The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings Read online

  “Your Excellency,” I interrupted him, “a thousand apologies. I should have noticed it myself long before this, and I know you will forgive my inconsistency—I wanted to take my leave some time ago but,” I added, smiling as I bowed, “a devilish impulse held me back.” The Count shook my hand with a pressure that indicated just how he felt about it. I slipped away quietly, got into my cabriolet, and drove to M. to see the sun set from the hill there and read Homer’s glorious verses about Ulysses and the hospitable swineherd. And all that was well and good.

  In the evening, I returned home for my supper. There were only a few people in the taproom; they had turned back the tablecloth and were playing at dice. Suddenly honest old Adelin came in, put his hat down on the table, and said softly, “You’re in trouble, I hear.” “I?” said I. “The Count asked you to leave his party.” “The devil take his party!” I said. “I was thankful to get out in the fresh air again.” “I’m glad to see you’re not taking it to heart,” he said. “It only annoyed me because it’s already all over town.” And until then the whole thing hadn’t bothered me a bit! But after that, of course, I felt that everyone who came in and looked at me was staring at me because of that. It was maddening!

  And now, since everyone commiserates with me wherever I go and I am told that those who used to envy me are triumphing and saying, “There you can see how the presumptuous end, those who try to lift their insignificant heads too high and think they can go where they please and do as they like….” I could run a knife into my heart! Because people can say what they like about being independent—show me the man who can stand being raked over the coals by scoundrels when they have the advantage over him. When their talk is idle nonsense, ah, then it can be easily ignored.

  March 16th

  Everything conspires against me. Today I met Fräulein von B. on the promenade. I simply had to go up to her, and as soon as we had withdrawn a little from the others, I let her know how I felt about her behavior the other day. “Oh, Werther,” she said fervently, “how could you interpret my behavior in such a fashion when you know what my feelings are? You have no idea how I suffered for you from the moment I entered the hall. I knew just what was going to happen. A hundred times it was on the tip of my tongue to tell you. I knew that the von S.’s, and T., and their husbands, would rather have left early than stay at a gathering that included you, and that the Count could not afford to offend them…and now, all this fuss!”

  “What do you mean, Fräulein?” I said, trying to hide my dismay, because everything Adelin had said the day before ran suddenly like wildfire through my veins. “You cannot imagine how dearly I have had to pay for my behavior already,” the sweet creature replied, and there were tears in her eyes.

  It was all I could do to control myself. I was on the point of throwing myself at her feet. “You must explain yourself!” I cried. “I insist!”

  The tears were coursing down her cheeks. I was beside myself. She didn’t try to hide them from me as she dried her eyes. “You know my aunt,” she said. “She was there and, oh, the expression in her eyes as she watched the whole thing! Werther, last night and this morning I have had to endure a lecture about my friendship with you and hear you degraded and could only half defend you. I dared do no more.”

  Every word she spoke was a stab in the heart. She didn’t seem to realize at all how merciful it would have been to spare me all this, but went on to say how people would continue to talk about it, and what kind of people would gloat over it, and how it would amuse and delight them to see my arrogance and my poor opinion of others punished…. I have been reproached for them often enough. To hear her tell me all this, William, with so much compassion in her voice…I was shattered and am still furious with myself. I wish someone would dare reproach me about the whole thing so that I could run a dagger through his heart. If only I could see blood, I know I would feel better. Oh, I have picked up a knife a hundred times with the intention of plunging it into my own heart! I have heard tell of a noble breed of stallions who, when they are overheated and run wild, instinctively bite open one of their veins to relieve themselves. I feel like that often. I would like to open the vein that would give me eternal freedom.

  March 24th

  I have asked to be relieved of my post and hope my resignation will be accepted. You will forgive me, I am sure, for not having first asked your permission. I simply had to get away, and I know all the things you would have said to persuade me to remain. Inform my mother of the fact gently. I can’t help myself, and she will just have to put up with my not being able to help her either. I realize that she will be hurt when she sees the fine career her son had just embarked on, which was supposed to lead to Privy Councilor and Ambassador, suddenly stop, and back with the creature in its stall! Break the news to her in any way you like and come to some sort of agreement on the conditions under which I could possibly have and certainly should have stayed…enough! I am leaving, and so you may know where I am going, Prince — is here and seems to find my company to his liking. He heard of my decision and has asked me to accompany him to his estate to spend the beautiful season of spring with him. He has promised that I will be entirely on my own, and since we understand each other up to a point, I intend to grasp the opportunity and accompany him.

  April 19th

  For your information:

  Thank you for both letters. I did not reply because I left this letter unfinished until the time of my departure from court. I was afraid my mother might appeal to the minister and make it more difficult for me to go through with my plans. But now it is all over, and the time for my departure has come. I don’t want to say how reluctant they were to let me go or what the minister wrote—you would only break out in renewed lamentations. The young duke gave me twenty-five ducats as a farewell gift, with a few words that moved me to tears, so my mother need not send me the money I asked for recently.

