Destiny, Two Women, and a Carriage

by ANDRE MAUROIS

1

THE year, 1775. The place, Frankfort in Germany. Young Wolfgang Goethe, son of the Imperial Councilor Johann-Gaspard Goethe, a leading burgher of the town, had just come back to his native city. He was fully aware of his genius and, from childhood, had always kept faith in his destiny. “The start,”he said when only six, “will not forget me. He had always known he was made to dominate and to observe. “The Spirit of Nature will lead you by the hand into all nations, will show you Life in its entirety and the strange restlessness of Man; you will see him wandering about, seeking, jostling, pressing on, falling back, pulling, pushing aside, rubbing against; you will witness the extraordinary confusion of the human herd. But, for you, that will be like watching a magic-lantern.” Thus Goethe to Goethe.

Like watching a magic-lantern. What could that mean, exactly? Chat his daemon (for Goethe, like Socrates, believed himself possessed and guided by his own spirit-devil) would command him never to take part wholeheartedly in human affairs. For only he who keeps his spirit free and apart may become a Poet, a creator of worlds. But this detachment, for a young man of twenty-six, was not easily maintained. Goethe was handsome; women liked him and he needed them. Without love, Goethe was incapable of creating. Moreover, he was violent and his recklessness made him a choice morsel for the devil.

At eighteen our Faust has encountered his Mephistopheles in the form of a student called Behrisch, from Leipzig. “My word.” wrote young Goethe to this evil tempter, “I believe I am now prepared for the seduction of a young lady. In a word, Sir, ready tor anything you might by rights expect of the most zealous and conscientious of your disciples. . . .”Goethe-Faust had found his Gretchen and devastated more than one heart, but in Alsace the charming Friederike Brion had conquered him. Goethe, however, left her without remorse, saying calmly: “Providence has it that trees shall not put forth their tops to reach the sky.” In other words, passion, at a certain given moment, must cease its growth. More exactly, Goethe’s guiding spirit willed that he not depart from the charted path.

At one time, nevertheless, he had thought he would lose his life amid the debris of an unhappy love affair. He was torn apart by the marriage of the adorable Charlotte Buff to his friend Kestner. The blackest thoughts of suicide beset him. Night after night, on going to bed, he kept a dagger near him. But he never succeeded in doing himself the slightest harm. Did his body frustrate his will? Not at all, for he really willed to live. Instead of killing himself, he incorporated the story of his love affair — and of his suicide—in Werther, and was freed from Charlotte from the moment he finished the work. “After great suffering, I have found myself again,”he said. “And in what form? As an artist.” The magic-lantern. This painful experience, however, raised him up against the gods. There was, after all, something of Prometheus in the young man.

This was the time, in Germany, of the Sturm und Drang, a literary movement which preceded and resembled Romanticism. The Sturm und Dränger wanted to portray the struggle of man-giants against society. Goethe look part in this movement and was to give it its masterpieces. He was in revolt against la raison of the French eighteenth century. He exalted the obscure powers of the soul. He compared himself willi the Titans. He hated Zeus.

Certain friends were appalled by his systematic rebellion and concluded that he was possessed of the devil, and the devil was Pride. And it is true that revolt against the gods is a dangerous attitude in that it can lead to nothing. The world is what it is; the gods are what they are. The role of a gifted man is not to execrate the world, but to transform it. This Goethe, in his twenty-sixth year, seemed handsome, genial, unique, but one could fear be would smash himself up against inflexible obstacles. Lavater, who was fond of him, was astonished and disturbed by his wild behavior: “Goethe is all force, sensitivity and imagination. He acts without knowing why or how; one might say that he is carried along as if by a river’s current.”And Goethe himself: “Am I not the Cruel Fair One who, without object or respite, hurls himself into the abyss like the cataract which roars ever downward from rock to rocky ledge?”

But his daemon was watching over him and, in mysterious ways, at a decisive moment, was going to orient the Cruel Fair One towards the Humane Fair One. He would use for this purpose a girl, a prince, a carriage, and a grande dame. Destiny’s tools, one can see, are unforeseeable.

