• 104. Caroline to Madam Michaelis in Göttingen: Marburg, Saturday afternoon, 30 July 1791
[Marburg] Saturday afternoon, 30 July [1791]
|225| How fortunate, dear Mother, that I recently wholly prepared myself and even took certain measures |226| anticipating that I might not be staying here much longer. It is only that yet something else has happened concerning which I will try to give you an account that is as calm as I myself am, or at least as calm as I have now managed to become again, though the distress and upheaval of the past two days have doubtless surpassed anything previous.
You, too, are prepared for it — nor is there anything in what follows that might vex you in any way. You will merely see that it is with haste and zeal that I must now think about leaving. And, indeed, I have already acted. Everything involved in its implementation is leaving with the mail now — I have engaged so many different sources of assistance that at least one will surely succeed.
From you I would ask only that you make the transition and mode of this move easier for me by allowing me to spend several weeks in your house. [1] My father’s poor health provides the best pretext for doing so, and I would certainly not be completely useless there during that time. [2]
I cannot deny that I am not that keen about coming — the only thing that can give me joy in Göttingen now is seeing you again, and even then, I would certainly rather see you under different circumstances. More on that later, but first my account. [3] . . .
[End of letter missing.]
Notes
[1] Caroline did indeed spend time in Göttingen, during which she also visited Gotha with her sister Luise. The wording here (a specific, limited period of time) suggests she may already have made her decision to move to Mainz, which she did in the spring of 1792 (Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
[2] Caroline’s father died on 22 August 1791. Regrettably, the location of his gravesite in Göttingen is not known ([1] final illustration to K. A. Kurzbein, Onkel Warm, und sein schönes Mümchen: Eine intressante Familiengeschichte, vol. 2 [Leipzig 1800]; [2] Göttinger Taschen Calender Für das Iahr 1794; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
[3] Caroline’s account (now lost) presumably explained the unpleasant events prompting her to leave Marburg. That said, see Caroline’s letter to Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer from Marburg on 1 March, 1791 (letter 100), note 6a. In her undated letter to Lotte Michaelis (letter 93) in 1789, she had, moreover, snidely pointed out an allusion in a poem to a character who was allegedly “Frau von Malsburg [Fritz Michaelis’s later wife], whose heart occupied itself with the young man for lack of any better object,” notwithstanding that Frau von Malsburg assisted Caroline’s during the ordeal of Therese’s death back in December 1789. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott