Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Read Free Book Online Page B

had on tolerable terms, an excellent man in his trade and one who has oftentimes treated me for serious internal troubles too, and better than a specialist might have done; and immediate aid is, after all, what is most seriously missed in the country.’
    The man was immediately written to and Eduard and Charlotte were glad to have been enabled to use so well so much money they might otherwise have frittered away.
    Thus Charlotte too exploited the Captain and she began to be very content he should be there and not at all worried about any consequences that might ensue. When she met him she usually had a number of questions in her head to ask him. She liked being alive and so she sought to do away with anything that might be harmful or deadly: the lead-glazing on the earthenware crockery and the verdigris that formed on copper pots had worried her for a long time and she had him instruct her about this and the instruction had naturally to begin with the fundamental principles of physics and chemistry.
    Chance but welcome opportunity for talking about these things was offered by Eduard’s taste for reading aloud. He had a very melodious deep voice and had in earlier days been well-received and well-known for his lively and sensitive recitation of oratory and poetry. Now it was other subjects that engaged him and other books from which he read, and as it happenedthese had for some time been principally works on physics, chemistry and technical matters.
    A particular trait of his, but one which perhaps he was not alone in, was that he could not bear someone else looking over at a book when he was reading from it. In earlier times, when he read poems, plays and stories, it was the natural consequence of the desire, possessed as much by a reciter as by a poet, an actor or a story-teller, to evoke surprise, to vary the pace, to arouse tension; and it militates very greatly against these intended effects if a third party is already looking ahead and knows what is coming. This was one reason it was his practice when reading before company to sit so that he had no one behind him. Now that there was only the three of them this precaution was unnecessary, and since his objective was no longer to stir the emotions or startle the imagination he did not think about being particularly careful.
    Only, one evening when he had sat down without thinking about where, he noticed Charlotte was reading over his shoulder. His old impatience came to life again and he rebuked her for it rather roughly, saying bad habits of that kind, like so many others that were an annoyance to society, ought to be broken once and for all. ‘If I read aloud to someone,’ he said, ‘is it not as if I were speaking to him and telling him something? What has been written down and printed takes the place of my own mind and my own heart; and would I ever take the trouble to speak at all if a window were constructed in my forehead or in my chest, so that he to whom I want to expound my thoughts one by one, or convey my feelings one by one, could always know long in advance what I was getting at? Whenever anyone reads over my shoulder it is as if I were being torn in two.’
    Charlotte, whose address in great or intimate society was revealed especially in her ability to circumvent any unpleasant, forcible, or even merely lively remark and to interrupta conversation that was going on too long and stimulate one in danger of breaking down, was quite equal to this occasion. ‘You will forgive me, I know,’ she said, ‘when I confess the reason for my error. I heard you speak of ‘affinity,’ and straightway there came into my mind my own affinity, a pair of cousins who happen to be troubling me at this very moment. I attend again to your reading; I hear that what is being spoken of is quite inanimate things, and I look over your shoulder to find out where I am.’
    ‘It is a metaphor which has misled and confused you,’ said Eduard. ‘Here, to be sure, it is only a