ESTRANGEMENT.
Charlotte von Stein sat before her mirror, anxiously regarding her countenance, and carefully examining each feature and every little wrinkle that was observable on her clear forehead and cheeks.
“No,” said she, with an air of joyous confidence, “no, it is not visible; no one can read it in my face! It is a secret between myself and my certificate of baptism!”
As intelligent as she was, Charlotte von Stein was yet subject to that cowardly fear of her sex—the fear that her age might be read in her countenance. She, too, was wanting in that courage which contents itself with the eternal youth of the mind, and does not demand of its covering that it retain no traces of the rude, unfeeling hand of Time.
A woman who loves has invariably the weakness to desire not to become old, at least in the eyes of him whose image fills her heart—in the eyes of him she loves. She does not consider that, in so doing, she insults the intelligence of the object of her devotion, by admitting that he thinks more of the outward form than of the inner being, and loves with the eyes only, and not with the mind.
In the first years of their acquaintance, and in the incipient stage of their attachment, Charlotte von Stein had always listened to Goethe’s protestations of love with a merry smile, and had invariably replied: “I am too old for you! Remember that I am some years older than you—that I am old enough to be your mother.” When she made this reply, Goethe would laugh, and kiss with passionate tenderness the fair hand of the woman who offered him motherly friendship, and whom he adored with all the ardor of a lover.
But ten long years had passed since then! Charlotte thought of this while looking at herself in the mirror, and she sighed as she admitted to herself that she had committed a fault—a great fault, for she had left the cool regions of motherly tenderness, and had permitted herself to be carried away by the tide of Goethe’s passion; the two flames in her heart had been united into the one godlike flame of love. It had seemed so sweet to be adored by this handsome man, and to listen to his tender protestations and entreaties! It had been so charming to receive each morning a letter filled with passionate assurances of love, and vows of eternal fidelity! She had continued to read these ardent letters until their words glowed in her own heart—until, at last, that day came for the lovers of which Dante says: “On that day they read no more”—the day on which Charlotte confessed to her enraptured lover that his love was reciprocated.
A few days later, Goethe had written: “My FIRST AND BEST FRIEND! I have always had an ideal wish as to how I desired to be loved, and have vainly sought its fulfilment in my illusive dreams. Now that the world seems lighter to me each day, I see it realized in such a manner that it can never be lost again. Farewell, thou fairest prospect of my whole life; farewell, thou only one, in whom I need lose nothing, in order to find all!”[46]
Charlotte had placed this little letter in a golden locket, from which she was never separated; it had been her blissful assurance, her talisman of eternal youth and joy.
She now turned from the mirror that utterly refused to say any thing agreeable, and drew from her bosom her talisman, the locket that contained the relic, the source of so much happiness, love, and delight.