange labyrinths by which civil society is undermined. Religion, morals, law, rank, connexions, custom, all rule only the surface of city existence. The streets, bordered by splendid houses, are kept neat, and every one behaves himself there properly enough; but indoors, it often seems only so much the more disordered; and a smooth exterior, like a thin coat of mortar, plasters over many a rotten wall that tumbles together overnight, and produces an effect the more frightful, as it comes into the midst of a condition of repose. How many families, far and near, had I not already seen, either overwhelmed in ruin or kept miserably hanging on the brink of it, by means of bankruptcies, divorces, seduced daughters, murders, house-robberies, poisonings; and young as I was, I had often, in such cases, lent a hand for help and preservation. For as my frankness awakened confidence, as my secresy was proved, as my activity feared no sacrifice, and loved best to exert itself in the most dangerous affairs, I had often enough found opportunity to mediate, to hush up, to divert the lightning-flash, with every other assistance of the kind; in the course of which, as well in my own person as through others, I could not fail to come to the knowledge of many afflicting and humiliating facts. To relieve myself I designed several plays, and wrote the arguments[2] of most of them. But since the intrigues were always obliged to be painful, and almost all these pieces threatened a tragical conclusion, I let them drop one after another. Die Mitschuldigen (The Fellow-sinners) is the only one that was finished, the cheerful and burlesque tone of which upon the gloomy family-ground appears as if accompanied by somewhat of apprehension, so that on the whole it is painful in representation, although it pleases in detached passages. The illegal deeds, harshly expressed, wound the æsthetic and moral feeling, and the piece could therefore find no favour on the German stage, although the imitations of it, which steered clear of those rocks, were received with applause.
Both the above-mentioned pieces were however written from a more elevated point of view, without my having been aware of it. They direct us to a considerate forbearance in casting moral imputations, and in somewhat harsh and coarse touches sportively express that most Christian maxim: Let him who is without sin among you, cast the first stone.
Youthful Pranks.
Through this earnestness, which cast a gloom over my first pieces, I committed the fault of neglecting very favourable materials which lay quite decidedly in my natural disposition. In the midst of these serious, and for a young man, fearful experiences, was developed in me a reckless humour, which feels itself superior to the moment, and not only fears no danger, but rather wantonly courts it. The ground of this lay in the exuberance of spirits in which the vigorous time of life so much delights, and which, if it manifests itself in a frolicsome way, causes much pleasure, both at the moment and in remembrance. These things are so usual that in the vocabulary of our young university friends they are called Suites, and on account of the close similarity of signification, to say "play suites," means just the same as to "play pranks."[3]
Such humorous acts of daring, brought on the theatre with wit and sense, are of the greatest effect. They are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. Beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his Figaro spring pre-eminently from this. If now such good-humoured roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are æsthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as for instance the opera of the Water-Carrier treats perhaps the happiest subject which we have ever yet seen upon the stage.
To enliven the endless tedium of daily life, I played off numberless tricks of the sort, partly without any aim at all, partly in the service of my friends whom I liked to please. For myself, I could not say that I had once acted in this designedly, nor did I ever happen to consider a feat of the kind as a subject for art. Had I, however, seized upon and elaborated such materials, which were so close at hand, my earliest labours would have been more cheerful and available. Some incidents of this kind occur indeed later, but isolated and without design. For since the heart always lies nearer to us than the head, and gives us trouble when the latter knows well how to help itself, so the affairs of the heart had always appeared to me as the most important. I was never weary of reflecting upon the transient nature of attachments, the mutability of human character, moral sensuality, and all the heights and depths, the combination of which in our nature may be considered as the riddle of human life. Here, too, I sought to get rid of that which troubled me, in a song, an epigram, in some kind of rhyme, which, since they referred to the most private feelings and the most peculiar circumstances, could scarcely interest any one but myself.
In the meanwhile, my external position had very much changed after the lapse of a short time. Madame Böhme, after a long and melancholy illness, had at last died; she had latterly ceased to admit me to her presence. Her husband could not be particularly satisfied with me; I seemed to him not sufficiently industrious, and too frivolous. He especially took it very ill of me, when it was told him that, at the lectures on German Public Law, instead of taking proper notes, I had been drawing on the margin of my note-book the personages presented to our notice in them, such as the President of the Chamber, the Moderators and Assessors, in strange wigs; and by this drollery had disturbed my attentive neighbours and set them laughing. After the loss of his wife he lived still more retired than before, and at last I shunned him in order to avoid his reproaches. But it was peculiarly unfortunate that Gellert would not use the power which he might have exercised over us. Indeed he had not time to play the father-confessor, and to inquire after the character and faults of everybody; he therefore took the matter very much in the lump, and thought to curb us by means of the church forms. For this reason, commonly, when he once admitted us to his presence, he used to lower his little head, and, in his weeping, winning voice, to ask us whether we went regularly to church, who was our confessor, and whether we took the holy communion? If now we came off badly at this examination we were dismissed with lamentations; we were more vexed than edified, yet could not help loving the man heartily.