ALIDE
AN EPISODE OF GOETHE'S LIFE.
BY
EMMA LAZARUS,
AUTHOR OF "ADMETUS, AND OTHER POEMS," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
TO MY FRIEND,
MRS. HOOPER,
THIS STORY
IS AFFECTIONATELY AND GRATEFULLY
INSCRIBED.
PREFACE
It seems hardly necessary, but it may prevent misunderstanding, to state
that I have incorporated in the ensuing pages whole passages from the
autobiography of Goethe. Wherever it has been possible, he has been
allowed to speak for himself, and thus no imagination has been exercised
in the portrayal of his character. "Alide Duroc," on the contrary, is a
purely imaginary creation, though her story is that of Frederika Brion.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Dr. Julius Steck
CHAPTER II
The Parsonage
CHAPTER III
Alide
CHAPTER IV
A Moonlight Walk
CHAPTER V
Goethe
CHAPTER VI
First Love
CHAPTER VII
In Strasburg
CHAPTER VIII
Happiness
CHAPTER IX
After-thoughts
CHAPTER X
Quite Pleasures
CHAPTER XI
In the Shadow of the Cathedral
CHAPTER XII
Hamlet
CHAPTER XIII
The Clouds gather
CHAPTER XIV
A Strange Interview
CHAPTER XV
Drifting Apart
CHAPTER XVI
Parting
CHAPTER XVII
Freedom
CHAPTER XVIII
Letters
Epilogue
ALIDE
CHAPTER I
DR. JULIUS STECK
"If it were not that I must play true to my clerical gown, Max, I could
for very delight in the glory of this October afternoon caper one of my
lately-learned waltzes on the roadside. Gods! what a gift life is on
such a day as this! Do, you not feel this mountain air tingling like
wine through your veins? My blood is all aglow within me--my heart is as
light as flame." It was a rich, vibrant, sonorous voice, and yet it had
a boyish ring of merriment that seemed in no wise to belong to the
soberly-clad student who walked demurely by his companion's side through
the quiet, shining meadows.
"Julius Steck!" exclaimed his comrade, who spoke with a lazy,
good-humored drawl, "for the love of sport remember who and what you
are. A learned young bachelor of divinity to begin by invoking the
heathen gods,--to yearn after a waltz in the open fields, and a heart
like flame, forsooth! a pretty thing to carry into a country parsonage
to kindle a conflagration among the lasses!"
"Nay, Max," returned the other, "I will be grave enough when occasion
requires. How could I so soon forget my last and dearest sweetheart
behind us in the city,--the Minster of Strasburg? Is not this the first
bright afternoon since early June that we two have not mounted at sunset
to that spacious platform high above the dusky streets, and quaffed our
Rhenish to the dying day? And you fancy that I will throw away a heart
devoted to the loyal service of my Lady of the Cathedral on the first
pair of apple-colored cheeks and china-blue eyes that we meet on the
wayside? Besides," he added, with a sudden mock gravity, "do I look like
a fellow to captivate a pretty damsel?" And he doffed his broad-brimmed
clerical hat and looked full and squarely at Max.
Was the lad a consummate actor who could, assume at will whatever
countenance he desired, or was this expression of sheepish pedantry
natural to the possessor of that resonant voice? It must have been
clever pantomime, for as Max saw it he burst into uncontrollable
laughter, that resounded with jolly echoes through the responsive air.
The outline of the face from brow to throat was delicate and strong as
that of a young Greek god, and yet a ludicrous and almost homely effect
was given by the sleek brown locks combed smoothly back from the temples
and turned behind the ears, by the thickly-framed gold spectacles which
obstructed any gleam from the dark eyes behind them, and, above all, by
this prim look of mingled shrewdness and timidity. He was taller than
his companion, but the proportions of his figure were concealed by the
long black gown, which formed the principal part of his costume as a
theological student.
"Capital, capital, Dr. Steck!" exclaimed Max, clapping his hand on the
young bachelor's shoulder. "But make haste and cover your head, for in a
few moments we shall be in sight of the parsonage. And yet I can hardly
say whether you are best with or without that hideous plate of a hat. At
any rate, I am not responsible for whatever happens while you are in my
charge. I warn you beforehand that the girls are pretty and engaging,
and as for them, if they can listen to--yes, or look with patience
on--such an infernal Jesuitical milksop, I will wash my hands of them
all."
They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Max with his hand still
resting affectionately on Steck's shoulder, and Steck with his head
upraised, eagerly inhaling the honeyed air of the harvest-fields, and,
with the eyes of an artist rather than of a boy just turned twenty,
gazing at the green and purple masses and sun-bathed outlines of the
peaks that stood out against the pale gold sky. There was just enough
breeze to make a continuous rustle and murmur in the glistening leaves
overhead, and to send long-rolling ripples and waves of motion over the
grass of the wide-lying meadows. A clear bird-carol now and then, the
incessant all-pervading drone of the crickets, at intervals the merry
laughter of voices in a far-away meadow, prolonged by the myriad echoes
of the neighborhood,--these sweet out-door sounds were all that broke
upon the ears of the two young men; and the gentleness, the peace, the
unspeakable beauty of the October landscape seemed to gain upon them,
and to overpower with quieting suggestions even the exuberant buoyancy
of spirits natural to their age.
