• 376. Caroline to Julie Gotter in Gotha: Jena, 1 March 1803
[Jena] 1 March [18]03
|358| Today I am sending you a Laubthaler and Baron Podmanitzky, a genuine, worthy friend, one who cannot be paid for with Laubthalers and gold. [1] He will give you an extensive and fine report about our little world here, or our mascopey; [2] he |359| is excellently informed about everything.
I am a bit piqued that you have not yet answered me; simply pass over whatever you do not want to respond to. [3] Really, I want nothing more than for all of you to continue in your love for me, something on which I am also confidently counting. Amen.
C. S.
Notes
[1] Caroline had already earlier alerted Julie Gotter to Karl von Podmanitzky’s plans to travel through Gotha; see her letter to Julie Gotter on 18 February 1803 (letter 375), though also on 2 January 1803 (letter 374). Originally Schelling was to accompany Podmanitzky, and later even Caroline herself had considered going along (Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
[2] Low German, see Johann Christoph Adelung The New and Complete Dictionary of the German and English Languages, composed chiefly after the German Dictionaries of Mr. Adelung and of Mr. Schwan, 3 vols. (Leipzig 1796–99), 2:408, s.v. Maskopey: “a Word signifying in some Places, a Society, a Company, an Association of Merchants.” Back.
[3] In her letter to her on 18 February 1803 (letter 375), Caroline had solicited Julie Gotter’s personal opinion on several issues esp. with regard to Caroline’s relationship with Wilhelm Schlegel and their pending divorce.
In the meantime, gossip concerning precisely that relationship was circulating in and beyond both Weimar and Jena. See Caroline Herder to Johann Georg Müller in March 1803 (Johann Gottfried Herder. Briefe, Gesamtausgabe 8 [1984], 537–38): “You probably know that he [Schelling] has been living with the eldest Schlegel’s wife for years now . . . He is living in Jena with Schlegel’s wife as if with his own, causing a real scandal” (Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, Gnädige Herren, schöne Frauen [1777]; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; Museums./Signatur DChodowiecki AB 3.212):
Translation © 2016 Doug Stott