My ill humor at the failure of my poetical attempts, at the apparent impossibility of coming to a clear understanding about them, and at every thing else that might pinch me here and there, I thought I might vent on her, because she truly loved me with all her heart, and did whatever she could to please me.  By unfounded and absurd fits of jealousy, I destroyed our most delightful days, both for myself and her.  She endured it for a time with incredible patience, which I was cruel enough to try to the uttermost.  But, to my shame and despair, I was at last forced to remark that her heart was alienated from me, and that I might now have good ground for the madness in which I had indulged without necessity and without cause.  There were also terrible scenes between us, in which I gained nothing; and I then first felt that I had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose her.  My passion grew, and assumed all the forms of which it is capable under such circumstances; nay, at last I even took up the role which the girl had hitherto played.  I sought every thing possible in order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again.  But it was too late!  I had lost her really; and the frenzy with which I revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under which I lost some of the best years of my life:  indeed, I should perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my poetic talent here shown itself particularly helpful with its healing power.

Already, at many intervals before, I had clearly enough perceived my ill conduct.  I really pitied the poor child, when I saw her so thoroughly wounded by me, without necessity.  I pictured to myself so often and so circumstantially her condition and my own, and, as a contrast, the contented state of another couple in our company, that at last I could not forbear treating this situation dramatically, as a painful and instructive penance.  Hence arose the oldest of my extant dramatic labors, the little piece entitled, “Die Laune des Verliebten” ("The Lover’s Caprice"), in the simple nature of which one may at the same time perceive the impetus of a boiling passion.

But, before this, a deep, significant, impulsive world had already interested me.  Through my adventure with Gretchen and its consequences, I had early looked into the strange labyrinths by which civil society is undermined.  Religion, morals, law, rank, connections, custom, all rule only the surface of city existence.  The streets, bordered by splendid houses, are kept neat; and every one behaves himself there properly enough:  but, indoors, it often seems only so much the more disordered; and a smooth exterior, like a thin coat of mortar, plasters over many a rotten wall that tumbles together overnight, and produces an effect