‘You are George von Kuhn?’ asked the angel.
‘That’s my business.’
‘You are hungry?’
‘At home we get more to eat than this … I asked you whether you think my sister, who is going to marry your brother Fritz, is pretty?’
‘To that I can’t give you an answer. I don’t know whether she is pretty. I’m not old enough to judge of these things. But I think she is ill.’
George, cramming in more pastry, was disconcerted. ‘Oh, there’s always someone ill in every house.’ The Bernhard said, ‘Don’t you think my brother Anton played the piano well?’
‘The hymns?’
‘They were not all hymns.’
‘Yes, he played well,’ George admitted. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going out to walk by the river in the darkness. That is the effect the music has had on me.’
George drank off a glass of brandy, as nearly as possible in his stepfather’s manner, and staggered upstairs to join the dancing.
The Mandelsloh, against all expectations, was an exquisite dancer, the best, in fact, in the room. But because her husband was not with her, and on account of Sophie, she would not dance that evening, not even with young George, to whom a year or so earlier, she had painfully taught the steps. ‘Don’t ask me!’ she said to Erasmus, when he came trustingly up to her.
‘I am not going to ask you to dance, I know I mustn’t aspire to that honour, I am going to ask you to help me.’
‘What do you want?’
Erasmus said, ‘A lock of Sophie’s hair.’
The Mandelsloh slowly turned her head and looked hard at him. ‘You too!’
‘A very small quantity, to put in my pocket book, close to my heart … You know, I did not understand her at first, but suddenly it came to me why my brother had the words “Sophie be my spirit’s guide” engraved on his ring …’
She said again: ‘You too!’
‘A lock of hair, as a souvenir, is surely not so very much, not such a great thing … I had thought of asking Karoline Just to speak to Sophie, but you, of course, are the right person. Will you have a word with her?’
‘No,’ said the Mandelsloh. ‘If that is what you want, you must ask her yourself.’
Erasmus chose his time carefully. Possibly our times are always chosen for us. The violins in the music room, where the dancing was, struck up a Schottische, and he had a curious sensation of not quite understanding what they were, or why they were playing. He seemed to himself to belong to two worlds, of which one was of no possible importance.
Now he was standing next to Sophie’s chair, within a few inches of her delicate body, which smelled a little of sickness. She looked brightly up at him.
‘You have hardly spoken to me all evening, Erasmus.’
‘I have been making up my mind how to put what I wanted to say.’ He stammered it out - of course he was only asking for one curl, one small quantity, not like the Ringellocke which Fritz had shown him in the early spring, and which he knew was going to be plaited and set in a locket, or a watch-case. ‘A watch-case,’ he repeated, ‘but of course, not at all like that …’ Sophie laughed. She had been laughing, it was true, most of the evening, but not with such enjoyment as she did now.
Erasmus, retreating in humiliation, was confronted by the Mandelsloh. ‘God in heaven, surely you did not ask her!’
‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘You told me - I had thought of you as frank and open …’
‘Did you expect her to take off her cap?’
He had not thought about it at all.
‘Little by little it came away,’ the Mandelsloh told him ‘on account of the illness. For two months now, quite bald …’
She looked at him steadily, without a hint of forgiveness. ‘You Hardenbergs shed tears easily,’ she said. ‘I have had occasion to notice this before.’
‘But why did she laugh?’ asked poor Erasmus.
45
She Must Go To Jena
FRITZ knew that Sophie was bald, but was confident that her dark hair would return. He knew that Sophie could not die. ‘What a man wills himself to do, he can do,’ he told Coelestin Just, ‘still more can a woman.’ But they must not let time slip. Sophie needed better advice, indeed the best. She must go to Jena.
‘They are coming to consult Stark. But with whom can they stay?’ asked Friedrich Schlegel. ‘Hardenberg used to have an aunt here in Jena, but she died, I think about a year ago. The Philosophy, I believe, will be in the charge of her sister, an officer’s wife.’
