• 229a (was 233). Caroline to Luise Gotter in Gotha: Jena, 1 April 1799 [*]
[Jena] 1 April [17]99
|533| [Errand requests.] Unfortunately, for the time being we are not going to Berlin. [1] Only imagine, Iffland writes that on 15 May he will be leaving Berlin for 6 weeks, and without Iffland, there is no salvation in Berlin. [2] . . .
Iffland has also charged us with relating to you that around Michaelmas he will be sending you 20 louis d’or and returning one of the copies of Der schöne Geist. [3] Just why he is not sending it to you earlier I know not, at least the copy itself. But it |534| will not help much to query him about it. He is extremely slow at answering — he cannot, and laments quite pathetically about the tension and pressures of his business. 20 louis d’or is not very much; that said, I do understand that because the one play is not entirely new, and the other not entirely original, he cannot really do better than with the theater funds, moreover it is also not by Kotzebue. [4] He adds that he would not bother you at all concerning the printing, and Göschen will also have to make a decision concerning a 2nd volume. [5]
If only all of you were doing well, my poor, dear Cécile ! . . .
Notes
[*] Renumbered to allow chronological ordering of previous and subsequent letters. Back.
[1] For the anticipated premiere of Hamlet, which would not take place until October 1799. See Ella Horn’s essay concerning the background to the premiere of Hamlet in Berlin. Back.
[2] An odd statement, since Schiller’s play Wallensteins Tod (final part of his Wallenstein) premiered in Berlin on 17 May 1799. Back.
[3] At issue is the acquisition or performance of Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter’s plays for the Berlin theater. See Caroline to Luise on 2 May 1798 (letter 200); on 24 October 1798 (letter 206); in late 1798, early 1799 (letter 214); on 25 February 1799 (letter 222a). Back.
[4] I.e., Iffland could not count on Gotter’s plays being as popular and thus as financially profitable as those by the extremely popular Kotzebue. Back.
[5] Gotter’s play Der schöne Geist was published in his Gedichte, vol. 3: Literarischer Nachlass von Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. Mit des Verfassers Biographie und seinem Bildnisse, ed. Friedrich von Schlichtegroll (Gotha 1802). Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott