The Dark Sound of Deranged Sonnets
Short Story on a theme of Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Will Shakespeare
Freie Reichsstadt, Wahlheim, 1771
Editor –
I am bringing you these letters because it Is the only one which my friend will have published. It is a poor presentation of his life and his death, but it is all I have to offer about his short life and painful death. It is like many others in this time of storm and struggle grace with strains of poetry...
May 4, 1771
Best Friend,
I am finished without a trace, and that is the most wonderful thing that can be said for me. It is no small thing to realize that the heart of any person is only realized when examined. Think of this as my concordance to the poet most supreme. The Laurel wreath is decked with flowers by his words.
All along the town, it is the noise and this agreeableness of people that haunt one - but outside the walls of the state, there are only the sounds of nature! But I do not know if this love of nature and romance is truly all that is sick, with me, with Europe, with the world. and I who am penniless can not feel that while my coins are you my heart is filled with the darkened sound of poetry. It is my fortification and my protection.
But the question is not the vast and perennial, even though I may ruminate on the cosmos, but how am I to wrestle with the pain that I brought to poor Lenora? How could I be so blind and oblivious as to what she intended for me if we were to be together? From our last communication, it seems extraordinarily likely that I shall not be able to write or speak with her again on any topic except the ordinary words on the weather and the harvest; which as you know have a new attraction for me at all whether of frequent occurrence or the monumental stories which may occasion happened even in these low wooded mountains that grow stronger after Frankfurt to the south. I long to hide myself in shame or retreat into the darkest dungeons. For such a time do I now fortify.
But in any event, I am well here in this rural hamlet, because it gives me time to think of myself about others and in relation to the deeper world that starts with the flowers and ends with the high spires. For now, I need to go out in two the equanimity of the fields and give myself up to the inexpressible.
Adieu, my friend!
17 May 1771
I stopped beside a neighbor’s house to see the honeybees collecting nectar from the nightshade plants. It is strange that something so poisonous to us is nectar to the bee. O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out!
2 June 1771
I see the tower, made from rank reaching the heavens from the Cathedral base. All around the houses are clustered tight as he says that the church will protect them, though I do not know from what. But the steeple itself is a monument to watch men could build if they set their minds to it. But I remind myself that they can build for good or evil as the mood sets them.
But down here from the river which divides the state from nature, one can see the short waterfall feeding into the broadening cascade as the last glorious moment of fields before the tangle of streets. I don’t hear to draw but put aside each half-finished doing becomes when I sit here on the edge I can either draw inward to the town, which no one cares about because there is very little special about the town itself, if I turn the other way and sketch the woods and the fields, I want to travel much further into the void to capture the mystery of the primeval. I’m sure that is enough I could find paradise if only my agitation would subside.
But again, I will have to wrestle with this on the inside perhaps with a prevented Apple cider as a companion! Neither in inward worth nor outward fair than a glass!
Farewell!
21 June 1771
You asked me whether you should send me all of my books. I cannot urge you not to leave the books where they are because I know never read them again. The books have their honor raised and everything in them is so stuffy and in many cases simply wrong. Even the antique books whose subject may admire praise and whose went records backward the history. But every book does the same thing: the author laborers to convince himself of the position and therefore convinces you.
My urge to find soulless nature is the urge to make for another self to love and find beauty in her face. But until then I am possessed with murderous hate because why lips destroyed what my hands wanted. It is a shame that murders every day both my love and all of the future which is now forgotten. That is the book that I would taste and enrich with the growing life that I live.
It is deep within the grottoes that one feels a member of God’s elect communing with the spirits. Only music of all humanities work comes closest to that sensation that is present in every fleeting second of Dawn’s creation or in the seasons that come about each one after the other.
Imagined taking a miserable battle and arraigned that into an orchestra with rising tones on every side. I can hear it 13 or 14 times and not get even slightly bored with it. It is sweet with the sweet war, and I joy in its deeper joy. It bursts my heart with joy, and I wish that I could share it with a child and her happy mother. But Lenora is dead, and I have not seen any other who would compare to a summer’s day. Somewhere there may be internal summer but I see only an internal line that goes without end.
Go out into nature and you will see how ridiculous and obsequious this proposition is! Trust me, the great destiny of all humanity is to look outwards.
Adieu!
30 June 1771
It is the day of Midsummer night, and I have been swept up into the dreamer rapture. But let me not soliloquy with A and B reaching for a sonnet, because I know the clock tells the time and I must brave the day even though it is sunk in hideous night. I was in a garden beyond the city walls when I saw sable curls draped over silver and white reach down to the pure grass.
My mind is all a flutter with the sweet delight. At first, I saw her on the path. And now I imagine her at every instant of the day. Her name is Charlotte, and I have 100 times wished to embrace like heaven above. I do so when I sleep, I do so at my table. She is like Penelope out of Homer, like Beatrice out of Dante, I can only suspend any other thought. And still, I have not talked to her as of yet but instead wandered through the woods to where the tall Linden trees stand. but this time I only looked down towards the stream which glowed in and wandered through.
