The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings Read online

  “My friend!” I cried. “A man is a man, and the little bit of sense he may have plays little or no part at all when passion rages in him, and the limitations of humankind oppress him. And what is more—but no, we’ll talk about it some other time,” I concluded and reached for my hat. Oh, my heart was full, and we parted without having understood each other. And that is how it is in the world. It is not easy for men to understand each other.

  August 15th

  One thing is certain—nothing justifies a man’s existence like being loved. I feel that Lotte would not like to lose me, and it never occurs to the children that I might not turn up every day. Today I went over to tune Lotte’s piano, but never got around to doing it, because the little ones would not leave me alone. They wanted a fairy tale, and in the end, even Lotte asked me to tell them one. I cut their supper bread for them—now they are almost as willing to receive it from me as from Lotte—and I told them their favorite tale about the princess who is waited on by invisible hands. I learn a great deal when I do this sort of thing, I can assure you, and am astonished by what an impression it makes on them. Sometimes, when I have to invent an incident because I have forgotten how I told the story the first time, they tell me at once that last time it was different, so now I try to tell every tale in a sustained singsong tone. This has taught me that an author can harm his book if he publishes a second, changed version of his story, however improved it may be poetically. The first impression finds the reader willing, and a human being can be persuaded to believe in the most daring adventure, but it takes root immediately, and woe to him who tries to dig it up and eradicate it!

  August 18th

  Why does that which makes a man happy have to become the source of his misery?

  My full, warm enjoyment of all living things that used to overwhelm me with so much delight and transform the world around me into a paradise has been turned into unbearable torment, a demon who pursues me wherever I go. When I used to look at the far-off hills across the river from the crags that give me a full view of the fruitful valley below and saw all things burgeoning around me: the mountains opposite, overgrown with thick, tall trees; the valleys winding in the shade of the loveliest forests; the river flowing gently between whispering reeds, mirroring the pretty clouds moving slowly across the horizon in the light evening breeze; when I heard the birds around me bringing the woods to life with their song and saw millions of little gnats swarming in the sun’s red light; saw how its last tremulous rays brought the humming beetles up out of the grass; and all this whirring and buzzing around me made me more aware suddenly of the ground beneath my feet, of the moss wresting its nourishment out of the hard rock, of the brush flourishing on arid, sandy slopes, revealing the innermost, glowing, sacred life of nature itself—how warmly I used to be able to embrace all this and feel like a god in its abundance! How the magnificent creatures of this infinite world came to life in my soul! I was surrounded by titanic mountains, abysses lay at my feet, waterfalls tumbled down steep slopes, rivers flowed beneath me, and forest and mountain resounded with it all. And I could see unfathomable powers working and creating in the bowels of the earth, generations of divers creatures milling around above the ground, beneath the sky—all of it taking a thousand different shapes—and the human beings seeking protection in their little houses, settling down together and, in their way, ruling over this wide world. He is a poor fool who has so little respect for all this because he is so small!

  From the forbidding mountain range, across the barren plain untrodden by the foot of man, to the ends of the unknown seas, the spirit of the Eternal Creator can be felt rejoicing over every grain of dust that comprehends Him and lives! Oh, how often I used to yearn in those days to fly with the wings of the crane above me to the shores of the limitless seas and drink the surging joy of life from the foaming cup of eternity and feel, with the restricted powers of my breast, one single drop of the bliss of Him who created all this.

