AUST_

1775

As he represents it in his Autobiography, this was the situation in
which Goethe found himself on his return to Frankfort. All his
personal friends warmly welcomed him back, though his father did not
conceal his disappointment that he had not continued his travels into
Italy. As for Lili, she had taken it for granted that the departure of
her betrothed without a word of leave-taking could only imply his
intention to break with her. Yet it was reported to him that in the
face of all obstacles to their union she had declared herself ready to
leave her past behind her and share his fortunes in America. Their
intercourse was resumed, but they avoided seeing each other alone, as
if conscious of some ground of mutual estrangement. "It was an
accursed state, in some ways resembling Hades, the meeting-place of
the sadly-happy dead." In view of these relations between Lili and
himself, he further adds, all their common friends were decidedly
opposed to their union.

Such is the account which, in his retrospect, Goethe gives of his
situation after his return to Frankfort, but his correspondence at the
time shows that it cannot be accepted as strictly accurate. During the
three remaining months he spent in Frankfort he on four different
occasions visited Offenbach, where he must often have seen her alone.
What his letters indeed prove is that he was characteristically
content to let each day bring its own happiness or misery, and to
leave events to decide the final issue. On August 1st, a few days
after his return, he writes to Knebel: "I am here again ... and find
myself a good deal better, quite content with the past and full of
hope for the future."[229] Two days later he was in Offenbach, and
from Lili's own room he writes as follows to the Countess: "Oh! that I
could tell you all. Here in the room of the girl who is the cause of
my misery--without her fault, with the soul of an angel, over whose
cheerful days I cast a gloom, I.... In vain that for three months I
have wandered under the open sky and drunk in a thousand new objects
at every pore."[230] To Lavater on the following day he writes that he
has been riding with Lili, and adds these words with an N.B.: "For
some time I have been pious again; my desire is for the Lord, and I
sing psalms to him, a vibration of which shall soon reach you. Adieu.
I am in a sore state of strain; I might say over-strain. Yet I wish
you were with me, for then it goes well