‘And Hardenberg’s father, der Alte, may well, I suppose, be in and out,’ said Caroline Schlegel. ‘He will be anxious as to our beliefs and our moral life. Woe to the free, woe to the unprayed-over!’
The Jena circle, though not charitable, was hospitable. But the academic year was over, the town was beginning to swelter, the yellow clay soil would soon bake dry, the spire of the Staatskirche seemed to vibrate in the summer’s heat. Soon they would all be on vacation, except for poor Ritter, who retreated to his attic and made himself invisible.
Sophie and the Mandelsloh, however, had already moved into lodgings in the Schaufelgasse. The rooms were small, and there were three flights of stairs, but the house was recommended to them because the landlady, Frau Winkler, was used to invalid young ladies. It was clear, indeed, from the first that she had the temperament which is attracted to illness and everything to do with it. This was irritating, but meant that she would bring up jugs of hot water at any time, by night and by day. ‘It’s part of the attendance, gracious lady,’ said Frau Winkler.
At least, the Mandelsloh had thought, reassuring herself, there will be no formality here - not that there was ever much at Gruningen - and poor Sophie can feel as though in her own dolls’ house, with the patterned earthenware jugs waiting humbly on the crowded dresser. In truth, though, she was somewhat doubtful about her choice and had to summon up her courage to open her first letter from the Freiherr. She could not know that the Uncle Wilhelm, arriving uninvited at Weissenfels to give his advice, had declared that there were no lodgings in Jena (except perhaps the former palace, where Goethe usually stayed) which were in any way suitable for the Affianced of his eldest nephew.
‘The rooms let out by the inhabitants are all at the top of the house, and are fit only for breeding pigeons. I know the town, better, in all probability, than any of you. This elder sister, take it from me, will have settled for a couple of garrets. Women are always satisfied with too little.’
The Freiherr immediately wrote to Frau Leutnant Mandelsloh that he hoped to come and see her as soon as possible, and that meantime he was entirely assured that she had chosen wisely.
46
Visitors
Friederike’s Daybook, July 1796
Sophgen has been trying to keep up her diary, but she must not torment herself any longer to write in it. Let me be the recorder.
We are doing well enough here in our little rooms. Sophie’s dinner I prepare myself, rather than sending out to the Rose, in order not to give offence to our landlady. But the Jena air does not suit me, and perhaps it suits no-one, since all the professors and literati seem to have some complaint against each other. Weather very hot. They are beginning to go away on their little outings and vacations. The streets where they live are empty.
Hardenberg’s friend Friedrich Schlegel (I think he is not yet a professor) visited us yesterday evening. He too is on the point of some journey or other. I received him by myself. Sophie had gone out with Frau Winkler, to see a military parade. God knows I myself have seen my bellyful of them. But as soon as the pain goes away a little, my beloved little sister is ready to find everything amusing. She is then almost herself.
Well, Friedrich Schlegel. He is a philosopher and a historian. I was not at all put off by his melancholy gaze. He said to me, ‘Frau Leutnant, your sister, Fraulein von Kuhn, tries to make her mind work in the same way that Hardenberg’s does, as one
might try to teach a half-tame bird to sing like a human being. She won’t succeed, and the ideas she had before, such as they were, are now in disarray and she hardly knows what to put in their place.’
I asked him, ‘Have you ever met my sister, Herr Schlegel?’
He replied, ‘Not as yet, but I believe she is an instance of a certain easily-recognisable type.’
I said, ‘She is my sister.’
Later, Sophie returned in the care of Frau Winkler, who said, with a certain disappointment: ‘I expected the young lady to faint, but she did not.’
Although Fritz now had his first official appointment as an Assistant Saline Inspector, and was allowed only short periods of leave, the Rockenthiens left Sophie’s treatment entirely in his hands.
‘No other system is so reliable as Brown’s,’ Fritz told Karoline Just, not for the first time. ‘To some extent Brownismus is based on Locke’s ideas of the nervous system.’