  May 5th

  Tomorrow I leave here, and since the place of my birth lies only six miles away, I want to visit it again and recall those happy, dreamlike days. I want to walk up to the gate through which my mother rode with me when she left that beloved, familiar place after my father’s death to incarcerate herself in the unbearable town she lives in now. Adieu, William. I shall report on the trip.

  May 9th

  I undertook the journey to my former home with all the reverence of a pilgrim, and was gripped by a few quite unexpected emotions. I had the carriage stop beside the tall linden tree that stands about a quarter of an hour’s drive from the city in the direction of S. I got out and told the postilion to drive on so that I might enjoy every memory on foot, vividly and renewed, according to the dictates of my heart. There I stood, under the tree that was once goal and limit of my walks as a boy, and how changed I was! In those days I longed with a happy ignorance to go out into the unknown world where I hoped to find so much nourishment for my heart, so much delight for my yearning soul. And now I have returned from the wide, wide world, oh my friend, with so many shattered hopes and ruined plans. Stretched out before me I saw the mountains that had been the objective of my longing a thousand times. I used to be able to sit there by the hour and yearn for those mountains and lose my whole being in the woods and valleys that presented themselves to me in such a pleasant twilit fashion. And then, when I had to return at a certain time, with what reluctance I used to leave the beloved spot!

  I approached the town and greeted all the old familiar little houses, thought the new ones were repulsive, also all over innovations. I walked in at the gate and at once found myself again—all of me! Dear friend, I don’t want to go into details. It was an enchanting experience, but would only fall flat in the telling.

  I had decided to take lodgings on the market square next to our old house. On the way there, I noticed that our former schoolroom, where an honest old woman had crowded all our childhood together, had been turned into a general store. I recalled the restlessness, the tears, the dullness and fear that I had e
xperienced in that little room. I could not take a step that was not worthy of note. A pilgrim in the Holy Land would not find so many places with sacred memories, nor could his soul possibly be filled with more reverent emotions. One more example will suffice: I walked downriver to a certain farm. It used to be a favorite walk of mine and a place where we boys tried to see how many times we could make a flat stone ricochet on the water. I could remember vividly how I used to stand sometimes and watch the water, with what a marvelous feeling of reverie I would follow its course, and in a highly adventurous spirit, imagine the regions into which it flowed, until I soon found that my imagination had gone as far as it could—still it had to go on and on until I was lost utterly in invisible distances. Yes, my dear friend, that is how restrained yet happy our glorious ancestors were; their feelings and poetry were childlike. When Ulysses speaks of the boundless sea and the never-ending earth, it is so true, so human, so sincerely felt, so close and mysterious. Of what use is it to me that I can now recite with every schoolboy that the earth is round? A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy and even less to lie beneath.

  So now here I am at the Prince’s hunting lodge. Life with him is pleasant, and we get along well. He is honest and simple and surrounded by very odd people whom I can’t even begin to understand! They don’t seem to be rogues, yet they don’t impress me as being honest, either. Sometimes I feel they are sincere; still I can’t trust them. Another thing I regret is that he speaks often of things he has only heard or read about, and then from the other person’s point of view, and he seems to value my mind and my various talents more than this heart of mine, of which I am so proud, for it is the source of all things—all strength, all bliss, all misery. The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!

  May 25th

  I have had something on my mind that I did not want to mention to you until I had gone through with it. Now that nothing has come of it, it is just as well. I wanted to enlist and get into the fighting. My heart has been full of the idea for some time. It is the main reason why I came here with the Prince. He is a general in the service of —. While out for a walk, I disclosed my intention. He advised me against it, and it must have been a caprice on my part rather than a sincere desire, for I heeded his argument.

  June 11th

  Say what you will—I cannot stay here any longer. What is there for me to do here? Time hangs heavy on my hands. The Prince sees to it that I am well cared for, as well as could possibly be; still I do not feel at home. He is a man of intellect, yet there is nothing extraordinary about his mind; being with him is no more entertaining than reading a good book. I shall stay another week; then I shall start wandering again. The best thing I have done here are a few sketches. The Prince has a certain amount of understanding for the arts and would be even better at it were he not fettered by distasteful scientific ideas and commonplace terminology. Sometimes it sets my teeth on edge when I point out nature and art to him with my heartfelt imagination, and he feels suddenly that he must do the correct thing and ruins everything with a platitude.

  June 16th

  Yes, I am a wanderer on this earth—a pilgrim. Are you anything more than that?

  June 18th

  You would like to know where I am heading? Let me inform you, confidentially…I have to stay here two weeks more; then, I tell myself, I want to visit the mines in —. Of course there’s nothing to it, really, but that I want to be near Lotte. And I have to laugh at my heart as I do its bidding.

  July 29th

  No, all is well, all is well just as it is. I…her husband! O God, Who didst make me as I am, hadst Thou but granted me this bliss, my whole life would have been a paean of praise to Thee! But I shall not remonstrate, and I beg Thee to forgive my tears and my vain desires. Lotte…my wife! If only I could say that I had held the most beloved creature under the sun in my arms! It makes me shudder, William, to think of Albert putting his arms around her slender waist.

