Can you imagine how these words discouraged me?  Oh, I didn’t know what to do, all alone in a strange town.  I had changed my dress and stood at the window and looked at the town clock; it was just striking half-past two.  It seemed to me, too, that Goethe wouldn’t care particularly about seeing me; I remembered that people called him proud.  I compresses my heart to quell its yearning.  Suddenly the clock struck three, and then it seemed exactly as though he had called me.  I ran down for the servant, but there was no carriage to be found.  “Will a sedan chair do?” “No,” I said, “that’s an equipage for the hospital”—­and we went on foot.  There was a regular chocolate porridge in the streets and I had to have myself carried over the worst bogs.  In this way I came to Wieland, not to your son.  I had never seen Wieland, but I pretended to be an old acquaintance.  He thought and thought, and finally said, “You certainly are a dear familiar angel, but I can’t seem to remember when and where I have seen you.”  I jested with him and said, “Now I know that you dream of me, for you can’t possibly have seen me elsewhere!” I had him give me a note to your son which I afterwards took with me and kept as a souvenir.  Here’s a copy of it:  “Bettina Brentano, Sophie’s sister, Maximilian’s daughter, Sophie La Roche’s granddaughter wishes to see you, dear brother, and pretends that she’s afraid of you and that a note from me would serve as a talisman and give her courage.  Although I am pretty certain that she is merely making sport of me, I nevertheless have to do what she wants and I shall be astonished if you don’t have the same experience.  W.

April 23, 1807.”

With this note I sallied forth.  The house lies opposite the fountain—­how deafening the waters sounded in my ears!  I ascended the simple staircase; in the wall stand plaster statues which impose silence—­at any rate I couldn’t utter a sound in this sacred hallway.  Everything is cheery and yet solemn!  The greatest simplicity prevails in the rooms, and yet it is all so inviting!  “Do not fear,” said the modest walls, “he will come, and he will be, and he will not claim to be more than you.”  And then the door opened and there he stood, solemnly serious, with his eyes fixed upon me.  I stretched out my hands toward him, I believe, and soon I knew no more.  Goethe caught me up quickly to his heart.  “Poor child, did I frighten you?”—­those were the first words through which his voice thrilled my heart.  He led me into his room and placed me on the sofa opposite him.  There we sat, both mute, until at last he broke the silence.  “You have doubtless read in the paper that we suffered a great bereavement a few days ago in the death of the Duchess Amalia.”

“Oh,” I said, “I do not read the papers.”

“Why, I thought everything that goes on in Weimar interests you.”

“No, nothing interests me but you alone, and therefore I’m far too impatient to pore over the papers.”