Summary Electoral Affinity
IV Goethe
Selective Affinity
In an ancient castle on the shore of the lake live a baron and a baroness. Fortunately, there seems to be no limit, especially since they found it already in adulthood. Edward loved Charlotte from his youth, but he had to marry a wealthy woman, who was much older than him, under the compulsion of his parents. Charlotte also married, obedient to circumstances. When their spouses died, Edward and Charlotte were finally able to connect. Then they decided to retire from the courtyard, where both had shone before, to the countryside, to settle in nature and live for each other. (To this end, Charlotte even sent her daughter from her first marriage to Lucian, and with her, and the orphaned niece Ottilia to the boarding school.)
Their days they filled with a lot of classes – the reorganization of the neglected park, improvements in the economy. They conducted endless conversations, Edward mastered the game on the flute, and Charlotte, who
A light shadow fell on this idyll only when the heroes thought of their loved ones. Edward was troubled by the fate of an old friend, the captain, who was left out of work, he not without timidity offered his wife to invite the captain to the castle, so that he could show here his building talents. After some hesitation, Charlotte agreed, realizing that their lives would inevitably become more complicated. However, she herself was also worried about Ottil. Letters from the boarding school from the teacher and her assistant confirmed that if Lucian had reigned there and had excellent time in all subjects, then the gentle and distinctive Ottilia suffered among the brisk contemporaries and with difficulty mastered school wisdom. Unfortunately, Lucian was teasing and podding her more than others. Charlotte was inclined to think of taking the pupil from the boarding house and entrusting her
The first guest of the couple is the captain. His appearance brings a pleasant revival, but also draws some distance from Edward from Charlotte. Now old friends are busy with memories, hunting, sightseeing, buying horses, etc. Nevertheless, all three get along perfectly well, striving to preserve the atmosphere of love, friendship and peace. Among the conversations with which they accompany reading aloud – while Edward is a great lover of this lesson – one turns out to be prophetic for their future. It is about mutual attraction and repulsion of chemical elements, their ability to mix, and then to disintegration and the formation of new combinations with even closer ones. This phenomenon is determined by the conventional scientific term “selective affinity”.
The day comes when Ottilius comes to the castle, which Eduard remembered as a child. Now this is a charming girl, radiating cordiality and in a friendly atmosphere quickly overcoming the former stiffness. Some time passes, and in the hearts of the four heroes, complicated latent movements take place, leading to an immutable result: Eduard is gripped by a fiery – and mutual – passion for Ottilia, and the captain and Charlotte are as much in love with each other. However, the situation is far from happy resolution. Charlotte still does not allow and the thought of destroying his marriage and the whole way of life. The captain, who had just received a favorable offer of service, is leaving at her insistence from the castle. She is inclined to, in turn, and Ottilia, but this is categorically opposed by Edward. He himself leaves the castle, to settle down in the distance in a small house of his own and live in a gloomy loneliness of loving anguish. There, and finds his news striking a blow to hopes, sooner or later, to connect with Ottilia: Charlotte says that he expects a child from him. In desperation, relying on fate, Edward goes to war. “He wanted death, for life threatened to become unbearable to him.” Ottilia, when she became aware of the mystery of Charlotte, was struck in the same way as Edward, even more, and everything went into itself, trusting only the diary. “
While Edward was “trusted in the volatile happiness of the war,” the peace in the castle was disturbed by the two-month invasion of Luciana with the groom and a whole horde of retinue. The swirling whirlwind of secular amusements tears Ottilia out of concentration and as if awakens it. After the departure of Lucian comes a series of new concerns: Charlotte has a child. Miracle! – the kid is simultaneously similar to Edward, the captain and Ottil! Perhaps, because on the night of his last intimacy the spouses secretly dreamed of lovers and seemed to give themselves to them, and not to each other? .. The more dearly the boy and Charlotte and Ottilia. A sad incident overshadowed his baptism – right in the process of the rite the old pastor died. The audience was destined to “see and realize in this immediate neighborhood birth and death, a coffin and a cradle.” This episode – in a series of symbolic scenes, conversations, details, piercing the entire fabric of the novel and reminding the reader of the main problems of being, of eternity, of God, of the inmost nature of man and his purpose. The main characters treat life as a sacrament and a gift, they feel part of nature – but endowed with creative will and reason. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish and in suffering to become even more noble spirit and responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding house, but there are deeply alien, like some Count and Baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or the self-love of Lucian and neighbor Mitler, a specialist in settling other people’s heart cases. the intimate nature of man and his purpose. The main characters treat life as a sacrament and a gift, they feel part of nature – but endowed with creative will and reason. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish and in suffering to become even more noble spirit and responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding house, but there are deeply alien, like some Count and Baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or the self-love of Lucian and neighbor Mitler, a specialist in settling other people’s heart cases. the intimate nature of man and his purpose. The main characters treat life as a sacrament and a gift, they feel part of nature – but endowed with creative will and reason. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish and in suffering to become even more noble spirit and responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding house, but there are deeply alien, like some Count and Baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or the self-love of Lucian and neighbor Mitler, a specialist in settling other people’s heart cases. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish and in suffering to become even more noble spirit and responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding house, but there are deeply alien, like some Count and Baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or the self-love of Lucian and neighbor Mitler, a specialist in settling other people’s heart cases. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish and in suffering to become even more noble spirit and responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding house, but there are deeply alien, like some Count and Baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or the self-love of Lucian and neighbor Mitler, a specialist in settling other people’s heart cases.
Edward returns from the war renewed and determined to reconnect with Ottilia. He invites the captain (already a major), convinces him to marry Charlotte and to the common happiness to resolve the situation. Both friends go to the castle. And here is the first after the separation of Edward’s meeting with Ottilia, which he finds behind the lake walking with the child. After their conversation, hope returns to Ottilia. But the same evening a tragedy takes place; the girl rushes home, the boat turns over, and the child dies. Shocked by what happened, Ottilia refuses Edward. She intends to return to the boarding school and devote herself to the pedagogical career. They collect it in a way. She will have to spend the night in a small roadside hotel. Edward rushes there to beg her to change her mind. The second date is all the more fatal, the more sudden it is for the fragile Ottilia. To cope with herself at this moment, she vows silence – and since then she has not said a word. She falls asleep with her clothes, and in the morning she asks for her to be returned to the castle. Edward accompanies the carriage, almost distraught with grief.
The last pages of the novel are covered with light sadness. Again the heroes under one roof. The major also comes from time to time. Charlotte promised him her hand, only Ottilia would decide to marry Edward. Otility is cheerful and calm. However, she does not touch the food – it becomes known later, because she asks to bring food to her room. Edward is always near her, not daring to touch her and awestruck. “Yes, and she continued to feel the same feeling, was unable to give up this blissful need, life was a mystery to them, the solution of which they found only together.” A quiet autumn holiday of nature shines their farewell happiness.
Forces leave Ottilia on the eve of Edward’s birthday, to which she was so prepared. The last drop is the tactlessness of Mitler, who discussed in her presence the precept about adultery. She quietly goes to her room, and soon the cry of her maid is heard. Friends find the girl dying. Before the last breath she turns to Edward with words full of “unearthly tenderness”, asking him to live. However, a few days after the funeral, he dies. “Charlotte took him to a place near Ottilia and forbade anyone to be buried in this crypt.”
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