“Always near you!” repeated Christiane, in joyous, exulting tones. “Oh, do let me be with you, good sir! Let me be your servant—your housekeeper. I will serve and obey you, I will honor you as my master, and I will love you as my dearest friend!”
“And I,” said Goethe, laying his hand on her golden hair, “I swear, by the Eternal Spirit of Love and of Nature, that I will love you, and that your happiness shall be the chief end of my life. I swear that I will honor you as my wife, protect and cherish you as my child, and be to you a husband and father until death.”
He stooped and kissed her shining hair and fair brow, and gazed tenderly into her lustrous eyes. “And now, my pet, get ready and come with me!”
“To go where? You cannot intend to walk with me through the public streets in the broad light of day?”
“Through the public streets, and in the broad light of day, at your side!”
“But that will not do,” said she, in dismay. “It would not be proper for a noble, celebrated gentleman to be seen in public with a poor, humble creature like myself. What would the world say?”
“Let the world say what it will! Come, my violet, I will transplant you to my garden, and there you shall blossom in the future.”
She no longer resisted, but threw her shawl over her shoulders, covered her golden tresses with the hat adorned with roses of her own manufacture, stepped with Goethe from beneath the roof of her father’s wretched house, and walked at his side through the streets to the stately mansion on Market Square, henceforth destined to be her home.
Goethe conducted her up the broad stairway, through the antechamber, and into his reception-room. Both were silent, but the countenances of both were radiant with happiness.
With a gentle hand he relieved her of her shawl and hat, pressed her to his bosom, and then, with upturned eyes, he cried, in loud and impressive tones: “Oftmals hab’ ich geirrt, und habe mich wieder gefunden, aber glücklicher nie; nun ist dies Mädchen mein Glück! Ist auch dieses ein Irrthum, so schont mich, ihr klügeren Götter, und benehmt mir ihn erst drüben am kalten Gestade.”[62]