2

THE girl was Anna Elisabeth Schönemann, the daughter of one of Frankfort’s important bankers, who had died several years before Goethe met her. She was called Lili by her intimates. The meeting occurred at the beginning of January, 1775. Because of Werther and his poems, Goethe was already well-known, and the Frankfort salons were attempting to draw him into their circles. The young Titan was warding off their advances; he did not want to be tamed. The more he played the role of a socially savage and wild animal, the greater waxed the curiosity of the others. The time came, however, when, on the spur of the moment one evening, a friend proposed to take him along to a concert at the home of a Calvinist hanker, and he accepted. Goethe loved anything that was improvised. It meant taking a ticket in Life’s lottery.

He was led into a large salon, in the center of which xxas a harpsichord. The only daughter of the family, sixteen, blonde, charming, and a coquette, was playing. Her touch was quick and light. Goethe, seated facing her, admired the childlike freshness and naturalness he found in Lili. When he complimented her, she answered him most charmingly. He noticed that she was taking great pleasure in looking at him, as though he were a spectacle. He was not astonished by this interest, knowing he was both handsome and famous. As for himself, he was carried away by what he saw. He found that a mutual attraction was dawning. A group surrounded them and so they were unable to speak alone with one another at all; but as Goethe was leaving, the girl and her mother exacted his promise to come again.

He often took advantage of this invitation. He spent some of his happiest hours with Lili. Almost immediately, their talks became intimate and confidential. She recounted the story of her rich-girl adolescence, spent among worldly surroundings. She did not seek to fiide the weaknesses in her character, of which the most important was coquetry, a gift for attracting. “I used it on you, yourself,” she confessed, “but I have been punished for doing so, for now I find myself drawn by you.” He soon found out he could not do without her, and that was to transform his life, for this lovely heiress lived in a constant social whirl and, not to lose her, the Solitary One had to accept a compromise.

As was always the case with him, Goethe remained a spectator of his own feelings and he described his situation, making somewhat fun of himself, to a friend, Augusta von Stolberg, in a letter dated February 13, 1775: “Imagine, my very dear friend, a Goethe in an embroidered suit, under the vulgar sparkle of chandeliers and candelabra, stayed an instant at a gaming table by two ravishing eyes, then leaving behind the reception hall for the concert, finally permitting himself to be enticed into dancing, all the while courting this graceful blonde. You will then have a picture of the friolous Goethe who, still quite recently, was imparting to you his nebulous and deepest thoughts.” Then he added: “But there is another Goethe, in gray beaver topcoat and brown silk scarf, who is burning Spring along in the now still brisk February air, and sees his vast and beloved universe opening up again before his eyes. . . . “ In this Goethe Symphony, two motifs were seeking to dominate: that of Goethe-in-love, bound up for the first time of his life in all the ties of society; and that of Goethe-the-independent-creator, who needed the whole unhorse and all mankind. “Liebe, Liebe, lass mich los! . . . Love, love, leave me in peace!”

There lies the drama. There were two Goethes: the one who carried a world within himself, and the one who spent the night of Shrove Tuesday, 1775, dancing, far from nature, far from work, far from himself. And although, undoubtedly, he had previously known this same anguish in other love affairs, he had always triumphed, either by conquering the woman concerned or by fleeing. This time, conquest was impossible except in wedlock.

The Schönemanns were a powerful and respectable family; Lili was not a girl susceptible to seductive blandishments. Flight alone remained to him. But he didn’t want to escape. He was happy near his beloved. Even in this elegant world, whose influence he feared, he was pleased to watch Lili being transformed into someone of such grace and precocious sureness. Then, when he saw her again, in March, it was unadulterated joy, for he had Lili all to himself and the hours were “brimful and golden.”

Love, love, leave me in peace! And yet Goethe seemed just then to be on the very threshold of losing his freedom. It is true that the two families were evincing little interest in the marriage plans. The Goethes were of the Lutheran middle class; the Schönemanns, Calvinist patricians. Goethe’s sister, Cornelie, like so many possessive sisters of men of genius, watched jealously over her brother to save him from himself. Herself unhappily married, she advised against this (and any) marriage. But another influence was to make itself felt, to precipitate events. In April there burst upon the scene at Frankfort an old maid from Heidelberg whose name was Fräulein Delph, and who enjoyed matchmaking. Miss Delph! What a propitious name for Goethe, who had a taste for sibyls and oracles.