‘We have to believe in someone,’ said Karoline. ‘Another one, I mean, besides ourselves, or life would be a poor thing.’
‘I was talking of the exact sciences, Justen.’
Fritz had made a very early start from Tennstedt. There was some delay, however, when he reached Jena, in getting hold of Stark, who was at a professional conference in Dresden. But he was told that it would be possible to see the Professor’s Deputy Assistant, Jacob Dietmahler.
‘Ah, it’s you, what good fortune,’ cried Fritz. ‘I sometimes think that at every turning point in my life -‘
‘My life, too, has had its turning-points,’ said Dietmahler quietly.
Fritz was overwhelmed. ‘Love has made me a monster.’
‘Don’t concern yourself, Hardenberg. I am happy to have obtained this appointment as a Deputy Assistant, and I have resigned myself to the long walk ahead of me.’
‘I am truly sorry if -‘
‘We won’t waste time on that. Why have you come here?’
‘Dietmahler, Dr Ebhard will have written the Professor a letter of explanation. My Sophie is in pain.’
‘In severe pain, I imagine. I can’t, of course, offer any opinion until Professor Stark returns, but Ebhard mentions her complexion, which provides us with an important indication -‘
‘It is like a rose.’
‘This letter says, yellowish.’
But Sophie wanted to go out. She had the remorseless perseverance of the truly pleasure-loving. There had been so little to do in Gruningen. What was more, she had never been serenaded. Here, at least, Dietmahler was able to be of immediate practical assistance. There were plenty of medical students left in Jena, penniless, and working through the vacation in the hope of getting their qualifications a little earlier, or of joining a regiment as a half-qualified bone-setter or wound-doctor. Could they play and sing? Naturally they could. How else can the needy pass their spare time, except with music? Outside the lodgings, in the warm dusk which filled the Schaufelgasse, they began with little airs, little popular songs, then a trio. When the Mandelsloh came down the three flights of stairs, with her purse in her hand, and asked them, ‘For whom do you play?’ they replied, ‘For Philosophy.’
Friederike’s Daybook
And now it seems that the great man is actually going to call, that Goethe will actually be among us. We didn’t hear this from Hardenberg, but once again from Erasmus, who after all, has not gone to Zillbach, but has a room at the moment at a student’s beer-house, where he says he is sleeping on straw. That is emphatically his business, rather than mine. He tells me, also, that it’s well known that Goethe cannot endure the wearing of spectacles, and has said, ‘What do I gain from a man into whose eyes I cannot look while I am speaking, and the mirror of whose soul is veiled by glasses that dazzle me? A feeling of disharmony comes over me when a stranger approaches me with spectacles on his nose.’ I myself used never to wear glasses, but now I do, for fine sewing and for reading, and since we came to Jena I have worn them nearly all the time. On occasion, though, one must ignore great men’s fancies.
July 7, morning.
First we tidy our sitting room. With furnishings so poor, there is not much that can be done: they are intended for University assistant-teachers, who are grateful for anything. The medicine bottles, the poultices, the syringes, beloved of Frau Winkler, go into the bedroom; the sewing, the newspapers, under the day-bed. On a day like this, dull and windy, the windows must stay shut, but they do not fit properly. There is a draught, we know that already, but I go closer and confirm it, it is like a skewer. The great man of letters will risk pneumonia, and that must always be held against us.
Sophgen forgets that she is in pain, even that she is ill, in discussing the draught. The secret, says Frau Winkler, is to open the windows now, very wide, just for a time. If the air inside the room is the same temperature as the air outside, no draught can be felt. - But (I tell her) the room will be hellishly uncomfortable. - No matter, cries Sophgen, we’ll shut everything tight when he approaches the house, and she collects what is left of her strength and before I can stop her throws the windows wide. Then she begins to cough. ‘You should have left that to me. Now your cough pierces me like the nails on the cross. The draught couldn’t have done it better.’ - And Sophie laughs.
