Read Ebook: Alide: an episode of Goethe's life. by Lazarus Emma

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Ebook has 480 lines and 45516 words, and 10 pages

When they reached the vineyard they found that the thick shadows of the grape-leaves made it too dark for them to enter, and Madame Duroc proposed that they should return at once to the house. Then followed a simple incident, now familiar to the world as the memorable events of history. It is but just to say that Steck at the time did not analyze the tender, sincere emotion which it excited in his breast; but in his artist-mind everything photographed itself with such distinctness that almost a lifetime later it recurred to him, and he transferred it to his Homeric page in the exquisite lines which all of us know. There were some large stones, roughly hewn to serve as steps, at the entrance of the vineyard, and they were descending these, when Alide's foot slipped, and she fell in his arms. For a second he supported her, with her hair close to his lips, her trembling form palpitating in his grasp.

She gently sank on his shoulder, Breast was placed against breast, and cheek against cheek; thus he stood there, Fixed as a marble statue, the force of will keeping him steadfast, Drew her not to him more closely, but braced himself under her pressure.

She recovered herself almost immediately, and, suffused with shame at her awkwardness, as she expressed it, she hurried forward by his side.

Rahel and Max were already in the porch with the pastor when they arrived. "Did you find it as pleasant as we did?" asked Rahel. "You must have loitered by the way, for we walked as far as the old pear-tree, and yet we are home first."

"It is a rarely beautiful night," answered her mother. "But come, girls, it is time to go in now; and, Otto, I am sure the gentlemen are quite ready, after their journey from Strasburg to-day, to be shown to their room."

"I congratulate you, Dr. Steck," said Max Waldstein, when Otto had bidden the two young men good-night and closed the door of the guest-chamber, "on the result of these serious studies of yours; on your triumphant success in the praiseworthy attempt to examine these pastoral, idyllic lives with entire freedom from personal emotions. Wine, women, and song? Luther was an infant when he wrote it: it is philosophy, mathematics, jurisprudence, that make the world go round. What do you say, Dr. Steck? Have you brought your Phaedon in your valise, and shall I fetch it to lull you to sleep? Tell me, am I not an admirable fellow to have introduced you into the original Primrose family?"

"Do not be hard upon me, Max," answered the other, frankly; "I acknowledge myself vanquished, routed, cut to pieces. But no, I will not yield like a craven; it is not open warfare, it is an ambuscade. Instead of warning me of the danger, you lured me into it. It was Rahel who was bewitching, Rahel who was irresistible; and just as I am pluming myself that I have met the enemy, received the full shock of her charge, and come off conqueror, there enters this baby whom you never thought it worth your while to mention, and before she has spoken I am groveling in the dust."

"And it is only your own villainous taste that brought you there," replied Max. "How could I know that you would prefer one of these pink-and-white lasses that spring up as thick as weeds all over Germany, to the sprightly Mademoiselle Rahel, or Olivia, as you have dubbed her? Truly the story is quite complete: the gentleman in disguise may have the honor of passing for Mr. Burchell; and, since scoundrels are not so necessary in common life as in novels, I will undertake the r?le of the nephew, and behave myself better than he did."

"Oh, Max!" interrupted his companion, "tell me, above all things, on your conscience, have you not betrayed me? What can she think of me? What a cursed fool I have made of myself in this execrable costume! Does she know that I am Goethe? I heard you talking freely about me before supper."

"How the deuce could she know it, when she was out in the porch cooing to you the only time your name passed my lips?"

"But her dignified mother, her kind old father," said Goethe, anxiously,--"have you betrayed me to them? Do they know what a simpleton I have been?"

"I cannot answer for that," responded Waldstein, dryly; "but if they know you are a simpleton they have discovered it through their own mother-wit, for I assure you, comrade, it is not I who would betray you."

"How did you happen to speak of me at all?" asked Goethe.

"Naturally enough," replied Max: "they questioned me about Strasburg, and I found your madcap fame had preceded you as far as Sesenheim. They had heard all sorts of preposterous stuff, and they were just begging me to tell them something about your eccentricities, when you came in with your sweetheart on your arm,--oh, no, I beg your pardon, not the Cathedral, but some heroine of a novel whom you were loftily studying for your first work of fiction."

