Goethe and Schiller. L. Muhlbach

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СКАЧАТЬ her! She does not wish to see any one, for no one will come whom she cares to see!

      Some one knocks loudly at the door; a crimson glow suffuses itself over Charlotte’s cheeks, for she knows this knock, and it echoes so loudly in her heart, that she is incapable of answering it.

      The knocking is heard for the second time, and a sudden unaccountable terror takes possession of Charlotte’s heart; she flies through the room and into her boudoir, closing the door softly behind her. But she remains standing near it, and hears the door open, and the footsteps of a man entering; and then she hears his voice as he calls to the servant: “Madame von Kalb is not here! Go and say that I beg to be permitted to see her.”

      Oh, she recognizes this voice!—the voice of Frederick Schiller; and it pierces her soul like lightning, and makes her heart quake.

      It may not be! No, Charlotte; by all that is holy, it may not be! Think of your duty, do not forget it for a moment! Steel your heart, make it strong and firm! Cover your face with a mask, an impenetrable mask! No one must dream of what is going on in your breast—he least of all!

      A knock is heard at the door leading to her bedchamber. It is her maid coming to announce that Mr. Schiller awaits her in the reception-room.

      “Tell him to be kind enough to wait a few minutes. I will come directly.”

      After a few minutes had expired, Charlotte von Kalb entered the reception-room with a clear brow and smiling countenance. Schiller had advanced to meet her, and, taking the tapering little hand which she extended, he pressed it fervently to his lips.

      “Charlotte, my friend, I come to you because my heart is agitated with stormy thoughts, for I know that my fair friend understands the emotions of the heart.”

      “Emotions of the heart, Schiller?” she asked, laughing loudly. “Have we come to that pass again? Already another passion besides the beautiful Margaret Schwan and the little Charlotte von Wolzogen?”

      He looked up wonderingly, and their eyes met; Charlotte’s cheeks grew paler in spite of her efforts to retain the laughing expression she had assumed.

      “How strangely you speak to-day, Charlotte, and how changed your voice sounds!”

      “I have taken cold, my friend,” said she, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “You know very well that I cannot stand the cold; it kills me! But it was not to hear this you came to see me?”

      “No, that is very true,” replied Schiller, in confusion. “I did not come for that purpose. I—why are your hands so cold, Charlotte, and why have you given me no word of welcome?”

      “Because you have not yet given me an opportunity to do so,” she said, smiling. “It really looks as if you had come to-day rather in your capacity of regimental surgeon, to call on a patient, than as a poet, to visit an intimate acquaintance.”

      “An intimate acquaintance!” exclaimed Schiller, throwing her hand ungently from him. “Charlotte, will you then be nothing more to me than an intimate acquaintance?”

      “Well, then, a good friend,” she said quietly. “But let us not quarrel about terms, Schiller. We very well know what we are to each other. You should at least know that my heart sympathizes with all that concerns you. And now tell me, my dear friend, what brings you here at this unusual hour? It must be something extraordinary that induces the poet Schiller to leave his study at this hour. Well, have I guessed right? Is it something extraordinary?”

      “I don’t know,” replied Schiller, in some confusion.

      “You don’t know!” exclaimed Charlotte, with a peal of laughter, which seemed to grate on Schiller’s ear, for he recoiled sensitively, and his brow darkened.

      “I cannot account for the sudden change that has come over me,” said Schiller, thoughtfully. “I came with a full, confiding heart, Charlotte, longing to see you, and now, all at once I feel that a barrier of ice has arisen around my heart; your strangely cold and indifferent manner has frozen me to the core.”

      “You are a child; that is to say, you are a poet. Come, my poet, let us not quarrel about words and appearance; whatever my outward manner may be, you know that I am sound and true at heart. And now I see why you came. That roll of paper is a manuscript! Frederick Schiller has come, as he promised to do a few days ago, to read his latest poem to the admirer of his muse. You made a mystery of it, and would not even tell me whether your new work was a tragedy or a poem. And now you have come to impart this secret. Is it not so, Schiller?”

      “Yes, that was my intention,” he replied, sadly. “I wished to read, to a sympathizing and loved friend, the beginning of a new tragedy, but—”

      “No ‘but’ whatever,” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Let me see the manuscript at once!” and she tripped lightly to the chair on which he had deposited his hat and the roll of paper on entering the room.

      “May I open it, Schiller?”—and when he bowed assentingly, she tore off the cover with trembling hands and read, “Don Carlos, Infanta of Spain; a Tragedy.”—“Oh, my dear Schiller, a new tragedy! Oh, my poet, my dear poet, what a pleasure! how delightful!”

      “Oh,” cried Schiller, exultingly; “this is once more the beautiful voice, once more the enthusiastic glance! Welcome, Charlotte, a thousand welcomes!”

      He rushed forward, seized her hand, and pressed it to his lips. She did not look at him, but gazed fixedly at the manuscript which she still held in her hand, and repeated, in a low voice, “Don Carlos, Infanta of Spain.”

      “Yes, and I will now read this Infanta, that is, if you wish to hear it, Charlotte?”

      “How can you ask, Schiller? Quick, seat yourself opposite me, and let us begin.”

      She seated herself on the little sofa, and, when Schiller turned to go after a chair, she hastily and noiselessly pressed a kiss on the manuscript, which she held in her hand.

      When Schiller returned with the chair, the manuscript lay on the table, and Charlotte sat before him in perfect composure.

      Schiller began to read the first act of “Don Carlos” to his “friend,” in an elevated voice, with pathos and with fiery emotion, and entirely carried away by the power of his own composition!

      But his friend and auditor did not seem to participate in this rapture! Her large black eyes regarded the reader intently. At first her looks expressed lively sympathy, but by degrees this expression faded away; she became restless, and at times, when Schiller declaimed in an entirely too loud and grandiloquent manner, a stealthy smile played about her lips. Schiller had finished reading, and laid his manuscript on the table; he now turned to his friend, his eyes radiant with enthusiasm. “And now, my dear, my only friend, give me your opinion, honestly and sincerely! What do you think of my work?”

      “Honestly and sincerely?” she inquired, her lips twitching with the same smile.

      “Yes, my friend, I beg you to do so.”

      “Well, then, my dear friend,” she exclaimed, with a loud and continuous peal of laughter; “well, then, my dear Schiller, I must tell you, honestly and sincerely, that ‘Don Carlos’ is the very worst you have ever written!”

      Schiller СКАЧАТЬ