  Dear brother, merely recalling hours such as these refreshes me; even the exertion of remembering those indescribable feelings, and the retelling of them, lifts me out of myself—but then I feel my dread condition doubly hard. Something has been drawn away from my soul like a curtain and the panorama of eternal life has been transformed before my eyes into the abyss of an eternally open grave. Who can say, “That’s how it is!” when all things are transient and roll away with the passing storm, and one’s powers so rarely suffice for one’s span of life but are carried off in the torrent to sink and be dashed against the rocks? There is not a moment in which one is not a destroyer and has to be a destroyer. A harmless walk kills a thousand poor crawling things; one footstep smashes a laboriously built anthill and stamps a whole little world into an ignominious grave. The rare disasters of this world, the floods that wash away our villages, the earthquakes that swallow up our cities—they do not move me. My heart is undermined by the consuming power that lies hidden in the Allness of nature, which has created nothing, formed nothing, which has destroyed neither its neighbor nor itself. Surrounded by the heavens and the earth and the powerful web they weave between them, I reel with dread. I can see nothing but an eternally devouring, eternally regurgitating monster.

  August 21st

  I stretch out my arms for her in vain when, troubled by my dreams, I awaken in the morning; at night I vainly seek her in my bed when a happy, innocent dream has deceived me into imagining I am sitting beside her in a field and holding her hand and kissing her. Oh, when I feel for her, still half dazed with sleep, and wake myself with it—a flood of tears flows from my oppressed heart and I weep inconsolably into a dark, dreary future.

  August 22nd

  It is a tragedy, William. My creative powers have been reduced to a restless indolence. I cannot be idle, yet I cannot seem to do anything either. I have no imagination, no more feeling for nature, and reading has become repugnant to me. When we are robbed of ourselves, we are robbed of everything! I swear there are days when I wish I were a common laborer if only to have something to do that day, an impetus, some hope when I awaken in the morning. I often envy Albert when I see him up to his ears in legal papers and tell myself that I would feel wonderful if I were in his place. How many times it has occurred to me to write and tell you that I was going to ask the minister for that post at the embassy, that you assured me would be granted me! I think it would be, too. The minister has shown a liking for me for some time now and has been urging me to seek some sort of occupation. For an hour or two I can work up a measure of enthusiasm for it, but then, when I think it over again, I am reminded of the fable about the horse that, impatient with its freedom, permitted itself to be saddled and ridden to death. I don’t know what to do. And isn’t it possible, my dear friend, that my longing for a change in my circumstances is an innate impatience that will pursue me wherever I go?

  August 28th

  It is true—if my illness were not incurable, these people could cure it. Today is my birthday, and early in the morning, I received a little package from Albert. When I opened it, I at once saw one of the pink bows Lotte was wearing when I saw her for the first time, which I have begged her so often to give me. The package consisted of two slim duodecimo volumes, the small Wetstein Homer, an edition I have often tried to find so that I would not have to drag my heavy Ernesti edition with me on my walks. So there you are—they try to fulfill my every wish; they think of any little friendly favors they can do me that are worth a thousand times more to me than those dazzling gifts that make us feel ashamed of the donor’s vanity. I have kissed the little bow a thousand times, and with every breath I inhale the bliss with which those few, happy, irretrievable days filled me. William, that is how it is and I am not complaining. The flowers of life are illusion. How many blossom and leave no trace, how few bear fruit, and what a small amount of this fruit ripens! And still there are enough left, and still—oh, dearest friend—can we neglect the ripened fruit or despise it, or let it rot without ever having enjoyed it?
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  Farewell. It is a marvelous summer. I often sit in the fruit trees in Lotte’s orchard and with long shears cut the pears from the top of the tree. She stands below and takes them from me one by one as I hand them down to her.

