“No, you cannot,” murmured Moritz.
“At least confide your grief to me; that is an alleviation.”
“Oh, how kind and generous you are!” Moritz said, pressing the hand of his new-made friend to his bosom. “How much good it does me to listen to you, and look at your beautiful face! I believed myself steeled against every thing that could happen to mortals; that the fool which I would be had killed within me the higher man. I was almost proud to have succeeded in deceiving men; that they mistook my grotesque mask for my real face; that they point the finger at me, and laugh, saying to each other: ‘That is a fool, an original, whom Nature herself has chosen as a kind of court fool to society.’ No one has understood the cry of distress of my soul. Those who laughed at the comical fellow by day, little dreamed of the anguish and misery in which he sighed away the night.”
“You not only wrong yourself, but you wrong mankind,” said Goethe, kindly. “In the world, and in literature, you bear an honored name; every one of education is familiar with your excellent work on ‘Prosody of the German Language’—has read also your spirited Journey to England. You have no right to ask that one should separate the kernel from the shell in hastily passing by. If you surround yourself with a wall bedaubed with caricatures, you cannot expect that people will look behind what seems an entrance to a puppet-show, to find holy temples, blooming gardens, or a church-yard filled with graves.”
“That is just what I resemble,” said Moritz, with a melancholy air. “From the depths of my soul it seems so. Nothing but buried hopes, murdered ideals, and wishes trodden under foot. From childhood I have exerted myself against circumstances; I have striven my whole life—a pledge of my being against unpropitious Fate. Although the son of a poor tradesman, Nature had given me a thirst for knowledge, a love for science and art. On account of it I passed for a stupid idler in the family, who would not contribute to his own support. Occupation with books was accounted idleness and laziness by my father. I was driven to work with blows and ill-treatment; and, that I might the sooner equal my father as a good shoemaker, I was bound to the stool near his own. During the long, fearful days I was forced to sit and draw the pitched, offensive thread through the leather, and when my arms were lame, and sank weary at my side, then I was invigorated to renewed exertion with blows. Finally, with the courage of despair, I fled from this life of torture. Unacquainted with the world, and inexperienced, I hoped for the sympathy of men, but in vain. No one would relieve or assist me! Days and weeks long I have wandered around in the forest adjoining our little village, and lived like the animals, upon roots and herbs. Yet I was happy! I had taken with me in my flight two books which I had received as prizes, in the happy days that my father permitted me to go to the Latin school. The decision of the teacher that I was created for a scholar, so terrified my father, that he took me from the school, to turn the embryo savant, who would be good for nothing, into a shoemaker, who might earn his bread. My two darling books remained to me. In the forest solitude I read Ovid and Virgil until I had memorized them, and recited them aloud, in pathetic tones, for my own amusement. To-day I recall those weeks in the forest stillness as the happiest, purest, and most beautiful of my life.”
“And they undoubtedly are,” said Goethe, kindly. “The return to Nature is the return to one’s self. Who will be an able, vigorous man and remain so, must, above all things, live in and with Nature.”
“But oh! this happy life did not long continue,” sighed Moritz. “My father discovered my retreat, and came with sheriffs and bailiffs to seize me like a criminal—like a wild animal. With my hands bound, I was brought back in broad day, amid the jeers of street boys. Permit me to pass in silence the degradation, the torture which followed. I became a burden to myself, and longed for death. The ill-treatment of my father finally revived my courage to run away the second time. I went to a large town near by, and decided to earn my living rather than return to my father. To fulfil the prophecy of my teacher was my ambition. The privations that I endured, the life I led, I will not recount to you. I performed the most menial service, and worked months like a beast of burden. For want of a shelter, I slept in deserted yards and tumble-down houses. Upon a piece of bread and a drink of water I lived, saving, with miserly greediness, the money which I earned as messenger or day-laborer. At the end of a year, I had earned sufficient to buy an old suit of clothes at a second-hand clothing-store, and present myself to the director of the Gymnasium, imploring him to receive me as pupil. Bitterly weeping, I opened my heart to him, and disclosed the torture of my sad life as a child, and begged him to give me the opportunity to educate myself. He repulsed me with scorn, and threatened to give me over to the police, as a runaway, as a vagabond, and beggar. ‘I am no beggar!’ I cried, vehemently, ‘I will be under obligation to no one. I have money to pay for two years in advance, and during this time I shall be able to earn sufficient to pay for the succeeding two years.’ This softened the anger of the crabbed director; he was friendly and kind, and promised me his assistance.”
“Poor boy!” sighed Goethe. “So young, and yet forced to learn that there is a power to which not only kings and princes, but mind must bow; to which science and art have submitted, as to their Maecenas! This power opened the doors of the Gymnasium to you.”
“It was even thus. The director took pity upon me, and permitted me to enter upon my studies at once; he did more, he assured my future. Oh, he was a humane and kind man! When he learned that I possessed nothing but the little sum to which the drops of blood of a year’s toil still clung, then—”
“He returned it to you,” interrupted Goethe, kindly.