The Story of Mignon IV

The story continues and Mignon stays with Wilhelm during the journey. At some point she became ill from an unknown cause, and so she had to be sent to Natalia’s mansion for rest and care.
From that point on she was tragically headed toward the impending doom of her short life despite an old and kind Doctor’s care.
I will continue to post the parts of Book 5, 6, 7 and some of 8 to illustrate the original writings though translated.

The play of Hamlet was performed successfully, followed by the night when all the members were animated boundlessly.
Amid the pleasures of the entertainment, children and Harper came in together, while Felix was beating a triangle, Mignon a tambourine; the old man had his large harp hung round his neck, and was playing on it whilst he carried it before him. They marched round and round the table, and sang a multitude of songs.
Eatables were handed them; and the guests seemed to think they could not do a greater kindness to the children, than by giving them as much sweet wine as they chose to have. The children tripped about, and sang; Mignon, in particular, was frolicsome beyond all wont. She beat the tambourine with the greatest liveliness and grace; now, with her finger pressed against the parchment, she hummed across it swiftly to and fro; now rattled on it with her knuckles, now with the back of her hand; nay sometimes, with alternating rhythm, she struck it first against her knee and then against her head; and anon twirling it in her hand, she made the shells jingle by themselves; and thus, from the simplest instrument, elicited a great variety of tones. After she and Felix had long rioted about, they sat down upon an elbow-chair which was standing empty at the table, exactly opposite to Wilhelm.
By way of termination, Wilhelm was walking last with Aurelia. The stage-manager met him on the stairs, and said to him: “Here is the veil our Ghost vanished in: it was hanging fixed to the place where he sank; we found it this moment.”
“A curious relic!” said our friend, and took it with him.
At this instant his left arm was laid hold of, and he felt a smart twinge of pain in it. Mignon had hid herself in the place; she had seized him, and bit his arm. She rushed past him, down-stairs, and disappeared. On reaching the open air, almost all of them discovered that they had drunk too liberally. They glided asunder without taking leave. The instant Wilhelm gained his room, he stripped, and extinguishing his candle, hastened into bed. Sleep was overpowering him without delay, when a noise, that seemed to issue from behind the stove, aroused him. In the eye of his heated fancy, the image of the harnessed King was hovering there; he sat up that he might address the Spectre; but he felt himself encircled with soft arms, and his mouth was shut with kisses, which he had not force to push away.

Next morning Wilhelm started up with an unpleasant feeling, and found himself alone. His head was still dim with the tumult, which he had not yet entirely slept off; and the recollection of his nightly visitant disquieted his mind. His first suspicion lighted on Philina; but, on second thoughts, he conceived that it could not have been she. He sprang out of bed: and, while putting on his clothes, he noticed that the door, which commonly he used to bolt, was now ajar; though whether he had shut it on the previous night, or not, he could not recollect.
But what surprised him most was the Spirit's veil, which he found lying on his bed. Having brought it up with him, he had most probably thrown it there himself. It was a gray gauze: on the hem of it he noticed an inscription broidered in dark letters. He unfolded it, and read the words, "FOR THE FIRST AND THE LAST TIME! FLEE, YOUTH! FLEE!" He was struck with it, and knew not what to think or say.
At this moment Mignon entered with his breakfast. The aspect of the child astonished Wilhelm, we may almost say frightened him. She appeared to have grown taller overnight: she entered with a stately, noble air, and looked him in the face so earnestly, that he could not endure her glances. She did not touch him, as at other times, when, for morning salutation, she would press his hand, or kiss his cheek, his lips, his arm, or shoulder; but, having put his things in order, she retired in silence…

