Marie von Leuthen was the woman of his love, and she it was who had entreated him to go to Italy, that he might recover from the wounds life had inflicted, his grief be healed, and hope restored to his heart.
“Go,” she had said to him, “Italy and art will be a healing balm for your wounds. Recover from them, and return after two years, renewed in mind and constant in heart, and I will give you a joyful answer if you then ask me if I love you.”
Philip Moritz had journeyed to Italy as she bade him. On arriving in Rome he learned that Goethe had been in the city for some time. Moritz at once sought out his adored poet, and since then they had been close comrades. He admired and worshipped Goethe, who tenderly loved the friend (who was often so gloomy, and whose merriment was often exaggerated), in spite of his peculiarities. Together they visited the treasures of art in Rome; together they made excursions to the neighboring villages and places of interest, on foot or on horseback, as the case might be. On an excursion of this kind to Frascati, Moritz had been thrown from his horse, and had his arm broken. Goethe had nursed him like a brother; for long days and weeks he had been the sufferer’s only consoler and associate.
“I have just left Moritz,” he wrote on one occasion to Madame von Stein. “The bandages were to-day removed from his arm, and it appears to be doing well. What I have experienced and learned at the bedside of this sufferer, in the last two weeks, may be of benefit to us both in the future. During this period he was perpetually alternating between the greatest misery and the highest delight.”[35]
This “greatest misery” the poor hypochondriac had borne in silence. The “highest delight,” he had shared with his happier friend, with Goethe, the favorite of the gods.
In the autumn they had both left Rome, and gone out to Castel Gandolfo, to pay a visit to the house of a hospitable friend. Many eminent poets and artists were sojourning at this charming place at that time. Gayety and merriment was the order of the day. It was in vain that Goethe endeavored to draw his friend Moritz into this magic circle of enjoyment. It grieved him deeply to see his friend brooding over his studies, to see the sad and gloomy expression that rested on his features. Goethe’s entreaties and exhortations were at times successful in arousing him from this condition; but, after a short interval of forced gayety and mocking merriment, he would relapse into his ordinary state of silent melancholy.
“Let us live as God’s children in His glorious world!”
Moritz raised his pale countenance from the book over which he had been brooding, and looked tenderly, and yet sadly, at Goethe.
“Happy, enviable man,” said he. “But who can feel and think as you do?”
“You can, Moritz, if you only try,” cried Goethe. “But, above all, tell me what burden is resting on your soul, and what these wrinkles on my friend’s brow mean.”