“Yes,” said he, proudly, “he does, but he also entreats you to aid him in preventing the relation you so greatly abhor, from degenerating—to aid him in keeping it as it is. Confide in me again, look at this matter from a natural point of view, permit me to reason with you on the subject, and I may still hope to bring about a good understanding between us.” [59]
“Not I!” she cried, with a proud toss of her head. “No good understanding can exist between us while this person stands in the way—this person who makes me blush with shame and humiliation, when I reflect that the hand which grasps my own has, perhaps, touched hers; that these lips—oh, Wolf, I shudder with anger and disgust, when I reflect that you might kiss me after having kissed her a short time before!”
“There will be no further occasion for such disagreeable reflections,” said he, gruffly, his countenance deathly pale. “Out of love I have endured much from you, but you have now gone too far! I repeat it, you will never again have to overcome the disgust of being kissed by me, and while I, as you observed, have perhaps kissed another but a short time before! And as for this other woman, I must now confess that you were quite right in reproaching me for visiting her clandestinely, and making a mystery of our relation. You are right, this is wrong and cowardly; a man must always avow his actions, boldly and openly; and this I will do! Farewell, Charlotte, you have shown me the right path, and I will follow it! We now separate, perhaps to meet no more in life; let me tell you before I go that I owe to you the happiest years of my life! I have known no greater happiness than my confidence in you—the confidence that has hitherto been unbounded. Now, that this confidence no longer exists, I have become another being, and must in the future suffer still further changes!” [60]
He ceased speaking, and struggled to repress the tears that were rushing from his heart to his eyes. Charlotte stared at him in dismay and breathless anxiety. Her heart stood still, her lips were parted, but she repressed the cry of anguish that trembled on her lips, as he had repressed his tears. A warm, tender, forgiving word might perhaps have called him back, and all misunderstanding might have vanished in tears, remorse, and forgiveness; but Charlotte was too proud, she had been too deeply wounded in her love and vanity to consent to such a humiliation. She had exercised such great power over Goethe for the past ten years, that she perhaps even now believed that he would return, humble himself before her, and endeavor to atone for the past. But the thought did not occur to her that a man can forgive the woman who mistrusts his love, but that he never will forgive her who wounds his pride and his honor.
Charlotte did not speak; she stood motionless, as in a trance, and saw him take up his hat, incline his head, and murmur: “Farewell! dearest, beloved Charlotte, farewell!”
Then all was still, and she saw him no longer! She glanced wildly and searchingly around the room, and when the dread consciousness that he had gone, and that she was surrounded by a terrible solitude, dawned upon her, Charlotte sank down on her knees, stretched out her arms toward the door through which his dear form had vanished, and murmured, with pale, quivering lips: “Farewell! lost dream of my youth, farewell! Lost delight, lost happiness, lost hope, farewell! Night and solitude surround me! Youth and love have departed, and old age and desolation are at hand! Henceforth, no one will love me! I shall be alone! Fearfully alone! Farewell!”
While Charlotte was wailing and struggling with her grief, Goethe was pacing restlessly to and fro in the shady little retreat in the park to which he had so often confided his inmost thoughts in the eventful years that rolled by. When he left the park, after hours of struggling with his own heart, an expression rested on his noble and handsome countenance that had never been observed there before. An expression of mingled gloom and determination was depicted in his features. His eyes were luminous, not with their usual glow of enthusiasm, but with subdued and sudden flames. “Descended into hell, and arisen again from the dead!” murmured he, with a derisive smile, as he walked on through the streets to the wretched little house in which Christiane Vulpius drunken father and his family lived.
She came forward to greet him with an exclamation of joyous surprise, for it was the first time Goethe had visited, in the light of day, the little house in which she lived. She threw herself into his extended arms, entwined hers around his neck and kissed him.
Goethe pressed her lovely head to his bosom, and then raised it gently between his hands. He gazed long and tenderly into her large blue eyes. “Christiane,” murmured he, “Christiane, will you be my wife?”