Goethe is coming up the Schaufelgasse. All to the window! He advances in a blue frock coat, and over that a summer dust-coat, a noble garment which almost touches the ground, and does touch the ankles of his splendid boots. He seems to have no servant with him: a private call.
I take off my spectacles and go down, Sophie too, she won’t be left behind. She draws herself up, as though she felt no fear. Goethe introduces himself, and taking our hands quite frankly, asks us whether his servant can be accommodated in the kitchen: he did bring a man with him after all, but it seems that this man always walks a certain number of paces behind him, imitating, out of respect, his actions and gestures. Surely it would be of much more use if he went in front, and made sure they were going to the right house.
Upstairs, Goethe takes the hardest chair, saying, with much charm, that poets thrive on discomfort. However, in another moment he is pacing up and down the little room.
There is no bell, but I have arranged with Frau Winkler to stamp on one of the loose boards, so that she will know when to bring refreshments. Goethe handily cuts the cake himself, and opens the bottle. He suggests sending down a glass of wine to the servant, which I agree to, although I can’t see that he has done much to earn it. Meanwhile he talks a little about health and illness. Some maladies, he says, are nothing but stagnation, which a glass or two of mineral water would remove, but we must never let them linger: we must go straight to the attack, as in all things.
He must see that the case is quite otherwise with our poor little patient. It was clear that he wanted to draw her out. Unfortunately, he does not, as yet, know Hardenberg’s poetry, indeed I suppose not much of it, so far, has appeared in print. Sophie, for whom the visit was perhaps too great an honour, could think of nothing to say. At last she ventured that Jena was a larger town than Gruningen. Goethe bowed slightly and replied that Weimar, also, was a larger town than Gruningen.
Sophie did not mention Hardenberg’s story The Blue Flower. And Goethe, at least, made no reference to the draught.
Erasmus, who had found out exactly when the visit was to be, was waiting, or rather hovering, at the corner of the street.
‘Excellency! Please, a word! I am Hardenberg’s younger brother - that is, one of his younger brothers. I am a student of forestry - that is, not here …’
‘I did not think it would be here,’ said Goethe. ‘There is no school of forestry in the University of Jena.’
‘I have been studying at Hubertusberg. That is, I have just left Hubertusberg. May I walk a short distance with you?’
Goethe smiled, and said that there was no law against it.
‘You have been calling on Fraulein Sophie von Kuhn,’ perserved Erasmus, ‘and her elder sister, Frau Leutnant
Mandelsloh.’
‘Ah, she is the elder sister, is she? A woman of strength, I had not quite made out the relationship.’ Since Erasmus, coughing, trotting by his side, could manage nothing more at the moment Goethe went on, ‘I think I know what you wanted to ask me. You wonder whether Fraulein von Kuhn, when she is restored to health, will be a true source of happiness to your brother. Probably you feel that there is not an equality of understanding between them. But rest assured, it is not her understanding that we love in a young girl. We love her beauty, her innocence, her trust in us, her airs and graces, her God knows what - but we don’t love her for her understanding - nor, I am sure, does Hardenberg. He will be happy, at least for a certain number of years, with what she can offer him, and then he may have the incomparable blessing of children, while his poetry -‘
Erasmus desperately caught the arm of the great man in mid-speech, spinning him round like flotsam in the tide. ‘But that is not what I wanted to ask you!’
Goethe stopped and looked down at him. (The servant, twenty yards behind, stopped also, and stared into a barber’s shop.)
‘I was mistaken, then. You are not concerned about your brother’s happiness?’
‘Not about his!’ cried Erasmus. ‘About hers, about Sophie’s, about hers!’
47
How Professor Stark Managed
WHEN Professor Stark returned to Jena he made an examination, and said that an operation was necessary. He would insert tubes, to carry away the poison. There was no other way to drain the gracious Fraulein’s tumour. Authorisation was needed from her stepfather in Gruningen. This arrived within twenty-four hours.
The Blue Flower Page 15