The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings Read online

  Love, loyalty, and passion such as this are therefore no figments of my imagination. They live and can be found in all purity among a class of people we like to call uncultured and crude. We cultured ones—cultured until there is nothing left! Read my little tale with reverence, I beg of you! Today, as I write it down, all is quiet within me. You can see by my handwriting that I am not scribbling as I usually do. Read, my dear friend, and reflect that it is your friend’s story too. Yes, it has happened to me, and the rest will happen to me too, and I am not nearly so well behaved or determined as that poor wretch, with whom I scarcely dare to compare myself.

  September 5th

  She wrote a little note to her husband, who is away on business. It started off with the words, “My best, my dearest one. Come home as soon as you can. I live in joyous anticipation of your return.” Just then a friend came in with the news that, owing to certain circumstances, Albert would not be able to return as soon as expected. The little note was forgotten, and in the course of the evening I came across it. I read it and smiled, and she asked me why I was smiling. “What a divine gift our imagination is!” I said. “For a moment I imagined that it was written to me.” She said nothing, but she seemed displeased by my behavior, and I was silenced.

  September 6th

  It was very difficult for me to decide to put aside the simple blue jacket in which I danced with Lotte for the first time, but it had become too threadbare. I have had one made exactly like it—collar and cuffs just alike, and the same yellow waistcoat and breeches. But it doesn’t have quite the desired effect. I don’t know…in time I suppose I shall grow fond of this suit, too.

  September 12th

  She was away for a few days. She left to fetch Albert. Today I walked into her room, she came to meet me, and I kissed her hand, my heart overflowing with joy. A canary flew from the mirror onto her shoulder. “My new friend,” she said and coaxed him onto her hand. “I brought him for the children. He is such a darling. Look, when I give him bread, he flutters and picks it up so neatly. And he kisses me. Look!”

  She held the little creature to her mouth, and it touched her beloved lips so sweetly, as if it could feel the bliss it was being granted.

  “Let him kiss you too,” she said, stretching out her hand to me, with the bird on it. His little beak found its way from her mouth to mine, and the little peck it gave me was like a breath, a premonition of the delights of love.

  “I wouldn’t say that his kiss was entirely without desire,” I said. “He seeks food, and the kiss leaves him unsatisfied.”

  “But he eats out of my mouth too,” she said, and let him take a few crumbs from her lips. She was smiling, radiant with the joy of an innocent love. I turned away. She should not have done it. She should not incite my imagination with such exhibitions of heavenly innocence and bliss; she should not rouse my heart, which the indifference of life sometimes rocks to sleep. And yet, why not? She trusts me. She knows how much I love her.

  September 15th

  It is enough to drive one mad, William! To think that there are people who have no feeling at all for the few things on this earth that are of real value! Do you remember the walnut trees under which I sat with Lotte when we visited the good vicar in St. —? Those magnificent trees that, God knows, always delighted me…how snug they made the rectory courtyard, how cool, and what marvelous branches they had! And the memories that went with them, back to the worthy vicar who had planted them so many years ago. The schoolmaster mentions his name often; he has it from his grandfather. What a good man he was, and his memory was sacred to me always under those trees. Let me tell you, there were tears in the schoolmaster’s eyes yesterday when we spoke about how they had been cut down. Yes, cut down! The very idea drives me crazy! I could murder the dog who drove in the first ax. I, who would grieve if I had a pair of trees like that in my yard and had to see them die of old age…I have to see the thing happen! But, my dear friend, there is another side to it—human reaction. The whole village is grumbling about it, and I hope the vicar’s wife will be made to feel, by a lack of butter and eggs and the dearth of other little friendly gestures, how she has wounded the town. Because it was done on the orders of the new clergyman’s wife (our dear old man died), a gaunt, sickly woman who has every reason not to participate in the life going on around her because it wants no part of her. She is a crazy creature who pretends to be very learned, dabbles in new interpretations of the Scriptures, shrugs off Lavater’s ecstasies, and occupies herself with the moral-critical reformation of Christianity that is currently fashionable. She is thoroughly unhealthy and therefore knows naught of the joys on God’s earth. Only a person like that could have cut down my walnut trees! You can see—I can’t get over it! Just imagine—the falling leaves, she says, messed up her yard and made it dank. The trees took away the light, and when the nuts were ripe, the boys threw stones at them, and that made her nervous! I suppose it disturbed her profound thoughts as she weighed the merits of Kennicott, Semler, and Michaelis. When I saw how upset the villagers were, especially the older ones, I asked, “Why did you let it happen?” “When the bailiff wants anything done,” they said, “what can we do about it?” But I can report on one act of justice: the bailiff and the vicar—who wanted to see some gain from his wife’s whim; they don’t usually fill his larder—thought they would divide the profit of the trees between them. But the chamberlain got wind of it and said, “It goes into our coffers!” According to him, his office holds claim to that part of the parsonage on which the trees stood and will sell them to the highest bidder! There they lie. Oh, if I were prince, I would see to it that vicar’s wife, bailiff, and chamberlain—prince? Ah me, if I were prince, of what concern would the trees on my land be to me?