  August 30th

  Miserable wretch! Aren’t you a fool? Aren’t you deceiving yourself? What is the meaning of this riotous, endless passion? There are no more prayers in me except prayers to her; my imagination can shape no other figure but hers; I see everything around me only in its relationship to her. And this results every now and then in a few happy hours, until I must tear myself away from her again. William, William, you have no idea what my heart often urges me to do! When I have sat beside her for two or three hours and have basked in the sight of her, in her behavior, in the heavenly expression she puts into everything she says—then slowly but surely all my sensibilities are stretched to the breaking point. It grows dark before my eyes; I can scarcely hear; it has me by the throat like an assassin. My wildly beating heart tries to give breath to my afflicted senses and succeeds only in confusing them further…. William, then I don’t know where I am! And when my melancholy gets the better of me and Lotte grants me the miserable consolation of giving way to my anguish in a flood of tears, as happens sometimes—then I have to get away, out, out…and I wander disconsolately in the fields. At moments such as these I like to climb a steep mountain or hack my way through uncleared forest, through hedges that hurt me, through brambles that scratch me! Then I feel a little better. A little better. And when I lie down to rest on the way, exhausted and thirsty, or when in the dark of night, with the full moon shining above me, I sit down on the branch of a deformed tree to rest my sore feet for a moment and sleep in an enervating stillness into the dawn—William, a solitary cell, a hair shirt, and a crown of thorns would be balm for which my soul is pining. Adieu! I can see no end to this misery but the grave!

  September 3rd

  I must leave here. Thank you, William, for encouraging me in my feeble decision. For the last two weeks I have been going around with the idea of leaving. I must get away. She is in town again, staying with a friend. And Albert…and—I must get away!

  September 10th

  What a dreadful night! William, now I know I can bear anything. I shall not see her again. Oh, why can’t I fall on your neck and, in tears and rapture, confide to you, best of friends, the tumultuous passion that is breaking my heart! Here I sit, breathless, trying to calm down, waiting for the dawn when the horses will stand saddled outside. But she sleeps peacefully and has no idea that she will never see me again. I have succeeded in freeing myself, William, and found the strength, in the course of a conversation that lasted two hours, not to betray what was on my mind. And oh, dear God, what a conversation!

  Albert had promised me that he and Lotte would come out into the garden after supper. I stood on the terrace under the tall chestnuts and saw the sun set for the last time across the delightful valley and the gentle stream. How often I have stood there with her and watched that magnificent sight—and now…I walked up and down the path that was so dear to me. A mysterious attraction often drew me there, even before I knew Lotte, and how delighted we were in those early days of our friendship when we discovered that both of us were drawn to this spot, which is really one of the most romantic ones any gardener could possibly produce. First you have the wide view between the chestnuts. I seem to recall having written to you about it—how two lines of tall beeches finally wall it in, and the path is darkened by the adjoining shrubbery, until all ends in an enclosure that has a mysterious aura of loneliness. I can still feel the sense of seclusion I experienced when I entered it for the first time, one day at noon. Fleetingly I sensed then what a setting it would be one day for my bliss and pain.

  I had languished for about half an hour in the bitter-sweet thought of reunion and separation when I heard the two of them coming up the terrace steps. I ran to meet them, and I shivered as I took her hand and kissed it. We reached the terrace just as the moon rose above the wooded hills. We talked about this and that and without noticing it, drew nearer to the gloomy enclosure. Lotte entered it and sat down; Albert sat on one side of her, I on the other. But I could not remain seated; I was much too restless. So I rose and stood in front of them, walked up and down, sat down again. I was in a miserable state. Lotte drew our attention to the beautiful effect of the moonlight. Beyond the beeches, it was illuminating the entire terrace for us, a marvelous sight, made all the more striking by the fact that we were sitting in profound darkness. We were silent, and after a little while she said, “I never walk in the moonlight, never, without being reminded of my dead. In the moonlight I am always filled with a sense of death and of the hereafter. We live on”—and now she spoke with glorious feeling—“but, Werther, do we meet again? Shall we recognize each other? What do you feel? What do you believe?”

  “Lotte,” I said, stretching out my hand to her, and my eyes were filled with tears, “we shall meet again. Here and there…we shall meet again.” I could say no more. William, did she have to ask me that just when my heart was full of this dreadful separation?

