The ball continued. Julie von Hohenzollern came to fetch Goethe for a contra dance but he pointed to the bullet hole. She said it was obvious that any excuse would do to avoid dancing with her.
The night was uncomfortable. His forehead and nose were hurting. Stadelmann was happy to be more important than ever. He had to apply cold compresses to his master’s head. Goethe couldn’t sleep. He asked Stadelmann to wake up his secretary John. John came, ready to serve but not without resentment. It wasn’t the first time that the privy councilor wanted to dictate his nocturnal ideas.
“Your Majesty, Royal Highness,” he began and continued dictating, without hesitation, that he was venturing to entreat his friend and most gracious sovereign for an unprecedented demonstration of his friendly attachment. Namely: as his representative and suitor to ask Frau von Levetzow for the hand of her daughter Ulrike in marriage. It was much to ask, but should it not be in accordance with His Majesty’s views, he could eschew it entirely. By leaving it completely up to the discretion of his Most Gracious Sovereign whether to grant his servant—whom he often had the goodness to call his friend—this service not anticipated in the list of official duties, the undersigned conceded that he left it wholly to the wisdom of his Most Gracious Sovereign to decide whether what he was asking was or was not feasible. “With the expression of deepest attachment, Your Goethe.”
Then he said, “A clean copy as soon as possible tomorrow morning, dear John, so that it will arrive over there by noon.”
If the kiss had been one of sympathy, then he had embarrassed himself with this letter. As if it mattered. The Wreath of Terpsichore, Ulrike-Lotte, the kiss, the gentle pressure she had lent it! The fall is trying to destroy all of that. Darkness, rain, a branch, the end. Seventy-three, a lovely number. But she participated. It was not sympathy at all. Her shock, her consternation, and the way she gradually recovered from it, then—and this was what allowed him to continue living now—then she forbade him to flee. She wanted to return to the ballroom with him. She knew, he knew, that the Terpsichore Wreath could only land on her head, on his. And when they danced their dance, the Lotte-Werther dance, they were the same age, and that decided everything.
Beneath this torrent of words ran an accompanying stream that negated all that was happening within him. He had to see to it that that negation had no chance. It was nothing new. All his life he had banished this accompanying, negating text back to where it came from, to the district of defeat.
The pain radiating from his forehead and nose became a helmet of pain sitting firmly on his head, the guarantee that all night long, the pathos would not leave him.
Part Two
Chapter One
HE HAD TO persuade himself that he was doing his work as always. But he wondered why he had to persuade himself he was doing his work as always when he knew it wasn’t so. Why couldn’t he admit it? Five times an hour he jumped up from his desk and ran to the window, always hoping Ulrike would appear on the terrace over there and wave so he could wave back and let her know she could come right over if she wanted. He found it dangerous to admit that to himself. It’s in the nature of weaknesses to gain even more influence over you the more you think about them and admit they exist.
Two days after the costume ball, and he had still not seen Ulrike. Dr. Rehbein had taken good care of his injuries.
The grand duke had replied at once, saying he would press his friend’s suit before leaving for maneuvers in Berlin. He wrote that he was optimistic. And because he was a man of action, he added an explanation of how he would supplement the suit: with a house in Weimar for Ulrike’s mother. Ulrike would be the first lady of the Weimar court. And in any case, a widow’s pension for Ulrike of 10,000 thaler a year. That was an embarrassment for Goethe, but if that’s how Carl August saw the matter, it couldn’t be completely wrong. The duke wrote that he had sent word to the Levetzows that he would be calling on them. After all, he was staying in their palais only one floor above them.
Then the news that changed everything: The Levetzows were packing to leave Marienbad and travel to Karlsbad day after tomorrow. Goethe read and reread the lavender-blue note Ulrike had slipped into Stadelmann’s hand. Ulrike wrote that, as frequently happened—actually, as always happened—her mother wished to end the summer in Karlsbad. It was true. Last year Goethe, too, had ended the summer in Karlsbad. With the Levetzows. In the much older, much more dignified Karlsbad, where he had passed twelve happy summers cultivating society and his health. And he felt it would never be the same again. Once more in his mind’s eye he saw what had transpired in Frau von Levetzow’s face when she heard—and could no longer doubt what she heard—that her daughter and Goethe had dressed as Lotte and Werther without consulting each other. Goethe had read what happened in her face. First, that she saw in the couple’s spontaneous commonality the sign of a spiritual kinship she had not reckoned with, and second, that she had to separate the two of them as quickly as possible.
Then Ulrike herself arrived. Her first concern was for his forehead. She wanted to touch it. One could see that. She was wholly an impulse held in check. She pointed to it and asked if it still hurt.
He shook his head. Had the grand duke’s letter of proposal arrived at the Levetzows? Or had his most gracious sovereign perhaps delivered it in person? He had not told Goethe how he planned to execute his mission. But if Ulrike knew of the proposal, she would have entered in a different way. But how?
