Die Braut (1999)

Christian August Vulpius, the elder brother of Christiane Vulpius, is a tutor to the aristocratic von Soden family in Nuremberg. When they find a tutor willing to work for less money, he is dismissed. He therefore writes to his sister in Weimar. She is to hand a letter from him to the state minister and privy councillor von Goethe, asking for his help in finding a new position. Christiane Vulpius lives in poverty with her half-sister Ernestine, and later also with her aunt Juliane, in a poor quarter of Weimar. She earns her living as a milliner, making artificial flowers at Caroline Bertuch’s workshop. In July 1788, she intercepts Goethe on his way to his garden house in the park by the Ilm. Goethe is immediately fascinated and aroused by the 23-year-old’s physical presence. He invites her to meet him at the garden house that evening. A passionate love affair develops, and Christiane moves into the garden house. During the day, she takes care of the household. One day, Fritz von Stein, the son of Charlotte von Stein, catches her at it. Charlotte cannot believe that Goethe has taken a new mistress, one so far below his station, and is evidently no longer interested in her. She verifies this for herself one night at the garden house and fights the affair by every means, even openly declaring war on Goethe. She spreads the scandal in public, conspires with Charlotte von Lengefeld, the future wife of Schiller, and even appeals to Duke Carl August. When the duke and his court visit Goethe’s garden house, Christoph Martin Wieland—who, like Goethe, has a warm, friendly relationship with the duke—warns Christiane, who flees. The duke orders Goethe to put the affair on hold until the following spring. But Goethe visits Christiane in her poor lodgings to persuade her to return to the garden house. Christiane wins Wieland as a close friend. Though appalled by her lack of education (she does not know “Werther”!), he is taken with her candor and straightforwardness. In 1789, Christiane is pregnant. Their son August is born on December 25, 1789. Christiane moves with him into Goethe’s house on the Frauenplan in Weimar and is now responsible for the household there. Her half-sister Ernestine and Aunt Julia also find work there, bringing their hardship to an end. Christiane’s world is confined to the household. She is not allowed into Goethe’s reception rooms, let alone to attend evening parties. Once, she is permitted only a glimpse through a window, as Karoline Jagemann sings there. The duke’s mistress, Karoline comes from the house next door to the Vulpius family. Despite the social ostracism, young August visits Charlotte von Stein, who has been widowed since 1793. Christiane is often alone, since Goethe’s social and political life takes place without her. Even so, she assures him of her love. She has four more children, all of whom die very young, and she attributes this to a curse cast by Weimar society. Goethe does not attend his children’s funerals. Then comes the fateful year 1806. After their victory at the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt on October 14, French soldiers plunder Weimar. Goethe’s house on the Frauenplan is also ransacked. Through her courageous intervention, Christiane saves Goethe’s life: she surprises a marauding soldier, who already has his bayonet pointed at Goethe and is demanding gold, by slapping him. This experience prompts Goethe to legitimize his relationship with Christiane through a quiet marriage ceremony on October 19 in the small sacristy of Weimar’s town church. Christiane has to find her feet in her new role as Goethe’s wife. Now the household staff take over the hands-on work around the house. Charlotte von Stein’s final intrigue against Christiane is a letter supposedly written by Bettina von Arnim, describing an erotic encounter between Bettina and Goethe. Since Wieland refuses to pass the letter on to Christiane, Charlotte von Schiller does so instead. In 1811, a scandal erupts. When Bettina visits Weimar with her husband, Achim von Arnim, and loudly denounces the classicist works of art by Heinrich Meyer (“Kunschtmeyer”), a friend of Goethe’s, in Goethe’s house, Christiane attacks her physically. Christiane waits on her knees for Goethe to punish her. But Goethe stands by her and, by letter, bans the Arnims from his house. Goethe and his wife grow increasingly distant. Goethe is often away, while Christiane goes out frequently—for instance, to dance for hours with students in Bad Lauchstädt and drink heavily. During an official celebration in front of the palace, perhaps on the occasion of the award of the ducal House Order of the White Falcon in 1816, Goethe is alone. White-powdered and dressed in his state robes, wearing the order, he sits rigid and lonely on a platform. Looking at him from the buffet, the duke recites the closing lines of Goethe’s poem “To the Moon”: “What, unknown or unheeded by mankind, wanders through the labyrinth of the breast in the night.” Charlotte von Stein adds: “And until you have this—‘Die and become!’—you are only a gloomy guest upon the dark earth” (the final stanza of Goethe’s poem “Blessed Longing”). The film had foreshadowed the metaphor of the moon for Goethe at the beginning, with a full moon slowly receding. In 1816, Christiane returns alone from her outing in Bad Lauchstädt. She drags herself into the house, points to a pile of shoes worn out from dancing, and collapses from a stroke. Goethe, and also her son August, are away. Christiane does not recover and dies after a long illness on June 6, 1816. Goethe, who has returned, did not dare approach her bed; instead, he waited outside the door, suffering, as she went through her death throes. There Christiane’s brother, Christian August Vulpius, approaches him, points a pistol at him, and accuses him of not having cared enough for Christiane. Goethe seems little impressed by the pistol and replies that Christian August, now also a poet, had not visited his sister for twenty years. At this, Christian August lowers his weapon, visibly shaken.