  October 10th

  If only I can look into her dark eyes, then all is well with me again. And do you know what grieves me? I don’t think Albert is as happy as he…hoped to be…as I thought I was when…

  I don’t like all these pauses, but can’t seem to express myself in any other way at this point…and am expressing myself clearly enough, I think, anyway.

  October 12th

  Ossian has replaced Homer in my heart, and what a world it is into which this divine poet leads me! Oh, to wander across the heath in a blustering windstorm, by the light of a waning moon, as it conjures up the ghosts of our ancestors in clouds of mist! Oh, to hear, above the rushing of a forest stream, the half-fading groans of specters issuing from caves in the hillside, and the keening maiden weeping herself into her grave beside the four moss-clad, grass-o’ergrown stones of her noble, fallen hero—her beloved. When I see him—the roving, hoary bard—seeking the footsteps of his forefathers on the wide moor only to find their gravestones; and he looks up, lamenting, at the gentle star of eve about to sink into the rolling sea and times gone by revive in his heroic soul, times when a friendly light still guided the brave man in his peril, and the moon cast its serene light on his garlanded ship, sailing home victorious…when I can read the profound sorrow on his brow and see this last, forsaken, magnificent one reel exhausted to his grave, still finding a melancholy yet glowing joy in the powerless presence of the shades of his departed ones, and can hear him cry as he looks down upon the cold earth and tall waving grasses, “The wanderer will come, will come, who knew me in my glory and will ask, ‘Where is the bard, oh, where is Fingal’s7 admirable son?’ His footsteps cross my grave and he asks in vain for me on earth!” Ah my friend, then, like a noble armiger, I would like to draw my sword and in a trice free my liege lord from the agonizing torment of a life that is a gradual death and send my own soul after the liberated demigod!

  October 19th

  Oh, this void, this dreadful void in my breast! Often I think—if just once I could press her to my heart, it would be filled!

  October 26th

  Yes, I am growing certain, dear friend, more and more certain, that the life of a human creature is a negligible factor, a very negligible factor. A friend
came to see Lotte; I went into the next room to find a book—and couldn’t read. Then I picked up a pen to write. I could hear them talking softly about unimportant things, new happenings in town, a wedding, someone was ill, very ill…she has a hard dry cough and every bone in her face shows, she faints…“I wouldn’t give a penny for her life,” says Lotte’s friend. “I hear that N.N. is not well either,” says Lotte. “He’s so bloated,” says her friend. And my lively imagination carries me off to the bedside of these poor people. I can see with what terrible resistance they turn their backs on life, while she—William, my girl speaks about it the way…the way one talks about such things…a stranger lies dying. And when I look around me and see this room—Lotte’s clothes, Albert’s papers, the pieces of furniture that have by now become my good friends, even this inkwell here—I think: see what you mean to this house. All in all, your friends respect you; you are a joy to them; your heart tells you that you could not do without them; and yet…if you were to go now, if you were to leave this aura…would they…and how long would it take them to fill the gap your loss would tear into their destiny? How long? Oh, man is so transient that he can be blotted out even where he feels quite sure of his existence, where he leaves the only true impression of his presence on earth—in the thoughts and souls of his loved ones. From them, too, he must vanish—and so soon!