Now she repeated what she had already written: The Levetzows were leaving for Karlsbad soon, before the twentieth. She said it casually, in a way that made it sound harmless. He remarked her effort at harmlessness. And the girl to whom he had recommended more energy and animation when reading aloud—as he had recently been reminded—was now making quite clear by the way she repeated her assignment that what she was saying was not her decision but her mother’s. It was a performance of saying nothing herself but only repeating what had been said to her.
He was thrilled. He laid both hands on her shoulders but avoided the slightest hint of drawing her toward him. The very idea that this enormous proposal would land on the Levetzows’ doorstep without a word having being said by the proposer himself! He had to hope that the Levetzows still knew nothing of it. If the proposal had reached her ears, Ulrike would not have been able to walk in here as she did. That was clear enough.
So, Ulrike, he has to tell you, and high time: Perhaps at this very moment His Majesty has had himself announced to your mother. Perhaps he has already been admitted and at this very moment is saying that as the representative of Herr von Goethe, he is asking for your hand in marriage.
He got that out at any rate. And in his best, firmest voice, uncontaminated by the least doubt. Yes, his heart wanted to remind him what a tremendous moment it was. And now, the power of Ulrike’s eyes, those eyes that could conceal nothing. Perhaps not everyone who looked at her would say that. For him, they were eyes that told stories. Her gaze now told him in no uncertain terms, I am surprised. You can see my astonishment. I will not conceal that what you say enters my soul as a joyful message. But I don’t know what the message is. I’m much too surprised. I’m happy and don’t know why. Perhaps I’m dreaming, too. You don’t always have to know what you’re doing when you do something. Now I know I’m dreaming. But, a pretty dream, Excellency.
Because she said nothing but gazed so tellingly, he said, “Luckily we’re both people without tragic inclinations.”
“That’s true,” she said. She sounded relieved. Her face—it could be her kind of happiness. And she looked intrepid as well. She always liked to look up, which was appropriate now.
Suddenly he needed to say that the gracious sovereign, who in his letters had often enough addressed him as friend, had insisted on furnishing his proposal to her mother with realities that he—the proposer—would never have been able to enumerate in such a loud and sober voice. And in general, she should please take it as his position that this entire proposal was an excur
sion into unseemliness that suited her just as little as it did him. He knows that marriage is a way to make the impossible possible and as such, is worthy of all respect, but if one is serious, one has no need of it. If both parties are serious, nothing is as superfluous as marriage. You see that not even in this highly precarious moment—rendered completely untragic by the look in your eyes—not even now can he completely forgo a ruminating undertone. Marriage is only necessary when one of the couple is not as serious as the other. That was it, dear Ulrike. Now the look in your eye is perhaps the same look as that of the first person to hear it proved long ago that the earth is not a disk but a sphere.
He withdrew his hands from her shoulders. She looked up at him. I’m not even six feet, he thought. She sent her mouth as an avant-garde, approached her face to his, and made sure that their two mouths again touched. For an immeasurably long time. But her eyes were closed as he felt her mouth on his mouth.
Then she was gone. And he hadn’t prevented it! She was no longer here, if you please! As long as she is standing there before him, visible, reachable, it’s impossible to say or feel what it will be like when she will have gone, will be outside, no longer visible, no longer reachable. If one could feel this condition in advance, one wouldn’t allow her to go, one would—ah, what would one do then …
But she is still nearby. You’ll see her again soon … He walked back and forth, thinking. That ridiculous proposal, the most helpless way of expressing his earnestness. But perhaps a mother needs such assistance. She is only fifteen or sixteen years younger than Count Klebelsberg and the two of them don’t seem to need to get married. Granted, the proposal was a sort of relapse into the unnecessary, inappropriate, inopportune …
That same evening, the letter from his sovereign and friend arrived: a most amicable reception of his proposal by the Levetzow family. Frau von Levetzow, herself having been damaged by marriage, will never force a daughter into marriage. A long conversation between Ulrike and her mother, the result communicated to him: If Ulrike can be useful to Herr von Goethe, she is absolutely willing. A reservation: His family in Weimar. His son, daughter-in-law, and two grandsons could feel themselves shortchanged, and that throws everything into question.
Goethe read it more than once. Of course, only such a formal answer could follow such a formal approach. The only word that resonated within him was “useful.” If women who had read Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years used that word in such a fatefully exaggerated situation, they knew that it contained the phrase “from usefulness through truth to beauty.” It was all he wanted. And Ulrike had surely already informed them over there that he had in the meantime talked the whole marriage business out of Ulrike’s and his own life’s plan. This entire answer smacked of the mother’s style when she was playing the role of mother. It was not Amalie von Levetzow, the splendid courtier who dominated every room she entered. Any more than it was Ulrike’s style. That’s how he carefully restored his feelings, his perspectives, his situation.
