But, when she raised her head, she shuddered. She had again encountered the prince royal’s glance. The dagger pierced her heart for the third time, and the warning voice in her soul whispered for the third time: “Beware of the prince royal! He is the avenging angel destined to punish you!”
CHAPTER XI.
YOUTH VICTORIOUS.
Charlotte von Stein sat in her garden pavilion, anxiously awaiting him for whom it had never been necessary to wait in former days. She had already given him three invitations to pay her a morning visit in the little pavilion in which his protestations of love had so often resounded. But these tender invitations had not been accepted. He had always found some pretext for avoiding this tête-à-tête in Charlotte’s pavilion; he was too busy, had commenced some work which he desired to finish without interruption, or was troubled with toothache.
But Charlotte would not understand that he made these excuses in order to give the dark cloud that hung over them both time to pass away. With the obstinate boldness so often characteristic of intelligent women who have been much courted, and which prompts them rather to cut the Gordian knot with the sword than to unravel it slowly with their skilful fingers, Charlotte von Stein had for the fourth time entreated him to grant the desired interview, and Goethe at last consented.
Charlotte was now awaiting him; she gazed intently at the doorway, and her heart beat wildly. But she determined to be composed, to meet him in a mild and gentle manner. She knew that Goethe detested any exhibition of anger or violence in women. She was also well aware that he was very restive under reproach. Charlotte knew this, and was determined to give him no cause for displeasure. She desired to see this monarch bound in her silken toils once more; she desired to see the vanquished hero walk before her triumphal car as in the past. “I cannot break with him,” said she, “for I feel that I still love him; moreover, it would be very disagreeable to be spoken of by posterity as the discarded sweetheart of the celebrated poet! No, no! I will be reconciled to him, and all shall be as it was before! All! And now be quiet, my heart, be quiet!”
She took a book from the table before which she was sitting, regardless of what it might be; her object was to collect her thoughts, and compel her mind to be quiet. She opened the book, and looked at it with an air of indifference. It was a volume of Voltaire’s works, which Goethe had sent the day before, when she had written him a note requesting him to let her have something to read. She remembered this now, and also remembered that she had as yet read nothing in the volume. Perhaps she would still have time to make good this omission; Goethe might ask her about the book. She read listlessly, in various parts of the work; suddenly this passage attracted her attention:
“Qui n’a pas l’esprit de son âge