The Sorrows of Young Werther: June 16.

I couldn't hide from the thunder in a sky full of song.

Curator’s note: Hi, welcome back! Thank you all so much for the lovely comments. It’s thanks to your support that the Substack team has given Werther Rewritten an actual shoutout (!!) Beware, very long chapter ahead, just like you asked! I hope you like it.

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You were worried for me, sorry about that. I saw your texts, I just wasn’t able to respond. I just wasn’t able to focus. My heart belongs to someone now. I have - I don’t know.

To give you a clean step-by-step account of what happened in which order would be too difficult. I am … unspeakably happy, but not a great storyteller.

An angel! No, scratch that. Everybody describes their love like that. And yet I find it so impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect. I can only tell you that she has captivated all my senses.

Simple as that. Certain of it.

But ugh, that’s all so vague. Some other time - nope, not later, but right now I need to tell you everything. Now or never. I have deleted all this three times by now and tried to ignore the overwhelming urge to run into the woods, screaming on the top of my lungs. I promised myself today that I would—

…Uhh, sorry about that. Just returned. I had to go see her and it’s dark now as I’m typing this. I regret nothing. Ok, ok, ok. Details this time, I promise.

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I mentioned to you the other day that I’ve become acquainted with S—, the district judge, and that he had invited me to go and visit him in his retirement, or rather in his little … kingdom. But I kept putting it off. And perhaps I wouldn’t recount all this if I hadn’t been so incredibly lucky.

Some of the younger people around here had invited me to a nearby club, and I said yes. A friend picked me up with his car and told me we had to make another stop to pick up his cousin Charlotte, a girl who lived pretty close to us. We drove along the winding country road, and he said, “She’s really nice, but don’t do anything stupid.” “Why?”, I asked, semi-offended. “Because she’s engaged to an insanely cool guy and she’s happy with him.” I didn’t really care about a couple I didn’t even know and looked out of the window again, watching the trees passing by.

When we parked in front of her house, the sun was setting behind the tops of the mountains. The atmosphere was heavy, and my friend suspected an approaching storm, as masses of low black clouds were gathering in the distance.

We climbed out of the car and went up the stairs. I opened the door and was immediately surrounded by shrieks and giggles. Six children, from 11 to two years old, were running around the large hall and pouring in and out of the open kitchen, surrounding a young woman of middle height, dressed in a simple white dress brushing the top of her knees. She was rolling out pizza dough on two large trays and quickly handed the kids different toppings to spread on top of them. What could’ve easily been chaos was clearly a routine to her, and she carded through a kid’s curls here, laughed at another kid’s joke there.

“Sorry!” she yelled across the kitchen to her cousin. “I’m almost done, give me fifteen, okay? Coffee is right there on the table!” She took the pizza trays and shoved them into the oven. I must’ve answered something, but I was completely absorbed by her air, her voice, her everything … and I barely shook off my daze when she ran into her room to get ready. The younger kids glanced at me from a distance, and I smiled at the youngest. He took a step back, but still looked curious. Charlotte returned and said, “Louie, do you want to shake his hand?” The kid half-smiled and stretched out his hand, I laughed and gave him a serious little handshake.

While she put on her shoes (somehow her white dress didn’t show a spot of tomato sauce), she told Sophie, the oldest of her little siblings, to take out the pizza at the right time and wait for their dad to eat dinner with them in 30 minutes. Sophie nodded and told her sister to have a good time. The other kids yelled bye from the background and chased each other on the porch as we got back into the car.

The cousin asked Charlotte whether she had finished the book he had lent to her. “Nope”, said Charlotte. “You can have it back if you want. And the one before that wasn’t much better.” I asked for the title and was floored by her answer. That book is filthy¹. I stared at her, impressed. And charmed, by her open, earnest face, brightening with her obvious interest.

“When I was younger”, she said, “I was obsessed with romances. Nobody could drag me away from my reading corner on Sundays. I was glued to Jane Austen and Maggie Stiefvater and also my mother’s battered copy of Outlander. I still love them to pieces. But at this point I’m so busy that I rarely finish any novels. I’d rather read and watch something my life actually relates to. Something real. My life isn’t anything special, but happy enough.”

Our conversation deepened. At lightning speed, we slipped into have you seen this and have you heard about that and wait let me put this on my TBR list that I completely forgot about her cousin who drove the car in complete silence, and I didn’t even mind.