The farewell was scheduled for the early afternoon of August 18, 1823. The carriage was ready and waiting, mother and daughter already in their traveling clothes. It’s certain, agreed, irrevocable that they will see each other again. The scene was animated by the mother’s sparkling cordiality. The embraces, more than routine. He did not abuse the hug with Ulrike with any sort of passionate pressure. Amalie was the only one who even mentioned the reduced size of the sticking plasters on his forehead and nose: “If you had walked up to the grove with me, that wouldn’t have happened. Ulrike always walks as if her limbs would fly away.” And Bertha felt compelled to add, “All the best, Herr Privy Councilor, until next time.”
Since it all transpired outside on the terrace, kissing her hand was out of the question. They had almost reached the carriage when Ulrike turned around, came back to the edge of the terrace, and said, “N-C-O-L-W-N.”
Some instinct told him he ought to understand that. But he just couldn’t think that fast. Ulrike had obviously counted on him knowing what N-C-O-L-W-N stood for or signified. When she saw that he didn’t, she said as though reminding him of something he knew, “It’s our abbreviation language.” She called out to her family, “Please translate N-C-O-L-W-N for Herr Privy Councilor.”
And Amalie and Bertha answered in chorus, “No change of location without notification.”
She said to him—said it softly, almost fervently—“Understood, Excellency?”
“Understood.” Into that single word he injected all his happiness.
Parodying routine, she said, “Au revoir.”
Waving hands from the carriage windows. The last to be withdrawn was Ulrike’s. When he was back in his room looking down at the terrace, it struck him as devastated. He would spend his remaining days here behind drawn curtains. It was an order he gave himself. His heart responded (he needed to steady himself on the window frame). His heart against the wall of his chest, throbbing at his throat. His heart behaved like a prisoner banging on his cell door to be released from an unjust incarceration. He tried to conciliate his heart with movements and cautious breaths. In vain. If this increased, it would be over soon—breathing, everything. He called Stadelmann, who came.
“Dr. Heidler,” he said. Stadelmann saw, understood, and ran down the stairs and out into the street. Goethe was still standing at the window. Two steps to the sofa, then he was sitting. He could not lie down. His breathing was short and shallow. The spa doctor arrived. There was no need for Goethe to explain anything, but he must go lie down in the next room.
Dr. Heidler auscultated him and said, “A convulsion. A bloodletting would help,” and performed one on the spot. Goethe fell asleep at once. When he awoke, Stadelmann was sitting on a chair at his bedside. Goethe thanked him and said he could go.
Back to the farewell scene. It was ridiculous to think he could imagine anything. Once something is there, you feel you couldn’t have imagined it at all. She is gone. Only now. And now that scene was there again, the abbreviation language of the Levetzow daughters—he’d witnessed it often enough, God knew. The first time when they read Scott together, two years ago. Bertha had begun too far into the book and Amalie had at once cried out “W-A-N-T-F-Y.” Which they translated for him. W-A-N-T-F-Y meant, We are not that far yet. It was their abbreviation language. Indeed, they were children of the nineteenth century. Soon everyone would communicate only in abbreviations. Amalie and Bertha had babbled it out, but this apparently serious explanation came from Ulrike, quite calmly and with no proselytizing fervor. She was apparently the inventor of this language.
He would leave on the twentieth. On the twentieth, he did. There was nothing more for him to do here. And without activity, he was at the mercy of thoughts he could not resist. A sort of involuntary decision was made within him. He could not imagine leaving here tomorrow in the knowledge that he was going to Weimar. It was clear that tomorrow, he was only going to Eger. On his way from Weimar to the Bohemian spas and back he always stopped in Eger to visit Police Superintendent Grüner. That’s what he would do tomorrow. The police superintendent was a discoverer and collector of the past. And an admirer, but not in the worshipful way that could make you doubt yourself. Both of them had passions in common. He and Grüner had always gone on excursions together, excursions into the history of the landscape. Grüner could read the landscape: the stones, the trees, the brooks, the walls. He was a student of everything that existed: languages, people, furniture, wind, and weather. And when the need arose, he made poems he gave Goethe to read. He knew that they were only poems to fix momentary impressions or rhymed documentation of extralinguistic events. The police superintendent radiated a modesty that for Goethe—who was usually surrounded by fairly egotistical people—was like fresh spring water. In his thoughts, which were still under attack from the farewell on the terrace, Goethe had determined that at the moment, he was completely incapable of looking beyond Eger—beyond traveling to Eger to visit Grüner, who had been given advance notice.
He could not bear any further direction.
But the day before his departure he found another activity, or rather, the activity found him: he wrote. In the evening, there was his day’s work on the best paper Stadelmann was able to scare up. He not only read it, he studied it. And here is what he studied:
For your profound involvement with my songs,
in thanks and fond remembrance
of pleasurable hours.
Duet on the Pangs of Love
Immediately after Parting
He:
I thought that I would feel no pain
And yet my heart was sore somehow,
A hollow feeling in my brain,
A tightened knot around my brow—
Until at last, tear after tear
Flowed in farewell to one so dear.
Her farewell—a cheerful, calm adieu.
A Man in Love Page 9