The sibyl saw the two families; she wrung from them their consent. A very determined person, the Delph woman simply took charge of things. She sought nothing at all for herself except the pleasure she derived from concluding a marriage, which gave her a pleasant feeling of personal power. She had known and been fond of Lili from childhood. She had observed the two young people, she knew they were in love, and she thought they were taking too much time about it. One day, while they were together, she appeared and surprised them by announcing that she had obtained the blessing of all parents concerned. She said to them, “Hold hands.”

Goethe stood facing Lili and held out his hand to her. Unhesitatingly, but slowly, Lili placed her hand in Goethe’s. Then, after having caught their breaths, they fell into each other’s arms. Thanks to Miss Delph and her strong will, Lili and Wolfgang were officially engaged. Was the sibyl to triumph over the daemon? Our admirable Goethe interpreted it otherwise: “It was a strange decision of the Supreme Being that, in my checkered life, I have to experience among others the feelings of a fiancé.”Providence, bent on forming a perfect writer, was taking care to acquaint him with every human feeling.

This business of being a fiancé, new to him, seemed all too agreeable. Everything was changing. The obstacles had cleared away. The impulsive bursts of nature and the proprieties of society’s law were reconciled. He now saw his beloved in a twofold light. He still found her beautiful, gracious; but knowing also that she was soon to be his wife, he took pride in her dignity and the dependability of her character. In short, all would have been happiness, tranquillity, and pleasure, had the génie inside him stopped scolding. Goethe’s daemon saw only too well what the domesticated bear was going to become. He would dance on his hind legs if his mistress so commanded; he would grunt softly when she stroked his back with her foot. He would live at home, in a pretty little palace. He would be a faithful husband, a doting father. But Goethe, Goethe! What would have become of Goethe?

And I! — Gods, it is in your power To put an end to this work of somber enchantment; How grateful I should be if you gave me back my liberty!

3

IN May, he made an attempt, at escape. With three friends, he left for Switzerland. It was an interesting and wonderful trip. The four handsome young men went bathing, naked, in every brook. Goethe saw Lavater, went canoeing on the lakes, became intoxicated with nature. His friends tried to draw him along with them as far as Italy, but his interior génie was watching. The time when Italy would be necessary to Goethe had not yet come. He felt a small gold heart, given him by Lili, dancing about on his chest, and he wrote some famous lines for her: —

Here we see the bear had not yet broken his silken leash. Goethe turned north and at the end of July was back in Frankfort. Apparently the engaged pair were in love as much as ever. Lili’s relatives, in Goethe’s absence, had done all they could to undermine him, but Lili remained faithful. She said she was ready, if the poet feared the social life in Frankfort, to leave with him for America. However, it was impossible for the long and voluntarily imposed absence of her fiancé not to have saddened and shocked her.

As for Goethe, during the journey he had likened himself to a bird that, having escaped from a cage and returned to the forest, still dangled from its gullet a piece of string as “the stigma of his imprisonment” — “He is no longer the bird of days gone by, the one that was born free.” And now here he was, back in his golden cage, bearing the situation with more and more difficulty. To his distant confidante, Augusta von Stolberg, he wrote: “Oh! if only I could tell you everything!

But here, in the house of this child who makes my life miserable, without it even being her ow n fault, with her angelic soul. . . . Here I am, reduced to a child’s simplicity and hemmed in, like a parrot on his porch. . . .” When Lili was not there, he flirted with others, just to prove to himself that he was maintaining his independence, but he found no satisfaction in doing so: “All this time, I have been like a rat who has been poisoned; running into every hole, drinking of anything wet that he encounters, and with his entrails burning with a mortal and unquenchable fire. . .

The man who wrote these lines had already broken his engagement in his heart. In good faith, he told himself that if was impossible, that he simply could not torture an angel thus. Yet he knew, unconsciously, that all was over. In September he could no longer stand it, and on the 20th the engagement was broken. He was not only running away from Lili but leaving Frankfort on the Main as well. Fate, which continued to watch over him, offered him a splendid opportunity to begin his life anew, in the widest and most active manner, by having him meet the young reigning Duke of Saxe-Weimar. This young prince was a boy of eighteen, who had just inherited, at the death of his father, a small but independent state, with a castle, a court, a cathedral, and the University of Jena. He prided himself on being a progressive and enlightened mind; he had ideas for reforms. The meeting with Goethe left him enthusiastic.