On a sudden Mignon rushed into the room, laid hold of him, and cried, "Master! Save the house! It is on fire!" Wilhelm sprang through the door, and a strong smoke came rushing down upon him from the upper story. On the street he heard the cry of fire; and the harper, with his instrument in his hand, came down-stairs breathless through the smoke. Aurelia hurried out of her chamber, and threw little Felix into Wilhelm's arms. "Save the child!" cried she, "and we will mind the rest."
Wilhelm did not look upon the danger as so great: his first thought was, to penetrate to the source of the fire, and try to stifle it before it reached a head. He gave Felix to the harper; commanding him to hasten down the stone stairs, which led across a little garden-vault out into the garden, and to wait with the children in the open air. Mignon took a light to show the way. He begged Aurelia to secure her things there also. He himself pierced upwards through the smoke, but it was in vain that he exposed himself to such danger.
The flame appeared to issue from a neighboring house; it had already caught the wooden floor and staircase: some others, who had hastened to his help, were suffering like himself from fire and vapor. Yet he kept inciting them; he called for water; he conjured them to dispute every inch with the flame, and promised to abide by them to the last. At this instant, Mignon came springing up, and cried. "Master! save thy Felix! The old man is mad! He is killing him." Scarcely knowing what he did, Wilhelm darted down stairs; and Mignon followed close behind him.
On the last steps, which led into the garden-vault, he paused with horror. Some heaps of fire-wood branches, and large masses of straw, which had been stowed in the place, were burning with a clear flame; Felix was lying on the ground, and screaming; the harper stood aside, holding down his head, and leaned against the wall. "Unhappy creature! What is this?" said Wilhelm. The old man spoke not; Mignon lifted Felix, and carried him with difficulty to the garden; while Wilhelm strove to pull the fire asunder and extinguish it, but only by his efforts made the flame more violent. At last he, too, was forced to flee into the garden, with his hair and his eyelashes burned; tearing the harper with him through the conflagration, who, with singed beard, unwillingly accompanied him.
Wilhelm hastened instantly to seek the children. He found them on the threshold of a summer-house at some distance: Mignon was trying every effort to pacify her comrade. Wilhelm took him on his knee: he questioned him, felt him, but could obtain no satisfactory account from either him or Mignon…

"Master," said she (till the present evening she had hardly ever named him master; at first she used to name him sir, and afterwards to call him father),—"Master! we have escaped an awful danger: thy Felix was on the point of death."
By many inquiries, Wilhelm learned from her at last, that, when they came into the vault, the harper tore the light from her hand, and set on fire the straw. That he then put Felix down, laid his hands with strange gestures on the head of the child, and drew a knife as if he meant to sacrifice him. That she sprang forward, and snatched it from him; that she screamed; and some one from the house, who was carrying something down into the garden, came to her help, but must have gone away again in the confusion, and left the old man and the child alone.
Two or even three houses were now flaming in a general blaze. Owing to the conflagration in the vault, no person had been able to take shelter in the garden. Wilhelm was distressed about his friends, and in a less degree about his property. Not venturing to quit the children, he was forced to sit, and see the mischief spreading more and more.
In this anxious state he passed some hours. Felix had fallen asleep on his bosom: Mignon was lying at his side, and holding fast his hand. The efforts of the people finally subdued the fire. The burned houses sank, with successive crashes, into heaps; the morning was advancing; the children awoke, and complained of bitter cold; even Wilhelm, in his light dress, could scarcely brook the chillness of the falling dew. He took the young ones to the rubbish of the prostrate building, where, among the ashes and the embers, they found a very grateful warmth…

Having fully convinced himself of the good composition of his essay, he began committing it to memory, and at the same time making ready for departure. Mignon was present as he packed his articles; she asked him whether he intended travelling south or north; and learning that it was the latter, she replied: “Then I will wait here for thee.” She begged of him the pearl necklace which had once been Mariana’s. He could not refuse to gratify the dear little creature, and he gave it her: the neckerchief she had already. On the other hand, she put the veil of Hamlet’s Ghost into his travelling bag, though he told her it could not be of any service to him.
Melina took upon him the directorship; his wife engaged to keep a mother’s eye upon the children, whom Wilhelm parted with unwillingly. Felix was very merry at the setting out, and when asked what pretty thing he wished to have brought back for him, he said: “Hark you! bring me a papa!&rdquo.
Mignon seized the traveller’s hand; then, standing on her tiptoes, she pressed a warm and cordial, though not a tender kiss, upon his lips, and cried: “Master! forget us not, and come soon back.”
And so we leave our friend, entering on his journey, amid a thousand different thoughts and feelings; and here subjoin, by way of close, a little poem, which Mignon had recited once or twice with great expressiveness, and which the hurry of so many singular occurrences prevented us from inserting sooner:

“I have got the strangest message you can think of,” cried Lothario to him. “Pardon me,” continued he, addressing Wilhelm, “if I am not in a mood for speaking farther with you at this moment. You remain with us tonight: you, Abbé, see the stranger properly attended to.”
With these words, he made his guest a bow: the clergyman took Wilhelm by the hand, who followed, not without reluctance...