  October 27th

  Often I would tear my breast and bash my brains in because we can mean so little to one another. Ah, the love, joy, warmth, and ecstasy that I cannot contribute and will therefore never receive from anyone else! With a heart full of joy I cannot make happy the man who stands before me, helpless and cold.

  October 27th, Evening

  I have so much, yet my feeling for her devours it all. I have so much, yet without her all of it is nothing.

  October 30th

  A hundred times, at least, I have been on the point of taking her in my arms. The good Lord knows what it means to see so much graciousness passing to and fro before one’s eyes and not be allowed to grasp it, for grasping is the most natural urge of mankind. Don’t children try to grasp anything they can think of? And I?

  November 3rd

  God knows, I go to bed often with the wish—yes, sometimes in the hope of not waking up again; then, in the morning, I open my eyes to the sun and am miserable. If only I could be moody and put the blame on the weather, or on some third person, or on a project that has failed, then the unbearable burden of my ill humor would be only half mine. But alas, I know only too well that it is all my fault, my fault. Suffice it to say that the source of all misery is within me just as I formerly bore within myself the source of all bliss. Am I not still the same man who used to bask in such an abundance of emotion, whose every step led to a paradise, who had a heart that could embrace the whole world lovingly? But now this heart is dead; no ecstasy flows from it any more. My eyes are dry, and my mind, no longer laved by refreshing tears, describes fearful furrows on my brow. I suffer much, for I have lost what was my singular joy in life—the sacred, invigorating power with which I could create worlds around me. It is gone. When I look out my window at the far distant hills and see the morning sun breaking through the mists that lie upon them and flooding the peaceful meadows with its light, the gentle river winding toward me between leafless willows—when all magnificent nature stands still before my eyes like a glossy picture, and all this glory is incapable of pumping one ounce of bliss from heart to brain—then the whole poor fellow that I am become stands before God like an exhausted fountainhead, a leaky pail run dry. Often I have thrown myself on the ground and begged God to give me tears, as a plowman begs for rain when the sky is leaden above him and his parched earth.

  But oh, I can feel it. God gives no rain or sunshine in answer to our tempestuous pleas, and those bygone days, the memory of which torments me now, why were they so blissful if not because I waited then in patience for His grace and received the bliss He chose to bestow upon me with a whole and deeply grateful heart?

  November 8th

  She reproached me for my excessiveness—but so sweetly! My excessiveness—that I sometimes let a glass of wine lead me to drink a bottle! “Don’t do it,” she said. “Think of Lotte.” “Think!” I said. “Do you have to tell me that? I think—I don’t think—you are in my mind constantly. Today I sat down where you got out of the carriage the other day….” She spoke hastily of something else to stop me from pursuing the topic further. My dear friend, I am done for! She can do with me what she will.

  November 15th

  Thank you, William, for your sympathy and well-meant advice, and don’t worry, please. Let me suffer it through to the end. With all my weariness of spirit, I still have the strength left to persevere. I respect our religion; you know that. I feel that it is a staff for many a weary man and a comfort to him who is pining away. Only—can religion, must religion mean the same thing to every man? When you look at our vast world, you see thousands to whom it does not mean these things, thousands to whom it never will, whether it be preached to them or not. Must it therefore mean these things to me? Doesn’t the son of God Himself say that those will be with Him whom His Father gives unto Him? But what if my Father wants to keep me for Himself, which is what my heart tells me? I beg of you, do not interpret this falsely; do not see ridicule in these innocent words. In them I lay my soul at your feet, or I would better have remained silent. I don’t like to speak about things of which everyone else knows just as little as I do. What else is it but the fate of man to suffer his destined measure and drink his full cup to the end? And if the cup that the good Lord in heaven has put to his lips be too bitter, why should I put on airs and pretend that it is sweet? And why should I not feel ashamed in those dread moments when I tremble between being and not-being, when the past shines like a flash of lightning above the dark abyss of the future and everything around me sinks down, and the world comes to an end? Is mine not the voice of a man cowering within himself, a man who has lost himself, hurtling inexorably downhill, who must cry out from the innermost depths of his vainly struggling forces, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” And why should I be ashamed to thus cry out—why should I dread this moment since it was not even spared Him who can roll back the heavens like a cloth?