Goethe made no reply, but paced the floor in an excited manner. Max watched him narrowly with an amused expression, and waited for him to resume the conversation. Finally he stopped, and broke out abruptly, "Is she engaged?"

"No," said Max, shortly.

"Hm! that is a relief," said Goethe, with a sigh. "Is she in love? has she ever been in love?"

"Really, Wolfgang," cried Max, laughing, "I cannot pretend to be familiar with such a mysterious thing as the heart of a woman. As to her being in love now, however, I think I can safely answer--no, unless she was smitten this evening by that pretty gray suit of yours. And for the past,--well, as she is scarcely more than a child, I hardly think it possible that she should have had any serious passion hitherto."

"Strange! strange!" murmured Goethe, absently. "Such a cheerfulness by nature is inconceivable to me. Had she loved and lost and recovered herself, or were she now betrothed, in either case I could account for this deep, earnest serenity." And he relapsed into silence.

"Those two cousins of hers," he began, in a little while, "her aunt Catherine--no, that is not the name--her aunt Christiane's sons: has she not a sentiment for one of them?"

"For both of them, for all I know," answered Max; "but if you could see them, I hardly believe you would suspect it. I think the Durocs have monopolized the beauty of the family. And, besides, one of these cousins is some few months younger than herself, and therefore in her womanly eyes a mere child; the other is already married. Any more catechism to-night, Wolfgang?"

"Yes; who is Goetz?" asked Goethe, with great eagerness.

A few moments later, honest Max was asleep as his head touched the pillow; but Goethe tossed feverishly about, and it was not till a short time before dawn that he succeeded in calming sufficiently his turbulent imagination to snatch a troubled slumber.

GOETHE

With the earliest beams of morning Goethe awoke. "Alide" was his first thought, and he sprang from his bed and began hastily to dress himself, that he might go into the open air and see her in the broad, dewy light of the young day. But now he was indeed horrified at the absurd wardrobe which he had so wantonly selected: the farther he advanced in his toilet, the meaner it seemed in his eyes, for everything had been calculated for just this effect. His hair could easily be managed; but when he forced himself into the shabby gray coat, and saw himself reflected in the little mirror piece by piece, first the short, threadbare sleeves, then the ill-fitting jacket, and then the ridiculous breeches, he fell into despair. He looked at Waldstein's fine clothes as they hung over the chair, and gladly would he have carried them off and left his accursed husk behind, for Max was sufficiently good-humored to have put himself readily into his friend's costume, and so the tale would have found a merry ending early in the morning. But Waldstein was so much shorter and stouter than himself that this attire would give him as ridiculous an appearance as his own. While he was standing with a perplexed, dejected countenance, summoning all his powers of invention, he heard a low, smothered laugh issuing from under the silken bed-quilt. He turned quickly and saw Max peering mischievously out upon him. "No, it is true," exclaimed Max, "you do look most cursedly!"

"And I know what I will do!" cried Goethe, impetuously. "Good-by, and make my excuses."

Waldstein sprang from the bed and tried to detain him. "Are you mad?" he called out. But it was too late, for his friend was already out of the door, down the stairs, out of the house and yard, and off to the tavern.

Now that he felt himself in safety, the cheerful sunlight and the cool breath of morning somewhat restored his quiet. He walked rapidly across the meadows to the Drusenheim inn, mounted his horse, which he had left there the evening before, and rode leisurely towards Strasburg, with the intention, of changing his toilet, taking a fresh horse, and returning to the parsonage in time for dinner, or at the latest for dessert, and making his apologies and explanations. As he recalled the evening which he had spent with the Durocs, the pleasant incidents that had occurred, and the delicious emotions he had experienced, his vexation at his own folly, and his impatience to see again the beloved face of Alide, grew wellnigh intolerable. He was just about to clap spurs into his steed and gallop into the city, when a sudden thought flashed upon him, and, turning the animal about, he rode back towards Drusenheim. He entered the court-yard of the tavern, and inquired for the landlord's son, whom he had remarked as a likely lad yesterday afternoon. Master Fritz, a well-made, good-looking youth, of somewhat the same figure and height as Goethe, soon made his appearance. In a few words Wolfgang proposed that the young man should exchange clothes with him, as he had something merry on foot at the parsonage.

