She looked up at him with an inquiring, childlike expression. “Do you believe that my beautiful speech would influence you and promote my brother’s interests? If you believe that, I will speak, for my brother is a dear, good fellow, and I will do any thing to make him happy!”
“Then let us hear it,” replied Goethe, delighted with the fair young girl, whose beauty, grace, and naïveté, reminded him of the lovely Leonora in Rome. Yes, it was she, it was Leonora, with this difference only, that this fair girl was a northern version of the Leonora of the south, but was none the less beautiful on that account. “Oh, Leonora, you child of the sun and of Nature, am I really to be so blessed, am I to find you here again—here where my heart was congealing, and longing for the sunny rays of delight from a fair woman’s eyes? Yes, Leonora, this is your sweet smile and kindling, childlike glance; it is you, and yet it is not you. God and Nature were reflected in your countenance, a whole heaven shone in your features. Fair Nature is reflected in this lovely countenance also, but I seek the divinity in vain, and instead of heaven I find the joyous earth enthroned therein!”
Goethe was occupied with these thoughts while Christiane, blushing, smiling, half-ashamed at times, and then again bold and fearless, was declaiming her well-prepared speech. Too much of what was passing in Goethe’s mind must have been reflected in the tender, ardent glances which rested on her countenance, for she suddenly broke off in the midst of a sentence, murmured a few embarrassed words, blushed, courtesied, and then turned and fled like a startled doe.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TWO POETS.
“She is bewitching,” murmured Goethe, as the beautiful girl was lost to view behind the green bushes that skirted the avenue. “I had no idea that dull, sober Weimar contained such a treasure, and—”
“Goethe! Welcome, Goethe!” cried the joyous voice of a woman behind him; “how delighted I am to meet you here!”
He turned hastily, and saw Madame von Kalb standing before him, on the arm of a tall, fair-haired gentleman. This was the cause of Christiane’s flight. The beautiful girl had seen this lady and gentleman coming. She was, therefore, not only beautiful, she was also discreet and modest. Goethe said this to himself, while he kissed Madame von Kalb’s extended hand, and gayly responded to her greeting.