Since then he had kept up a sentimental
correspondence with the mother in which we have occasional references
to his continued interest in the daughter. "Your Maxe," he wrote in
August, 1773, "I cannot do without so long as I live, and I shall
always venture to love her." This was, of course, in the current style
of the time, but a situation arose which made such amorous trifling
dangerous. On January 9th, 1774, the Fraeulein von la Roche was married
to Peter Brentano, a dealer in herrings, oil, and cheese, a widower
with five children, with whom she settled in Frankfort. Goethe
immediately became an assiduous frequenter of the Brentano household,
where he was not unwelcome to the young wife, whose new surroundings
were in unpleasant contrast to those of the home she had left. But
Brentano was not so magnanimous as Kestner, and a fortnight had not
passed before there were "painful scenes" between him and Goethe. On
the 21st Goethe wrote as follows to the mother of Madame Brentano: "If
you knew what passed within me before I avoided the house, you would
not think, dear Mama, of luring me back to it again. I have in these
frightful moments suffered for all the future; I am now at peace, and
in peace let me remain.
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