12 July 1771
Today I spoke with that lovely apparition who is called by others Charlotte. But for every longing for another word a disgust hangs over each moment. These sentiments mix in two fortune and misfortune.
She is engaged to a man who is so much older than she. I heard silence tell me that the match is because of money, and that yields the image that she would cast him aside if she had the chance. His name is Albert and all ashamed he makes me, for I can see nothing noble or bright and only such thing as coins may bring. He offers her nothing except folly, age, and cold decay. But money rules all, and he has the trump card in his hand. And towering buildings code around her like marching soldiers. My poems are merely bright in dark-directed. But perhaps a gentle wind blows from the blue sky, and peace will find me.
16 July 1771
I had a long conversation with my beloved. I found out that she was already pregnant with the other man’s child. But I wore a mask: she does not know that I love her, and her use of a child coming made only a placid expression on my face. This though be for me my advantage on the kingdom of the shore, my face will not betray such secrets that I have. Such will be my interchange of state and I will state this to you now that I must have Charlotte at whatever cost.
It is a better fruit that the lemon tree brings!
30 July 1771
It has been a little trouble to spend too much time with Charlotte and today both she and the person who will be her husband invited me to take a room on the top floor of the house which will become their home. This seemed to me to be the most promising event in many days, and I took the mane by the reigns and immediately accepted. Because from Charlotte all I do want is nothing that the thought of hearts can mend. However, the man still stands in my way as to her fair flower he adds the rank smell of weeds.
That is why the voice of souls to which I set my keel.
6 August 1771
Leaving tomorrow morning the voyage to Weimar. Of course, I shall see you, but my purpose is to procure some ingredients. Such ingredients will be ill-cured by the poison that makes their essence a sickness.
15 August 1771
We sat alone, Charlotte and myself. And I heard her talk of all that she bears because it is not just for herself that the marriage shall be accomplished on the first day of the autumn equinox. She has not only two parents but two aunts, who also need to be taken care of. I again felt the stab of unease and the pain of unhappiness when I heard this. It is a malady unseen and I need to purge the sickness.
20 August 1771
I wandered through the fields, and they met my beloved. She confided in me that at first, she did not love Albert but with time she finds various sentiments that he alluring and there has become the blossom of love that binds them together when awake and asleep.
How could I admit that I was her slave and waited upon the hours and times of her desire?
27 August 1771
I spent the day looking for a chimera: a washerwoman who would do my trousers and a jacket. At last, I found one who was working under the lime tree. And we can’t talk. After many minutes of my confessing the laments of my situation, it was only for her to remark that all men are disappointed and deceive themselves of their chances.
11 September 1771
Even as summer has almost ended and soon the leaves will change from Emerald to bold fire. Each day that I spend with Charlotte makes me see that my hopes are foolish. I would rather die than upset the tranquility that she must force upon herself.
What was disappointing is that Albert was happy with difficulties with the words that he needed to send to a customer who wanted could deal of the commodity that Albert trades in. I looked at it and you the words that were needed to convince the customer, therefore I quickly dashed off the reply. Albert scrambled for some coins, but that was the least worry that I had.
14 September 1771
Today I went out and stopped for a moment to look back at Alberts house, and I saw that the timbers were solid, the bedroom shined, and the statues which he had procured were of a marvelous creation.
23 September 1771
It is today that the bonds of matrimony descend like a shroud on the land. I have become mute and dumb, for though others may have given me life, the ardor of joy has given me a tomb. Even the birds have become silent and wish to be at my funeral behind the silhouette of the veil.
15 October 1771
It is now clear to me that three must become two. That Charlotte Albert and I must draw straws to meet the end which turns the clock to a new position. Since obviously Charlotte could not be the victim, and Albert is needed to right the ship, the short straw lies on my doorstep merely haunting me. it is as if the mountain clouds were gathering over me and calling my name.
What am I to do? The grass is calling me and the nightshade warms me.
31 October 1771
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
And I weep, to go down to the flood armed with dragon’s teeth.
It is dusk and the windows of the houses are collected with candles to ward off the witches and ghosts. Some pumpkins have been hollowed out to form the weird visage of jack-o’-lanterns with scowls of delight on their faces.
Charlotte is now at peace with her husband and her child, and I cannot imagine any other possibility other than this. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, and now my new is over. The cold wind of the storm will freeze all in its path because coals for the fire were too expensive for my meager coins to afford.
Under the shadow of the spire man and woman became husband and wife and therefore cast aside the enemy who had masqueraded as a friend.
Do not mind for me, because the poison that I need for Albert was mixed for myself. And it washed down smoothly. In fact, I have already departed. I can see my body sitting at the small wood table covered with notes that I shall not need. But it is all over for me, and I am on another journey to where no state holds sway and do bond of matrimony rents within the hollow darkened tomb. Openly the dark sounds of deranged sonnets are heard over the strains of violence.
The Absurd Version is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.