We talked about dancing. “I love dancing”, Charlotte said. “It’s my favourite thing about parties. The beat of the music, in time with the beat of your heart.” My gaze wandered to her rich dark eyes as she spoke, down to her warm lips and glowing cheeks and back to her eyes again, I was a bit distracted by the soft rhythm of her voice and almost didn’t hear what she actually said. To get to the point, I felt myself coming alight in that small car, like a person in a dream, and was so lost to the dim world around me that I didn’t notice how we pulled up to the parking lot, how the loud bass and laughter poured from the club to the three of us, still outside.

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We went into the small club (which looked suspiciously like a club by night and a community center for the elderly by day). A heavy mix of well-known, heavy anthems vibrated through us. I started dancing with people whose faces I don’t remember, and looked at Charlotte until she slowly gravitated towards me and stopped in front of me. A smile, a nod, and we started moving together. You should see Charlotte dance. She dances with her whole heart and soul. There’s no hesitation, no second-guessing, no feeling other than the beat. No doubt that in this moment, she didn’t feel anything but the music and the energy between us.

A hand pulled her away and she laughed, but yelled at me: ”We aren’t done yet!” I grinned back and gave her a thumbs-up. At some point, In Da Club started with a boom, and the drunk, happy crowd screamed and jumped up and down, shaking the sticky floor. Somebody grabbed my elbow. I looked down at Charlotte again, her dark hair wild around her shoulders. “YOU. ME. DANCE”, her full lips formed. The music was way too loud. I nodded and numbly pulled her close. I had never danced like this, with no care in the world. My arms looped around her waist. My heart raced. I never wanted to dance with anybody else than her.

The music slowed down and we did too. Her throat was glistening with sweat. She pulled me into a corner and dug around some drinks and snacks for us to share. I pulled two oranges out of my pocket that I had stashed away earlier, the only ones that had been left. But she took one and offered them to the people next to us, and something softly clenched in my chest.

Some people passed us and said hi to Charlotte, apparently her friends from high school, and the name Albert came up two or three times. “Who is Albert?” I asked Charlotte and tilted my head closer to her mouth. She was about to answer when somebody bodily shouldered through our group. When we made eye-contact again, she looked somewhat pensive. “It’s not a secret or anything”, she said. “I’m engaged to him.” Of course I knew that already, because her cousin had told me already … and yet it felt new, it felt important, and it confused me somehow. Somebody pushed through again with several bottles of beer in their hands, and Charlotte had to grab my arm and pull me out of the way.

We were dancing again when the lightning that had been flashing outside for some time grew more violent, and the thunder drowned out the music. More and more people slowed to a stop and threw worried glances through the windows. Charlotte’s cousin appeared next to us and said that he wanted to check up on his car, maybe to move it out fo the way in case some branches should snap off. Charlotte pulled him back and told him not to go outside. The heavy rain started to thrash down on the thin roof. The club was so quiet by now that it was almost unbearable. Somebody started to cry.

“Alright”, Charlotte said loudly and clapped her hands together. “Let’s get some tables. And cups.” Two or three caught on and quickly shoved some tables together to play beer pong. People split into several large teams and started facing off against each other. Everyone got more and more invested in the game as the evening went on. Someone missed awfully and spilled beer all over themselves, making everyone laugh. Charlotte played well but got defeated by an intense kid several years younger than her.

Gradually, people started to wander off in small groups again, and the storm had ceased at that point. Charlotte went to a window and pushed it open to climb outside; I went after her. We breathed in the fresh, cool air. “The game got their mind off the storm”, Charlotte said in a low voice. “Look, all the cars are fine.” I didn’t say anything. “I’m really afraid of storms”, she whispered, and it sounded like a confession. “But whenever I act as if I’m not, I usually forget about it.” It was still thundering at a distance - a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with a complex scent. The air hummed with the song of the storm. Charlotte leaned forward on her arm, her eyes wandered over the scene. She looked up toward the sky, and then looked at me. Her eyes were electrifying. She firmly took my hand and exhaled, “Florence!”²

And I knew the same artist, the exact same song that she was thinking of in that moment. I wanted to say something, but my throat was tight with emotion. It was more than I could bear. I slowly and deliberately laced my fingers with hers, even tighter than before, and returned her intense gaze.

Florence! In that moment, everything turned holy.

Love, W.

1. In the original, it’s implied that Charlotte reads revolutionary, censored literature, just like W. does. [CENSORED] doesn’t really work here, so modern Charlotte’s reading list got a little smutty for the lack of alternative. Eh. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

2. “Klopstock!” in the original, a wildly popular poet at the time.