"Capital!" cried Fritz; "you must be a good fellow, to make sport for the mam'selles; they are such excellent people, especially Mam'selle Alide; and the old folks, too, are fond of having everything go on pleasantly." He looked critically at Goethe's shabby costume, evidently taking him for a poor enough starveling, but he was honest-hearted and amiable, and, besides, Wolfgang was to leave his good horse in the stable; so, without any ado, he consented to the bargain, adding, complacently, "If you wish to insinuate yourself, this is the right way."

Goethe soon stood smart enough in the court-yard, and his new friend looked with much satisfaction at the counterpart. "Topp! Mr. Brother," he cried, giving his hand, which Wolfgang grasped heartily, "don't come too near my girl; she might make a mistake."

"Let me go in with you a moment," said Goethe, "that I may dress my hair like yours." "Since my intentions are enigmatical," he thought, "I will make myself an external riddle also." In a short time his soft brown locks were knotted jauntily on top, and with the help of a burnt cork his delicate arched eyebrows were thickened and darkened, and made to meet over his nose like those of the innkeeper's son. Then, taking the gayly-beribboned hat, he said, "Now, have you not something or other to be done at the parsonage, that I might announce myself there in a natural manner?"

"Good," said the lad; "but in that case you must wait a couple of hours yet. There is a woman confined at our house. I will offer to take the cake to the parson's wife, and you may carry it over. Pride must pay its penalty, and so must a joke."

His first device to beguile the tedious time was to order breakfast. He sat at the table familiarly with Fritz, and proposed to loiter an hour or so at the meal; but his exercise in the bracing air had added such zest to his appetite that when he had satisfied his hunger he found, to his surprise, but twenty minutes sped of his two hours' penance. Fritz suggested that Goethe, being an apt and amiable fellow, should go with him to the farmyard and stables and superintend the household arrangements for the day, and perhaps lend here and there a helping hand. Goethe was just the man to have interested himself deeply at any other moment in all the particulars of this active, healthy life, these varied duties, this genial, pleasant occupation which Fritz was to inherit and in which he already performed a large share of the work. Besides, the open-hearted peasant took the stranger into his confidence, and imparted various perplexities of his love-affairs, which just now were in rather an embarrassing condition. It was Lotte who held him to some foolish pledge of his boyhood, and it was Minna of the parsonage who possessed his heart. But Goethe was haunted by the vision of Alide, and burning with impatience to realize his dream: so he lent but an abstracted and unsympathetic ear to the prosy details of crops and marketings and tavern-profits, curiously interspersed with the idyllic complications of the peasant's personal history.

Meanwhile, at the parsonage, Alide also had risen betimes, and, as the events of the past evening recurred to her, her heart beat with unwonted excitement at the thought of meeting again this strange young man and penetrating his mystery. This searching daylight, she said to herself, would reveal all; it was only the dimness of lamplight and moonlight that had made her fancy such sudden, subtle changes in his countenance. Yet it was not his appearance only that had altered. How thoroughly self-possessed she found him when she had advanced, in compassion for his embarrassment, to ask him to touch the harpsichord! And what did Herr Waldstein mean by interrupting that, burst of eloquence at the supper-table? Never before had she heard a man talk like that; she could not raise her eyes while he spoke. Ah! had she seen him at such a moment, she would have divined who and what he was. When she did look, it was too late; the curtain had been again drawn.

Hitherto, when she had been in doubt about a stranger, she had never failed to appeal to her mother's decision, with unquestioning faith in the infallibility of that wise, deliberate judgment. Now, however, she did not dream of turning to any one for counsel; no one suspected the hidden treasure of which she had caught a glimpse. Her mother seemed grave, and even displeased, when Dr. Steck had spoken so eloquently at the table, and Rahel had no eyes for any one else while Max was with her. She would discover everything for herself, and then present to them all her prince in disguise, and he should know that never for an instant had she been deceived by the shabby surface.

She looked more like a child than yesterday, as she sprang down-stairs into the open air, for she had left her plaited hair hanging down her back, and replaced her coronet of braids with a snood of pale-blue ribbon. But the serious eyes held something more suggestive of the perfect flowering of maidenhood than any light they possessed before they had fallen upon Goethe's face.