Max Waldstein was a genial, open-hearted fellow of two or three and
twenty. A square, somewhat receding brow, wide blue eyes, a
highly-colored complexion, a round, fair, curly head, set off with
coarse and prominent ears, a large mouth, adorned with healthy white
teeth, a thick, well-shaped nose, and a projecting jaw, overgrown with a
reddish-yellow beard,--all these formed an excellent index to the mind
and character of the young law-student, who had attached himself almost
as to a girl to the magnetic, myriad-sided nature of his fellow-lodger,
the boy-artist. New and unaccountable to plain Max were the mercurial
moods, the exaltations and despondencies, the irrepressible, child-like
delight occasioned by such simple things as a burst of sunlight on a
cloudy day, the sudden, unexpected song of a bird, a glimpse of a fair
woman-face, a rhyme of some old poet, a shade of color on some faded
canvas, or, above all, the outlines and structure of Strasburg
Cathedral. But Waldstein made no attempt to follow or fathom the
caprices of his imaginative friend. Like many others in that grave old
minster-shadowed city, he was led out of himself into an enthusiasm of
admiration and affection for the brilliant, beautiful young favorite of
the gods, who, bringing all the gifts, had burst upon Strasburg and
taken up his abode there early in the preceding spring. Numberless were
the holiday excursions planned by these two youthful heads and enjoyed
with a wide circle of boon companions, the spice of such amusements
being not unfrequently heightened by an escapade somewhat wilder than
usual, an adventure of more than ordinary daring, on the part of the
younger of the two. Max's only gift, a shrewd, practical sense, enabled
him readily to discern the qualities of those around him, and a loyal,
generous nature, unspoiled by affectation or envy, brought him into
sympathy with men of far higher capacities than his own. With whimsical
self-depreciation, he was forever wishing to display the endless talents
and attractions of his comrade, who must be brought forth into the light
at all costs, forgiven any mad prank, and allowed to follow his pleasure
as he chose, in consideration of the halo about his head and the
tenderness of his heart. "Let us make the most of the lad while he is
with us," Waldstein would say; "such a youth is not for our little
Strasburg circle of good fellows. What can he not do? What does he not
adorn in touching? It rests but with himself to be the painter, the
poet, the tragedian, the statesman--what do I know?--the genius of the
age. Come, comrades, let us up to his room now, and drag him from his
jurisprudence, and make a day of it on the river."
We all know that in later years neither the sweetest allurements nor the
sharpest trials could swerve this royal nature from its chosen path of
serenity and wisdom. But at this early period, with the fulness of so
rich a life seething in his veins, in the first fresh wonder and
delight, with every wreath of honor awaiting apparently but the reach of
his outstretched hand to claim and bind it about his brow, who shall say
that the intoxication did not mount to his exalted brain, engendering a
boyish vanity and self-consciousness, sending through his frame an
occasional thrill of not ignoble pride in the very wealth of his own
personality?
For many weeks Waldstein had been trying to prevail upon his friend to
accompany him to the parsonage, some six leagues beyond Strasburg, where
he was wont to spend much of his leisure time, invariably descanting
after his visit upon the hospitality of Pastor Duroc and his wife and
the beauty of the country surrounding their home, and occasionally
letting slip a significant allusion to the charms of the elder daughter,
Rahel. But the boy had always an excuse for declining: he must go study
the Cathedral, and work out the unexecuted conception of the architect's
brain in leaving incomplete that bold and aerial spire; he must prepare
himself for the approaching examination, and devote himself more
assiduously to his ponderous volumes of jurisprudence, for which he had
originally come to Strasburg; or now was the moment to saunter down to
the river-side and add a few strokes to his sketch of the city at
sunset. Finally, when Max had ceased to press the point, the capricious
lad one morning proposed the visit himself. His delicate fancy had been
aroused the previous evening by an exquisite prose idyl which he had
read before he slept. It was a translation recently made of a story of
English clerical life. The homely pathos, the quaint simplicity, the
pleasing variety of natural incidents that enlivened the sprightly flow
of the narrative, the healthy atmosphere that breathed of trim, inland,
hawthorn-hedged meadows, all these wrought upon his lightly-moved spirit
and gave him the desire to transport himself to kindred scenes. Early in
the morning he burst into Waldstein's room with the "Vicar of Wakefield"
in his hand.
"Read it at once!" he exclaimed; "there is art, there is nature! How
many of our dreary German treatises cannot this little book outweigh
with its searching insight, its naïf truthfulness! Here is a page of
life that I have never studied,--never known. While I have been musing
in the grim shadow of the Minster, and trying to animate the iron-handed
heroes of a mediæval age, what have I overlooked! The smiling fields,
the endless minutiæ of a thousand happy homes, the passions, the joys,
the troubles, that surround me on every side. Max, dear Max, may I go
with you to the Durocs'?"
Waldstein could scarcely refrain from smiling at the wistful tone in
which the question was asked. It was like the lad to crave that as a
grace which it was but a pleasure to confer. He had as many coaxing,
affectionate tricks of voice and manner as a woman. Max assented with
delight, and named that very day for the excursion. And now his comrade,
full of odd freaks, begged to be allowed to go, not as the wild
boy-artist of Strasburg, but as a serious student of these pious,
pastoral lives. Thus was the harmless incognito contrived, and thus it
was that Max was escorting his friend, disguised as a theological
scholar and bearing the name of Dr. Julius Steck, to the home of the
Durocs.
Steck was the first to interrupt the sweet quietness which was not
silence. "How beautifully clear is this little mountain-brook alongside
of us!" he said. "See, it has followed us all the way from the
Drusenheim inn."
"I should rather say," answered Waldstein, "that we have followed it;
and in truth it is the surest guide for us: as we keep along this path,
bearing its channel always in sight, the first bend in its course will
bring us in view of our goal."
A few paces more led them to the curve, and then only a single narrow
field lay between them and the parsonage.