  “And I often wonder,” she went on, “if our dear departed ones can see us. Do they know it, when all goes well with us, that we remember and love them? I can feel my mother with me always when I sit with her children…my children…in the quiet of evening, and they crowd around me as they used to crowd around her. Then, when I look up to heaven, my eyes filled with tears of longing, and wish that she could look down at us, if only for a moment, and see how I have kept the promise I made to her when she was dying…that I would be a mother to her children—oh, with what a wealth of feeling my heart cries out to her then, ‘Forgive me, beloved, if I cannot be to them what you were. I do my best…I dress them and feed them and…oh, what more can we do than cherish and love one another? If you could see the harmony between us, oh my blessed mother, you would praise and thank the good Lord to whom you prayed for the well-being of your children with your last bitter tears.’”

  That is what she said. But William, who can possibly repeat what she said? How can cold, dead letters express the heavenly revelation of her spirit? Albert interrupted her gently by saying, “Dear Lotte, you take these things too much to heart. I know that such ideas mean a great deal to you, but please…”

  “Oh, Albert,” she said, “I know you haven’t forgotten the evenings when we sat at the little round table…. Papa was away and we had sent the little ones to bed. You often brought a good book with you, but seldom had the opportunity to read aloud from it because…oh, wasn’t it worth more than anything to listen to her? What a wonderful spirit she had, what a beautiful, gentle soul she was—and never, never idle. God knows the tears I have shed, kneeling at my bedside and praying to God that He might make me like her.”

  “Lotte!” I cried, kneeling down beside her, and my tears fell on her hand as I took it in mine. “Lotte, the grace of God is upon you, and you are filled with the spirit of your mother.”

  “If only you had known her,” she said, pressing my hand. “She deserved that you should have known her!”

  It took my breath away. Never had anyone said anything so glorious to me.

  “And she had to die in the prime of life,” Lotte continued, “when her youngest son was not yet six months old. She was not ill for long. She was so calm, so resigned. Only when she saw her children did she feel pain, especially the baby. When the end was near, she said to me, ‘Bring them up to me,’ and I did as she asked. The younger ones, they didn’t know…and the older ones, who didn’t comprehend…they stood around her bed. She lifted her hand and prayed for them and kissed them one by one and sent them away again. Then she said to me, ‘Be a mother to them.’ I promised her I would and gave her my hand on it. ‘You promise a great deal, my child,’ she said. ‘A mother’s heart…a mother’s eyes…your tears of gratitude have told me often that you know what they mean. Feel like that for your brothers and sisters, and for your fat
her have the loyalty and obedience of a wife and you will be a comfort to him.’ She asked after him. He had gone out, torn by his anguish, to hide his unbearable grief.

  “Albert, you were in the room. She could hear someone walking up and down and asked you to come to her bedside, and she looked at you and me with her tranquil eyes, assured that we were happy and that we would be happy together.”

  Albert threw his arms around her neck and kissed her and cried, “We are! We are! And we shall be!” The quiet man had lost his composure and I—I didn’t know I was alive.

  “And this good woman is supposed to be gone from us,” Lotte went on. “Dear God, Werther, when I think how one permits the dearest thing in life to be carried away, and no one feels it as keenly as the children. For a long, long time after it was all over they lamented—how the black men came and carried Mama away.”

  She rose, and it brought me back to my senses. I was shattered and remained seated, still holding her hand. “Let us go,” she said. “It is late.” She wanted to withdraw her hand, but I clung to it. “We shall meet again!” I cried. “We shall find each other, whatever shape or form we may have. We shall recognize each other. I will go,” I added. “I will go willingly, but if I had to say good-bye forever, I could not bear it. Farewell, Lotte; farewell, Albert. We shall meet again.”

  “Tomorrow, I imagine,” she said gaily. I could feel the word “tomorrow.” She didn’t know, as she drew her hand out of mine….

  They walked down the path in the moonlight. I stood up and watched them go. Then I threw myself on the ground and wept until I could weep no more, after which I jumped to my feet and ran out onto the terrace. Below, in the shadows of the tall linden trees, I could see her white dress shimmering as the two moved toward the gate. I stretched out my arms…and it vanished.