  November 21st

  She doesn’t see, she doesn’t feel, that she is preparing a poison that will destroy her and me, and with voluptuous delight I drink the cup she hands me to the last dregs, and to my ruination. What is the meaning of that kindly look that she so often—often?…no, not often, but sometimes gives me, the graciousness with which she sometimes accepts a chance expression of my feelings for her, the compassion for what I am enduring, that is written on her brow?

  Yesterday, as I was leaving, she gave me her hand and said, “Adieu, dear Werther.” Dear Werther! It was the first time she called me “dear” and I felt it to the core of me. I have repeated it to myself over and over again, and last night, when I was about to retire and was talking all sorts of things over in my mind, I suddenly said out loud, “Good night, dear Werther!” and had to laugh at myself.

  November 22nd

  I cannot pray “Let her remain mine,” yet often it seems to me that she is mine. I cannot pray “Give her to me,” for she belongs to another. Thus I mock my pain. Were I really to let myself go, a whole litany of antitheses would be the result.

  November 24th

  She knows how I suffer. Today her eyes looked deep into my heart. I found her alone. I said nothing, and she looked at me. And I no longer saw her loveliness nor the radiance of her wonderful spirit. All that had disappeared from before my eyes. Instead I had a far more glorious vision. I saw her face filled with an expression of the most intimate sympathy, the sweetest compassion.

  Why couldn’t I throw myself at her feet? Why couldn’t I counter with an embrace and a thousand kisses? She escaped to the piano and sang to her own accompaniment in her sweet, low voice, and so melodiously. Never were her chaste li
ps more enchanting. It was as though they parted thirsty for the sweet tones that swelled forth from the instrument and only a furtive echo escaped them. Ah me, if only I could explain it to you! I offered no more resistance. I bowed my head and vowed that never would I presume to kiss those lips, o’er which celestial spirits hover…and yet…I want to kiss them. Ha! You see? That is what stands before my soul like a bulkhead—such bliss, and then…down, down, to atone for such a sin…. A sin?

  November 26th

  Sometimes I tell myself my fate is unique. Consider all other men fortunate, I tell myself; no one has ever suffered like you. Then I read a poet of ancient times, and it is as though I were looking deep into my own heart. I have to suffer much. Oh, has any human heart before me ever been so wretched?

  November 30th

  It seems that I am not going to be permitted to recover, no doubt about it. Wherever I go I encounter something that upsets me utterly. Today—oh, fate, oh, humankind!

  At noon I was walking along the river. I didn’t feel like eating. It was a dreary day. A raw wind was blowing down from the mountains and gray rain clouds were rolling into the valley. Ahead of me, I could see a man in a shabby green coat, scrambling about among the rocks. I thought he was gathering herbs. As I drew nearer, and he, hearing me, turned around, I found myself looking into a most interesting face. Its main expression was a quiet sadness; otherwise it betrayed nothing but candor and honesty. His black hair was pinned up in two rolls; the rest hung in one thick braid down his back. Since, judging by his dress, he seemed to be a man of humble origin, I decided that he would not take offense if I chose to comment on what he was doing, so I asked him what he was looking for. With a deep sigh, he replied, “I am looking for flowers, but can find none.”

  “This is not the season for them,” I said, smiling.

  “But there are so many flowers,” he replied, moving down to my level. “I have roses in my garden, and honeysuckle, two kinds. My father gave me one. They grow like weeds. I have been looking for them for two days and cannot find them. And outside there are always flowers, yellow ones, blue and red ones—and centaury has such a pretty blossom. I can’t find any of them.”