Next morning Jarno met our friend, and said to him: “We have to ask a kindness of you. Lydia must, for some time, be removed: her violent unreasonable love and passionateness hinders the Baron’s recovery.
His wound requires rest and calmness, though with his healthy temperament it is not dangerous. You see how Lydia tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears; and—Enough!” he added with a smile, after pausing for a moment, “our Doctor expressly requires that she must quit us for a while. We have got her to believe that a lady, one of her most intimate friends, is at present in the neighbourhood, wishing and expecting instantly to see her. She has been prevailed upon to undertake a journey to our lawyer’s, which is but two leagues off. This man is in the secret; he will wofully lament that Fräulein Theresa should just have left him again; he will seem to think she may still be overtaken. Lydia will hasten after her; and if you prosper, will be led from place to place. At last, if she insist on turning back, you must not contradict her; but the night will help you; the coachman is a cunning knave, and we shall speak with him before he goes. You are to travel with her in the coach, to talk to her, and manage the adventure.”
“It is a strange and dubious commission that you give me,” answered Wilhelm: “How painful is the sight of true love injured! And am I to be the instrument of injuring it? I have never cheated any person so; for it has always seemed to me that if we once begin deceiving with a view to good and useful purposes, we run the risk of carrying it to excess.”
“Yet you cannot manage children otherwise,” said Jarno. “With children it may do,” said Wilhelm; “for we love them tenderly, and take an open charge of them. But with our equals, in behalf of whom our heart is not so sure to call upon us for forbearance, it might frequently be dangerous. Yet do not think,” he added, after pausing for a moment, “that I intend to decline the task on this account. Honouring your judgment, as I do, feeling such attachment to your noble friend, such eagerness to forward his recovery by whatever means, I willingly forget myself and my opinions. It is not enough that we can risk our life to serve a friend; in the hour of need we should also yield him our convictions. Our dearest passions, our best wishes we are bound to sacrifice in helping him. I undertake the charge; though it is easy to foresee the pain I shall have to suffer from the tears, from the despair of Lydia.”
“And for this, no small reward awaits you,” answered Jarno: “Fräulein Theresa, whom you get acquainted with, is a lady such as you will rarely see. She puts many a man to shame: I may say, she is a genuine Amazon; while others are but pretty counterfeits, that wander up and down the world in that ambiguous dress.”
Wilhelm was struck: he almost fancied that in Theresa he would find his Amazon again; especially as Jarno, whom he importuned to tell him more, broke off abruptly, and went away. The new, near hope of once more seeing that beloved and honoured being, awoke a thousand feelings in his heart. He now looked upon the task, which had been given him, as the intervention of a special Providence; the thought that he was minded treacherously to carry off a helpless girl from the object of her sincerest warmest love, dwelt but a moment in his mind, as the shadow of a bird flits over the sunshiny earth…
The coach drew up before a neat little country-house; a young lady stepped out, and opened the carriage-door. Lydia looked at her with a stare of wonder; looked round; looked at her again; and fainted in the arms of Wilhelm.

WILHELM was conducted to a little upper room: the house was new, as small nearly as it could be, and extremely orderly and clean. In Theresa, who had welcomed him and Lydia at the coach, he had not found his Amazon: she was another and an altogether different woman. Handsome, and but of middle stature, she moved about with great alertness; and it seemed as if her clear blue open eyes let nothing that occurred escape them.
She entered Wilhelm’s room, inquiring if he wanted anything. “Pardon me,” said she, “for having lodged you in a chamber which the smell of paint still renders disagreeable: my little dwelling is but just made ready; you are hand-selling this room, which is appointed for my guests. Would that you had come on some more pleasant errand! Poor Lydia is like to be a dull companion; in other points also, you will have much to pardon. My cook has run away from me, at this unseasonable time; and a serving man has bruised his hand. The case might happen I had to manage everything myself; and if it were so, why then we should just put up with it. One is plagued so with nobody as with one’s servants; none of them will serve you, scarcely even serve himself.”...
Wilhelm's parting with Theresa was more cheerful: she wished they might soon meet again. "Me you wholly know," said she: "I alone have talked while we have been together. It will be your duty, next time, to repay my candor."...