From their very first conversation, they talked politics. Goethe, who had opinions on all subjects, set forth his ideas on government forcefully. The Duke, Karl-Augustus, was amazed to find in a poet such a taste for the life of action and such a knowledge of facts. “What a minister this poet would make for me!” he thought. Since, moreover, he saw in Goethe a companion for pleasure-hunting, and a marvelous interpreter of feelings, he concluded that no mentor could be more worthy or more capable of guiding an immature sovereign. And how wonderful to have near him, instead of those obsequious courtiers, a young and goodlooking comrade, bursting with intelligence! KarlAugust us invited Goethe to come to Weimar as his personal guest. It was not yet a question of official position. In what capacity would Goethe stay in Weimar? For how long? All that remained obscure and it was better so. The bird whose cage door is being opened must not be frightened by seeing another cage in the offing.

It was agreed only that the Duke would dispatch his carriage to Frankfort on a certain day and that Goethe would get into it. The obstacles? Lili could no longer be considered as such. She had been sacrificed. Her part had been played; exit Lili. Der Lebenskünstler, the artist of his own life, would know why Fate had decreed that Goethe encounter Lili in his path. At a time when he might have dissipated his strength in vain rebellion, he bad to be led back to a place in society. After the torments of Werther, full confidence in his power to make himself loved was to be restored. The tempestuous cataract was threatening to destroy everything. The Titan in revolt was attracting the thunderbolt of the irritated gods. Lili Schönemann had delivered Goethe of his ungoverned furies. But the counterswing of the pendulum could be no less dangerous. For Goethe to become Olympian, he had to be both free and aware of the necessary links with society. His daemon had taken care to ensure this balance. The Lili episode had been essential, but its usefulness was now exhausted. All passions spent, now the word was “Forward!”

4

STILL, another difficulty? His father, the Imperial Councilor, who was a democratic burgher, advised him not to put his faith in a prince’s friendship. Those people were, by their very nature, frivolous and inconstant. One might be their favorite for a few months, but they were capable of getting rid of their friends with as much dispatch as they had shown in taking them on. Goethe, however, fell a genuine attraction for the young Duke and was sure of his own power over him. Nevertheless, on the day appointed, the Duke’s carriage failed to appear. No word. What had happened ? Here we have Goethe on the spot. He had announced his imminent departure for Thuringia to all Frankfort. So, to avoid losing face, he stayed at home, working hard on a play, Egmont. People were told he had left. Still no carriage. Could his guiding spirit have deceived him? Tired, and wounded by the chiding of his father, he went off’ to Heidelberg. There he awaited events confidently. Destiny’s carriage would appear at the hour fixed by the stars.

And indeed, one day, at Heidelberg, in the middle of a discussion he was having with Fräulein Delph, the matchmaker, Goethe heard at his door the sound of a postilion’s horn. The ducal carriage was without. The prince’s envoy explained the reasons for the delay: there had been an accident, but his master was expecting Goethe. The latter look leave of the sibyl, throwing to her in farewell these lines which he had just composed for Egmont: “Whipped up by invisible spirits, the solar horses of Time drag off behind them, in spite of us, the light-weight carl of our destiny; we can only hold tight and Courageously to the reins and turn the wheels here away from a rock, there from the abyss. Where are we going then? Who knows? We scarcely can know even from whence we came. . . .”

With that rapid ride to Weimar, the turning point was reached. Goethe found himself uprooted from the Sophisticated and intimate circle of Frankfort. In a new world, over which he was soon to reign, his genius could expand and find self-expression more freely. The carriage played the role assigned it by Destiny. To finish shaping Goethe, the gods were now going to make use of a prince and of a woman.

