Lotte in Weimar

Wolfgang! Wolfgang!

Lottchen! Dearest Lottchen!

Keep - those - feet - moving.

Into battle, my hero, my Fingal!

[Ossian:
Fingal in Lochlin]

Mama, wake up!

Don't dream so shamelessly.

I can't stand it,

listening to your moaning.

Where are we, my child?

On the Weimar chausse.

Lotte in Weimar

(The Beloved Returns)

Through all the Transoxonians' blare and clashings hollow,

Our song grows bold and still will dare thy steps to follow!

Living in thee, no wrong our spirits can whelm;

Prince, may thy life be long,

endless thy realm !

[West-Eastern Divan, book 4, transl. E. Dowden]

A good day, my friend.

- We need rooms for three.

- Very well.

Our hotel is, as usual, well occupied,

but we will spare no pains to satisfy the ladies' needs.

If you please...

... among the abilities ...

you see, sir ...

I beg your pardon?

Never mind.

How do you like Weimar?

Oh, excellent. It's nice.

Frau Elmenreich, the proprietress,

will be pleased to receive you.

Room 27.

But I cannot oblige with a single room.

The Mamsell will have to share her room

with the maid of the Countess of Larisch from Erfurt.

We have at the moment many guests

who bring their own servants.

I'm sure they'll get along.

So, shall we go?

- Presently, Madame.

In Heaven's name pray write us a few lines.

It seems as though laws and rules kept on

propagating themselves like a disease.

Would the lady be so gracious?

I see.

He's an intellectual.

Well-read and knows his literary quotations.

Yes, I've just come from Vienna.

Oh, Wien! Is that so?

That's it.

How clumsy.

If you please.

I most humbly beg your pardon if my question

- it is not actuated by unseemly curiosity,

but - have we the honour to be entertaining

Frau Councillor Kestner, Madame Charlotte Kestner,

ne Buff, of Wetzlar ... ?

- The same.

- Certainly, certainly.

But I mean - of course it cannot - I mean - it cannot be the same Charlotte -

or Lotte for short - Kestner,

ne Buff, from the house

of the Teutonic Order at Wetzlar, the former -

The very same, my friend.

But I am not "former" at all,

I am present in the flesh and want to be shown ...

This very instant!

Goodness - gracious me!

Frau Councillor! Then our house has the honour and distinction

of entertaining the actual original - if I may so express myself -

in short:
Werther's Lotte?

Indeed, my friend, but

that should be a reason more

for showing us tired ladies to our room ...

- This very instant! Only...

Room 27. Good gracious, that's two stairs up.

But we never dreamed ...

Frau Councillor, you must forgive me.

As you can see, all the walls have a fresh coat of paint.

Since the visit of the Don Cossacks in 1813

we've had to renovate completely.

Yet I should not give the Cossacks

all the credit for our improvements.

We had Prussian and Hungarian hussars in the house as well

- to say nothing of the French who came before them!

Here we are!

Frau Councillor, if you please.

Allow me to lead the way.

Very nice.

The bell-pull.

Of course I shall see to it personally

that you'll get hot water.

My friend, we are unspoilt people

with simple tastes, we're well provided for ...

- and we'd like to have some rest ...

- Good Heavens, Frau Councillor!

Such an event!

Worthy to be put down in a book.

Frau Councillor must be used to her situation

and cannot guess

at the emotions that must animate the soul of a man,

literary from youth up, to whom now, all undreamt of

- to whom is vouchsafed acquaintance with -

is vouchsafed the sight of

a being so surrounded with the effulgence of poesy and,

as it were,

borne up on fiery arms to the heaven of immortal fame...

My good man, I am just a simple old lady

with no pretensions,

You have such an unusual and high-flown way

of expressing yourself ...

My name is Mager.

Char-lo-tte

I run on and on, Frau Councillor, and all of a sudden

it comes over me in a burning flash

that I have not even asked Frau Councillor

if she has had coffee!

Thank you, my friend, we took it betimes.

By the way, my dear Herr Mag...

Mager,

you go too far, you greatly exaggerate,

when you simply identify me,

or even the young thing I once was,

with the heroine of that much lauded book, the "Werther".

But the character in the novel

is quite different and distinct from my former self.

For instance, anyone can see that my eyes are blue,

whereas Werther's Lotte is well known to have black ones.

A poetic license!

As though we did not know what that is,

a poetic license.

What if the author did avail himself to some small extent of

- what if he did play hide-and-seek to mystify us ...

No, no, the black eyes are from quite another source.

If Frau Councillor is not, down to the very last hair, the Lotte of Werther,

she is, even so, in every particular the Lotte of Goethe.

My worthy fellow!

My conduct, I know, is unpardonable.

Frau Councillor,

- you haven't seen the Privy Councillor [Goethe] since ...

- 44 years.

- You haven't seen him again?

- I only know the young Legal Assistant,

Dr. Goethe of the Gewandsgasse in Wetzlar.

The Minister of State for the Duchy of Weimar,

the famous poet, I have never beheld with my own eyes.

It is too much.

And so the Frau Councillor has come to Weimar to ...

- To visit my youngest sister, Frau Chamberlain Riedel!

- Esplanade no. 6.

Is it far from here to the Esplanade?

In Weimar there are no distances.

Our greatness is of the spirit alone.

But now make haste

and show my maid her quarters,

for I shall soon have need of her.

Yes, and on the way, you can tell me

where the author lives who wrote the wonderful Rinaldo.

[Christian August Vulpius, Goethe's brother-in-law]

Oh, what a ravishing book!

I've read it five times without stopping.

Do you think we might chance

to see him in the street?

Only one single word, Frau Councillor.

That very last scene before Werther takes his leave,

that heartrending scene between the three of you,

in the house of the Teutonic Order at Wetzlar,

Werther grasps Lotte's hand and cries:

"We shall meet again!"

In all the world we shall know each other's forms again!"

The Privy Councillor did not make it up, didn't he?

That was real, wasn't it? It actually happened?

Yes. No.

Yes and no.

But go now. Go!

So now your crown of glory stands revealed.

Ah, child.

Goethe in his memoirs complains

that people pester him all the time.

But see how men think only of themselves!

He never once reflects all the harm he did to us,

to your dear, departed father and me,

with his wicked mixture of truth and make-believe.

And black and blue eyes.

I know exactly where he took that from.

Litte Dorte, our neighbour's daughter.

Her eyes were pitch-black.

And from somewhere else.

Mama, there's a ribbon missing.

Do you really want to wear it like this?

All those allusions.

Oh, Lottchen,

you have no mind for some fun.

The librarian Vulpius, author of that glorious work Rinaldo,

is brother-in-law to Herr von Goethe to boot.

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