"I can give you something like a clew to this perplexity," said Jarno. "An old woman, whom you must have noticed often, gave Aurelia the child: she accepted it with passion, hoping to alleviate her sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable hour."
This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm: he thought of his dear Mignon and his beautiful Felix with the liveliest distinctness. He expressed his wish to remove them both from the state in which they were.
"We shall soon arrange it," said Lothario. "The little girl may be committed to Theresa: she cannot be in better hands. As for the boy, I think you should yourself take charge of him: what in us the women leave uncultivated, children cultivate when we retain them near us."…

These things over, Wilhelm and Barbara parted: he was to take Felix with him; she, to carry Mignon to Theresa, and afterwards to live in any place she pleased, upon a small annuity which he engaged to settle on her. He sent for Mignon, to prepare her for the new arrangement. "Master," said she, "keep me with thee: it will do me good, and do me ill." He told her, that, as she was now grown up, there should be something further done for her instruction. "I am sufficiently instructed," answered she, "to love and grieve."
He directed her attention to her health, and showed that she required continuous care, and the direction of a good physician. "Why care for me," said she, "when there are so many things to care for?" After he had labored greatly to persuade her that he could not take her with him, that he would conduct her to a place where he might often see her, she appeared as if she had not heard a word of it. "Thou wishest not to have me with thee," said she. "Perhaps it is better: send me to the old harper; the poor man is lonely where he is." Wilhelm tried to show her that the old man was in comfortable circumstances. "Every hour I long for him," replied the child.
"I did not see," said Wilhelm, "that thou wert so fond of him when he was living with us." "I was frightened for him when he was awake; I could not bear his eyes: but, when he was asleep, I liked so well to sit by him! I used to chase the flies from him: I could not look at him enough. Oh! he has stood by me in fearful moments: none knows how much I owe him. Had I known the road, I should have run away to him already." Wilhelm set the circumstances in detail before her: he said that she had always been a reasonable child, and that, on this occasion also, she might do as she desired. "Reason is cruel," said she; "the heart is better: I will go as thou requirest, only leave me Felix."
After much discussion her opinion was not altered; and Wilhelm at last resolved on giving Barbara both the children, and sending them together to Theresa. This was the easier for him, as he still feared to look[429] upon the lovely Felix as his son. He would take him on his arm, and carry him about: the child delighted to be held before the glass; Wilhelm also liked, though unavowedly, to hold him there, and seek resemblances between their faces. If for a moment any striking similarity appeared between them, he would press the boy in his arms; and then, at once affrighted by the thought that he might be mistaken, he would set him down, and let him run away. "Oh," cried he, "if I were to appropriate this priceless treasure, and it were then to be snatched from me, I should be the most unhappy man on earth!"

“Take Felix with you,” said Lothario: “the little ones will cheer each other. You must be upon the road tomorrow morning early: my sister’s coach, in which my people travelled hither, is still here: I will give you horses half the way; the rest you post. A prosperous journey to you! Make many compliments from me, when you arrive; tell my sister I shall soon be back, and that she must prepare for guests.
Our granduncle’s friend, the Marchese Cipriani, is on his way to visit us: he hoped to find the old man still in life; they meant to entertain each other with their common love of art, and the recollection of their early intimacy. The Marchese, much younger than my uncle, owed to him the greater part of his accomplishments. We must exert all our endeavours to fill up in some measure the void which is awaiting him; and a larger party is the readiest means.”...

