De son âge n’a que la malheur!”[54]
Strange words these! She felt as if a chilly hand had been laid on her warm, quivering heart. Was the spirit of her age wanting in her? was nothing but its unhappiness portrayed in her faded countenance? With an angry movement she threw the book aside, arose from her seat, and went to her mirror.
“Am I really old? Is the unhappiness of old age really depicted in my countenance, while the spirit of youth and love is at the same time burning in my heart?”
She anxiously scanned her features in search of the handwriting of this inexorable enemy of women, who stalks pitilessly behind their youth and beauty, is their invisible companion on all the rosy paths of life, and who, when he at last becomes visible, drives away all those who had loved, adored, and done homage to their beauty. Charlotte sighed; she recognized this handwriting; the enemy was becoming but too plainly visible! She sighed again.
“Yes, it is written there that I am forty-six years old, and every one can read it! He, too—alas! he, too!” But after a short pause her countenance grew brighter. “Charlotte, you should be ashamed of yourself—you insult your friend and lover! He loves you for your beauty of heart and mind, and not for your outward beauty. It was your mind that attracted him, your heart that enchained him, and they have not undergone any change, have not grown older. He loves you for the eternal youth that glows in your heart and mind, and he cares not for the mask with which age has covered your countenance! Yes, thus it is, and thus it always will be, for Goethe is not like other men; he cares not for outward appearances, he looks at the inmost being. This it is that he loves, and ever will love in me, for this is and ever will be unchanged! Be joyous, Charlotte, be happy! Do not dread the unhappiness of old age. Voltaire was wrong, and I will take the liberty of correcting Voltaire. His sentence should read:
“Qui n’a pas l’esprit de la jeunesse
N’aura que le malheur de la vieillesse.”
“Yes, thus it should read: ‘Who does not bear the spirit of youth within himself, to him old age brings nothing but unhappiness!’”
As her dear friend soon afterward entered the pavilion, Charlotte advanced to meet him with the reflection of enduring youth resting on her brow, and a glad smile on her lips.
But he did not observe it, his countenance was grave and earnest. He came with the conviction that the thunder storm that had been long gathering overhead would now burst upon them in all its fury. He had come armed for the fray with this outward sternness of manner, while his soul was filled with grief and tenderness.