Karl-August us was eight years younger than Goethe. The two men were to spend fifty years together. The Duke had truly a remarkable spiritual make-up: he desired the well-being of his subjects; he wanted to accomplish great things, and in every field of endeavor. Goethe’s limitless interests enchanted him. Here was a man capable of composing sublime poetry; of taking part in all physical exercises; of discussing intelligently different questions of science, public administration, art — in short, everything. If ever the word genius was meaningful, it was certainly so in describing Goethe. His influence on the young ruler was immense. He formed him, inspired in him the love of ideas, and taught him to use his absolute power to make Weimar an intellectual capital, without neglecting the material needs of the poor.

This school of action was no less essential for Goethe’s development. The Duke did not delay in making him a Privy Councilor and in sending him on a hundred varied missions. Then he made him Minister and his lieutenant in the government. The appointment gave rise, quite naturally, to intense jealousies. The old courtiers, apprehensive about their jobs, criticized the new methods and procedures introduced by Goethe. But the latter, master of his sovereign’s mind, was in control of the situation. “It is quite probable,” he wrote on February 14, 1776, to Johanna Fahlmer, “it is quite probable that I shall remain here. I shall play my role as best as I can, as long as I like it and Destiny wills it.”

He did stay, growing in power and mind. Nothing is more wholesome for an intellect than laying assault to those stubborn things, facts. In the accomplishment of his duly, he was led into the study of science. When he took charge of the mines, he had to study minerals. Being interested in the forests and in stock-raising, he studied biology. He ranged from highway maintenance to lyrical theater; from army administration to fiscal reform. Thus he widened the base of this life’s pyramid, permitting him to raise its summit all the higher. In Weimar was being prepared the material for the second Faust: “In the beginning was act ion.”

5

BUT action alone would not have been sufficient to put the finishing touches to that masterpiece of the human race called Johann-Wolfgang Goethe. Action, left to itself, tends to take up all the room and to curb the spirit downward. To straighten it up, in so far as Goethe was concerned, an intervention by das Ewig-Weibliche, the Eternal Essence of Woman, was indispensable. Man is active; woman is emotional. The woman who saved Goethe at Weimar was Charlotte von Stein. Without her, the turning point would not have been decisive. Baroness von Stein was an aristocrat, daughter of a former Marshal of the Court, and wife of t he Master of the Horse, Victim of a loveless marriage, she had nonetheless borne eight children. Her difficult pregnancies, the travail of childbirth, had finished by exhausting her. “Tin’s labor afflicts me so painfully,” she wrote to a friend. . . . “Why has Nature condemned half of the human race to this awful suffering?” She was, however, good, noble, and delicate. She attracted Goethe immediately but was overwhelmed by the ardent court paid her by this handsome young man, whose protestations of love poured forth “as a flood of fire.” She was proud of being admired above all others by a great poet; but she firmly resolved, at least during the first few years, to sublimate this love to friendship. Very pious, she had until then experienced the peace of mind enjoyed by the righteous.

So this sweet feminine spirit, “peaceful and pacifying” (in the beginning), imposed her purity on Goethe. She accepted his homages, consented to see him every day, even received him as her house-guest at Schloss Kochberg, but required of him, “as the price of his presence, a discipline of heart, of feelings, of manners, so rigidly exacted, sit devotedly accepted, that it constituted for Goethe a veritable metamorphosis.” As the torrent which rushes down from the mountains, when it flows into a large lake, mixes its tumultuous waters with those of the lake, and soon ceases its agitations and poundings, to assume the smooth appearance of the peaceful waters about it, so Goethe, mixing his turbulent thoughts with those of the Calming One, partook of her serene dignity, of her lunar tranquillity. In Charlotte’s eyes, the supreme quality of man lay in self-control. She taught it to Goethe. Henceforth he would raise himself, thanks to her, to Olympian wisdom, much greater still than the furies of a Titan.

Goethe in Weimar was an example, almost unique, of a poetic genius at the wheel of command. It was the time for power and accomplishment. He wrote in his Journal: “My daily tasks require my constant presence; this duty, which I esteem more and more each day, in the fulfilment of what I hope will make me the equal of the greatest of men, and in that alone. . . . Besides, the talisman of the great love of Frau von Stein protects me with its aroma. . . . How shortsighted I was concerning human and divine matters. . . . How many days I let go by, wasting myself away in sensitivity and empty passions. . . . May the idea of purity grow more brightly in me, each and every day.” The turning point was now definitely taken. Goethe had become Goethe.