in my surroundings."[231] A
letter addressed to Merck later in the same month would seem to show
that he had at least no intention of seeking an immediate union with
Lili. By the end of the year at the latest, he says, he must be off to
Italy, and he prays Merck to prevail with his father to grant his
consent.

[Footnote 229: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 272.]

[Footnote 230: _Ib._ p. 273.]

[Footnote 231: _Ib._ pp. 277-8.]

A crisis in the relations between the lovers came on the occasion of
the Frankfort fair in the second week of September. The fair brought a
crowd of males, young, middle-aged, and old, all on more or less
intimate terms with the Schoenemann family, and their familiarities
with Lili were gall and wormwood to Goethe, though he testifies that,
as occasion offered, she did not fail to show who lay nearest her
heart. Even in his old age the experience of these days recalled
unpleasant memories. "But let us turn," he exclaims, "from this
torture, almost intolerable even in the recollection, to the poems
which brought some relief to my mind and heart."[232] A remarkable
contemporary document from his hand proves that his memory did not
exaggerate his state of mind at the time.[233] In the form of a
Diary, expressly meant for his Countess, he notes day by day the
alternating feelings which were distracting him. The Countess had
urged him once for all to break his bonds, and in these words we have
his reply: "I saw Lili after dinner, saw her at the play. I had not a
word to say to her, and said nothing! Would I were free! O Gustchen!
and yet I tremble for the moment when she could become indifferent to
me, and I become hopeless. But I abide true to myself, and let things
go as they will."[234]

[Footnote 232: The two poems, _Lilis Park_ and the song beginning "Ihr
verbluehet, suesse Rosen," which Goethe refers to this period, were
really written at an earlier date. The latter, we have seen, appears
in _Erwin und Elmire_.]

[Footnote 233: It was at this time that he translated the Song of
Solomon, which he calls "the most glorious collection of love-songs
God ever made."]

[Footnote 234: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 294. In a letter to the Countess's
brothers about the same date, Goethe writes: "Gustchen [the Countess]
is an angel. The devil that she is an Imperial Countess."--_Ib._ p.
298.]

In all this tumultuous effusion we see the side of Goethe's nature
which he has depicted in Werther, in Clavigo, and Ferna