One day Lothario said to Wilhelm: “I must send you to a place where you are needed more than here. My sister bids me beg of you to go to her as soon as possible. Poor Mignon seems to be decaying more and more: and it is thought your presence might allay the malady. Besides telling me in person, my sister has dispatched this note after me: so that you perceive she reckons it a pressing case.” Lothario handed him a billet. Wilhelm, who had listened in extreme perplexity, at once discovered in these hasty pencil-strokes the hand of the Countess, and knew not what to answer...

Here, behind a light-screen, which threw a shadow on her, sat a young lady reading. “O that it were she!” said he within himself at this decisive moment. He set down the boy, who seemed to be awakening; he meant to approach the lady; but the child sank together drunk with sleep; the lady rose, and came to him. It was the Amazon! Unable to restrain himself, he fell upon his knee, and cried: “It is she!” He seized her hand, and kissed it with unbounded rapture. The child was lying on the carpet between them, sleeping softly.
Felix was carried to the sofa: Natalia sat down beside him; she directed Wilhelm to the chair which was standing nearest them. She proposed to order some refreshments; these our friend declined; he was altogether occupied convincing himself that it was she, closely examining her features, shaded by the screen, and accurately recognizing them. She told him of Mignon’s sickness, in general terms; that the poor child was gradually consuming under the influence of a few deep feelings; that, with her extreme excitability, and her endeavoring to hide it, her little heart often suffered violent and dangerous pains; that any unexpected agitation of her mind, this primary organ of life would suddenly stop, and no trace of the vital movement could be felt in the good child’s bosom. That is when such an agonizing cramp was past, the force of nature would again express itself in strong pulses, and now torment the child by its excess, as she had before suffered by its defect.
Wilhelm recollected one spasmodic scene of that description, and Natalia referred him to the doctor, who would speak with him at large on the affair, and explain more circumstantially why he, the friend and benefactor of the child, had been at present sent for. “One curious change,” Natalia added, “You will find in her: she now wears women’s clothes, to which she had once such an aversion.”
“How did you succeed in this?” said Wilhelm.
“If it was indeed a thing to be desired,” said she, “We owe it all to chance. Hear how it happened. Perhaps you are aware that I have constantly about me a number of little girls, whose opening minds I endeavor, as they grow in strength, to train to what is good and right. From my mouth they learn nothing but what I myself regard as true: yet I cannot and would not hinder them from gathering, among other people, many fragments of the common prejudices errors which are current in the world. If they inquire of me about them, I attempt, as far as possible, to join these alien and intrusive notions to some just one, and thus to render them, if not useful, at least harmless.
Some time ago, my girls had heard among the peasants’ children many tales of angels, of Knecht Rupert and such shadowy characters, who they understood, appeared at certain times in person, to give presents to good children, and to punish naughty ones. They had an idea that these strange visitants were people in disguise: in this I confirmed them; and without entering into explanations, I determined on the first opportunity, to let them see a spectacle of that sort. It chanced that the birthday of two twin-sisters, whose behavior had been always very good, was near; I promised that, on this occasion, the little present they had so well deserved should be delivered to them by an angel.
They were on the stretch of curiosity regarding this phenomenon. I had chosen Mignon for the part; and accordingly, at the appointed day, I had her suitably equiped in a long light snow white dress. She was, of course, provided with a golden girdle round her waist, and a golden fillet on her hair. I at first proposed to omit the wings; but the young ladies who were decking her, insisted on a pair of large golden pinions, in preparing which they meant to show their highest art. Thus did the strange apparition, with a lily in the one hand, and a little basket in the other, glide in among the girls: she surprised even me.   And thus significantly did she answer all their other child-like, innocent inquiries.
The little party having satisfied their curiosity, and the impression of the show beginning to abate, we were for proceeding to undress the little angel. This, however, she resisted: she took her cithern; she seated herself here, on this high writing-table, and sang a little song with touching grace:”

“I immediately determined upon leaving her the dress,” proceeded Natalia; “and procuring her some others of a similar kind. These she now wears; and in them, I think, her form has quite a different expression.” As it was already late, Natalia let the stranger go: he parted from her not without anxiety…

Mignon from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister


Kennst du das Land wo di Zitronen bluehn by Mark Adamo


Kwan Ho Chung – February 21, 2020