  And—do I dare say it? Why not, William? She would have been happier with me. He is not the man to fulfill all her desires. A certain lack of sensitivity, a lack…oh, put it any way you like…his heart does not respond to certain passages in a book over which Lotte’s and mine would meet, and on a hundred other occasions…when we are talking about someone else’s behavior…oh, my dear William, of course he loves her with all his heart, and love such as that merits all things!

  A perfectly unbearable person interrupted me at this point. I have dried my tears; I have been distracted; adieu, my friend!

  August 4th

  I am not the only one thus afflicted. All men suffer disappointments and are deceived in their expectations. I paid the good woman under the linden tree a visit. Her eldest boy ran to meet me. His cry of joy brought out his mother. She looked despondent. Her first words were, “Oh, my dear, good gentleman, my little Hans died.” He was her youngest boy. I was speechless. “And my husband has returned from Switzerland with empty hands,” she went on. “If it had not been for some kind people he would have had to beg his way home. On the way back he was stricken with a fever.” What could I say? I gave her boy something. She asked me to accept a few apples, which I did, and left the sorrowful scene.

  August 21st

  Like the turning of a hand…things change with me just as quickly. Sometimes a happier outlook on life tries to struggle to the surface—alas, only for a moment. When I am lost in my dreams I can’t help thinking—what if Albert were to die? You would…she would…and then I follow this phantasmagoria until it leads me to an abyss and I draw back trembling.

  When I walk out of the gate, the way I drove when I went to fetch Lotte for the dance—how different things were then! All past, all over and done with! Not a trace left of that bygone world, not a heartbeat of my former emotions. I feel like a ghost who returns to the burnt-out, ruined castle he built when he was a virile prince, and furnished with all the treasure of a glorious life, and left hopefully to his beloved son.

  September 3rd

  Sometimes I simply cannot understand how she can love another, how she dare—since I love her alone, so deeply, so fully, and recognize nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!

  September 4th

  Yes, I am right. That’s how it is. As all nature tends toward autumn, it becomes autumn within me and all around me. My leaves turn yellow, as the leaves of the nearby trees fall to the ground. Didn’t I write to you, shortly after I came here, about a peasant lad? I enquired about him in Wahlheim the other day and was told that he had been dismissed and nobody seemed to know anything about him. Yesterday I met him quite by chance on his way to another village. I accosted him, and he told me his story, which touched me deeply, as you will readily understand when I repeat it to you. But why do I bother? Why don’t I keep what frightens and hurts me to myself? Why must I sadden you, too? Why do I constantly give you the opportunity to pity and scold me? Very well…that, too, may be a part of my destiny.

  At first the poor fellow answered my questions with a quiet sadness in which I thought I could detect a certain shyness, but soon he spoke with less reserve, as if he had suddenly recognized me and himself. He was quite frank about the mistakes he had made and told me his whole sad story. I wish I could pass on every word of it to you, for you to pass judgment on it. He admitted, with something akin to the zest and happiness of remembrance itself, how his passion for his mistress had grown stronger daily, until in the end he hadn’t known what he was doing or saying or where to lay his poor head. He couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep; he felt choked with emotion; he did things he wasn’t supposed to do and what he was supposed to do he left undone. It was as if he were pursued by demons until, one day, when he knew that she was in one of the upstairs rooms, he went to her there—more than that, he was drawn to her. She wouldn’t give in to him, so he tried to take her by force. He didn’t know what came over him. As God was his witness, his intentions had always been honorable, and he had nev
er longed for anything so much in his life as that she should marry him. After he had spoken on and on like this for a while, he became hesitant, like someone who has more on his mind but is afraid to speak out. At last he shyly confessed to the small intimacies she had allowed him and how close she had let him draw. He broke off several times to protest over and over again that he was not telling me all this to damage her reputation in any way…that was how he put it. He loved and respected her as much as ever; he had never talked about it before and was only telling me now to assure me that he was not a warped or unreasonable man. And here, good friend, I must repeat the old refrain I am constantly singing: if only I could put this man before you as I see him now! If only I could relate his story so you could feel how I share his fate—must share it! But enough—since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people, and to this man in particular.

  On rereading this page, I see that I have forgotten to tell you the end of the story. It isn’t difficult to guess. She rejected him. Her brother happened upon them. He had always hated the poor fellow and wished him out of the house because he feared his sister might marry again, and his children thereby lose the inheritance that he had high hopes would be theirs, because the woman is childless. The brother threw him out and noised the whole thing abroad to such an extent that she could not possibly have taken him back, even if she had wanted to. Then she took on another servant and it is rumored that she has had trouble with her brother about the new man too, but this time everyone feels sure she will marry him. My poor lad, however, is determined not to live to see it.

  I have not exaggerated any of this or oversentimentalized it. I would go so far as to say that I have told it laconically—yes, laconically—and have tried to make it more commonplace by telling it in conventional terms.