The family were just seating themselves at the breakfast-table when the door opened, and Alide, who had glanced up eagerly, saw, with a chill of disappointment, Herr Waldstein enter alone. Before the pastor could inquire about his new guest, Max said, with some constraint, "My friend begs me to tell you all, with a great many apologies for his apparent rudeness, and many more thanks for your kindness to him, that he has been obliged to return in haste to Strasburg."

"I am sorry for that," said the pastor; "I flatter myself that I can judge character pretty accurately, and that youth pleased me amazingly: he was a fine, ingenuous fellow. Well, I doubt not but he will turn up again."

"Oh, you may be sure of that!" said Max, who could not refrain from a furtive glance at Alide. "He was delighted with his evening here, and he pulled a wry face at having to return to the city."

"It seems strange that he was obliged to leave so suddenly," said Madame Duroc: "he certainly could not have received news from town so early."

"No, madame," stammered Max; "but last night--no, not last night--in fact, though he is a good fellow, to tell you the truth, he is something of a madcap. Indeed, he is only a boy in years, and he rode over here for a holiday, without remembering an important business engagement for this morning in town. I am quite sure he will return soon and make you his own excuses."

No further attention was paid to the freak so naturally accounted for, while the family conversation flowed on in its ordinary channels. How intolerably flat it was to poor Alide! Her little romance was shattered to bits by this unexpected incident; she was sure he would never come back. Now, more than ever, he was a prince in disguise, and, since he had been with her the greater part of the evening, the modest girl accused herself of a thousand blunders that must have driven him away. How she had bored him with her foolish confidences about her dull village circle! how ungainly he must have found her rustic appearance and manner! She choked a sigh, and tried to interest herself again in the trivial events of her home-life. After breakfast Rahel proposed a walk, and the two sisters fetched their hats and strolled with Waldstein across the meadows. Alide almost forgot to be melancholy in the sunshine of the autumn fields. Ah, how easily at this early period could she have succeeded in what seemed to her the heroic endeavor to banish all recollection of the wonderful stranger! She called Goetz from his kennel, and in a little while she was bounding with the dog, laughing and singing, far ahead of Max and Rahel, or gayly chatting alongside of them.

There are women who especially please us in a room; others who look better in the open air. Alide belonged to the latter. Her whole nature, her form, never appeared more charming than when she moved along an elevated footpath. The grace of her deportment seemed to vie with the flowery earth, and the indestructible cheerfulness of her countenance with the blue sky. In walks she floated about, an animating spirit, and knew how to supply the gaps which might arise here and there. The lightness of her movements we have already commended, and she was most graceful when she ran. As the deer seems just to fulfil its destination when it lightly flies over the sprouting corn, so did her peculiar nature seem most plainly to express itself when she ran with light steps over mead and furrow, to seek something which had been lost, to summon a distant couple, or to order something necessary. On these occasions she was never out of breath, and always kept her equilibrium.

"Who is this coming towards us with a white thing in his hands?" asked Max.

"Oh, that is Fritz, the innkeeper's son," said Rahel, drawing her eyelids together coquettishly. "But what can he be running across the meadows with?"

As he drew near, Alide called out, "Fritz, what are you bringing there?"

He took off his hat in such a manner that it entirely concealed his face, and, without speaking, held up a loaded napkin high in the air.

"A christening-cake!" cried Alide. "How is your sister?"

"Well," replied he, shortly.

"Carry it to the house," said Rahel. "If you do not find my mother, give it to the maid. Rut wait for us; we shall soon be back. Do you hear? That will give him a chance with Minna," she added, kindly, as they continued their walk.

With a joyous feeling of hope, Goethe in his new disguise hastened along the path, and soon reached the parsonage. He found nobody either in the house or the kitchen, and, taking it for granted that the pastor was engaged in the study, he seated himself on a bench in the porch, with his cake beside him, and pressed down his hat over his brows. It was indeed a delightful sensation which he now experienced; to sit again on this threshold over which a short time before he had blundered out in despair, to have seen her already again, to have heard again her dear voice so soon after his chagrin had pictured to him a long separation, and every moment to be expecting herself and a discovery at which his heart throbbed, and yet a discovery without shame, for surely love never prompted a merrier prank.

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