There was perfect silence. The youth watched the little, dry hand which
guided the pen, with a devotional mien, and Goethe with eager curiosity,
who, unobserved, stood like a suppliant at the door of the obscure
little room, the shabby furniture of which betrayed the narrow
circumstances of the German poetess. It harmonized with the occupant,
a little, bony, meagre figure, wearing a tight-fitting blue-flowered
chintz dress. Upon the gray hair, which, parted in the middle, encircled
the low forehead, was a cap, which had lost its whiteness and was,
therefore, more in harmony with the ruff about her yellow, thin neck.
Her sharp, angular features were redeemed by large, dark eyes, flashing
with marvellous brilliancy from under the thick, gray eyebrows, and
with quick, penetrating glances she sometimes turned them to the ceiling
thoughtfully as she wrote. “There, sir, is my poem,” said she, laying
down the pen. “Listen:
‘Govern your will;
If it hinders duty,
It fetters virtue;
Then envy beguiles
Into fault-finding.’”
“Oh, how beautiful, cried the young man, enraptured. “I thank you a thousand times for those glorious words, and they shall henceforth be the guiding star of my existence.”
“Go to Professor Rammler, and: then return and show me what he writes, for I am convinced—. Oh, Heavens! there is a stranger,” she cried, as she discovered Goethe, who had remained standing by the door.
“Yes, a stranger,” said Goethe, smiling, and approaching, as the happy possessor of the album withdrew—“a stranger would not leave Berlin without visiting the German poetess.”
“And without verses in your album; is it not so? I have become the fashion, and if I could only live by immortalizing myself in your albums, I should be free from care. Now I have divined it—you wish an autograph?”
“No! only a good word, and a friendly shake of the hand, for I possess a poem and a letter which the good Frau Karschin sent me at Weimar some six months since, written by herself.”
“Is it Goethe?” she cried, clasping her hands in astonishment. “The poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the renowned author of the work which—”
“Cost you many tears,” broke in Goethe, laughing. “I beg you spare me these phrases, which follow me upon my journey as the Furies Orestes. I know that ‘Werther’ has become the favorite of the reading public; he has opened all the tear-ducts and made all lovers of moonlight as soft as a swaddling-cloth. I could punish myself for having written ‘Werther.’”
Frau Karschin laughed aloud. “That is glorious! You please me! You are a famous poet and a genius, for only geniuses can revise and ridicule themselves. Welcome, Germany’s greatest poet, welcome to the attic of the poetess! There is the good word which you would have, and here is the hand. Did you think it worth while to visit poor Karschin? I am rejoiced at it, for I see that they accused you unjustly of arrogance and pride!”
“Do they accuse me of it?” asked Goethe, smiling. “Can the Berlin poets and authors never forgive me that I live at a court, and am honored with the favor of a prince?”