More than another week
passed, and, weary of his imprisonment, he stole out in the darkness
enveloped in a long cloak to avoid recognition by chance friends. In
his memory there lived one of these night-wanderings when he stood
beneath Lili's window, heard her sing the song, beginning _Warum
ziehst du mich unwiderstehlich_, in which, in the first freshness of
his love, he had described the witchery with which she had bound him,
and, the song ended, saw from her moving shadow that she paced up and
down the room, evidently deep in thoughts which he leaves us to
divine. Only his fixed resolve to renounce her, he adds in his
narrative of the incident, prevented him from making his presence
known to her.
[Footnote 237: The Duke had previously passed through Frankfort on his
way to Carlsruhe. On that occasion, also, Goethe had been in
intercourse with him.]
There was one member of the Goethe household who was not displeased at
the non-appearance of the ducal representative. The father had from
the first been strenuously opposed to his son's going to Weimar, and
in his opinion the apparent breach of the appointment was only an
illustration of what a commoner was to expect in his intercourse with
the great.
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