Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years - Third Book

Third Book

Chapter One: Wilhelm, traveling onward, arrives at an inn in the mountains. The words "Ubi homines sunt, modi sunt" – translated by Goethe as "there, where people come together into community, a way and manner in which they wish to be and remain together shows itself" – are written in gold letters above a door in the inn. He is greeted by two singing men who perform an impromptu rendition of a bit of verse that Wilhelm had composed while walking. That night Wilhelm is awoken by an unidentifiable sound; he does not, however, find anyone whom he can ask what it was. The following morning he is shaved by a barber who does not speak. To Wilhelm's great surprise, Lenardo – about whom Wilhelm had recently been thinking – appears at the inn along with Natalie's brother Friedrich. The chapter ends with very much singing.

Chapter Two: Letters from Hersilie to Wilhelm. The first letter scolds Wilhelm for not writing to her in a way that allows any dialogue to emerge: "... correspondence with you is completely like a monologue," she complains. In the second letter, she lets him know – in an excited and conspiratorial, secretive tone – that she has finally found the key to the box Felix found earlier in the novel. Felix's friend Fitz, she tells him, has gotten himself into trouble, and the authorities came asking for a jacket he had lost. Before handing it over, she unexplainably reached into the pocket of it, and found a key there that she immediately knew was the one to the box. Having quietly kept the key rather than giving it to the authorities who asked for the jacket, she is agitated and fearful: "the law and the courts are not to be joked with," she writes. She urges Wilhelm to come to her so that they can open the box together, and she tries to raise his curiosity to get him to come soon. Her letter includes an illustration of the key (the only visual element ever incorporated into any of Goethe's literary works). In a postscript she points out that it is actually Felix who found the box, and to whom it belongs, and that he should therefore be present for its opening, as well.

Chapter Three: Wilhelm does not heed Hersilie's request to come to her; he is not all that curious about the box and the key, and furthermore, having now mastered his medical calling, he is too busy tending to patients to leave at will. In a conversation with Lenardo and Friedrich, Wilhelm tells a story from his training in human anatomy: Due to an outbreak of crime that sought to capitalize on medical students' need for human corpses to dissect, laws had become increasingly strict about the acquisition of these. As Wilhelm hesitates one day to proceed with the dissection of an especially beautiful young woman's arm, a stranger approaches him and brings him to see a collection of artificial human body parts he has made. Though those in the medical profession look askance at the practice, the man believes that anatomy can be learned better by building models of the body than by dissecting real parts: "As you will shortly learn," he says to Wilhelm, "constructing teaches more than destructing, connecting teaches more than separating, reviving dead material teaches more than killing further what has already been killed. So then, do you want to be my student?" Wilhelm agrees, and proceeds to study with the man.

Chapter Four: Wilhelm having spoken in the previous chapter of his experiences as a medical student, Friedrich wishes to share with him his own talent: he has a precise memory and writes well, and with these talents was able to transcribe Wilhelm's story from the previous day virtually verbatim. In the conversation that ensues, the talents of various people are talked about, and Lenardo comes to speak of his own inclination for technical matters. He has been keeping a journal in which he records the technical details of industry and economy in the mountain regions, and offers this journal to Wilhelm to read that evening. "I don't want to claim that it is exactly pleasant to read," he concedes. "It always seemed to me entertaining and in a certain way instructive." The following chapter consists of excerpts from this journal.

Chapter Five: Consists of entries from Lenardo's journal regarding the rural textile industry in the mountains. After reading them, Wilhelm asks Lenardo for the continuation of the manuscripts, but is told that the rest of the text has been sent to Makarie. Instead of reading further, then, Wilhelm seeks to pass the evening in conversation.

Chapter Six: The barber whom Wilhelm met in the first chapter of Book Three – who did not speak – is now introduced to him as a master storyteller; the story he tells Wilhelm is "The New Melusine." A young man – indulgent both with money and with women – sets out on a long journey. At one of the first stops he intends to flatter the young woman cooking at an inn – both to get her attention, and in hopes she will lower the bill for his food. However, he is distracted by a beautiful and mysterious young woman who arrives at the inn just after he does. He falls passionately in love with her, but she tells that he will have to prove himself worthy of her by carrying out an enigmatic set of instructions: he must travel onward without her, and carry with him a small box that she gives him; this box must be kept in a separate room from the one he sleeps in. She gives him money for the trip, and he travels forth. Though he promptly gambles away the money and loses himself in the attentions of other women, she gives him another chance, and gives him a magically bottomless supply of gold for his expenses. Traveling by wagon one dark night, he notices a strange light. "I observed it and found that it was coming from inside the small box, which seemed to have a crack in it as if it had been split open by the hot and dry weather of the beginning summertime." Looking into the crack he sees inside the box the interior of a tiny, majestic, and ornate hall in which his loved one – in miniature – was sitting by a fireplace from which the light was coming. She later explains to him that she is from the kingdom of dwarves, who sent her to find a human to marry in order to replenish the threatened dwarf population. Their love almost comes to an end one night when, drunk and jealous, the young man betrays her secret by openly mocking her as a dwarf in front of others. He redeems himself to her, though, by agreeing to be shrunk to dwarf stature in order to remain with her. With time, though, he grows discontented with life among the dwarves – because the thought of marriage is odious to him, and also because of unease in his diminutive form – and cuts off the magic ring that had shrunk him from his natural size. Back among humans, he makes his way back to the cook at the inn whose attention he had hoped to get at the beginning of the story.

Chapter Seven: letter from Hersilie to Wilhelm

Chapter Eight: contains the story "The Risky Bet," which the narrator includes here in unedited form because, he explains, the tone of the novel is getting ever more serious, and so there won't be place for the inclusion of such "irregularities" later in the novel. A group of young men observe an older man "of lordly, austere appearance" but with a big nose arriving in a mountain village, and one of them offers a bet: "... what do you want to bet that I will tweak his nose without suffering any dire consequences for it? Indeed, I will even earn myself a gracious master in him by doing so." His friends bet him one Louisdor that this will not happen. Learning that the man wishes to have his beard shaved, the young man presents himself as a barber, and, in the course of the shave, pulls the man's nose conspicuously. At the end, he earns the man's praise for his skillful work, but is admonished for one thing: "One does not touch people of stature on the nose." His friends witness the deed, and the young man wins the bet. One of the friends, however, tells his lover of the bet; she tells a friend, and by evening the old man who was tricked hears about it. Enraged, he comes after the group with an axe, but they are able to escape. This slight to the noble old man's dignity hurts his pride, compromises his health over time, and is believed to be a contributing factor to his eventual death.

Chapter Nine: narration of Wilhelm's travels resumes

Chapter Ten: contains the short story "Not Too Far." A husband and children wait at the dinner table to celebrate the mother's birthday; she does not appear, and after waiting for hours, the husband, Odoard, storms restlessly out into the street. The absent woman, Albertine, is known to crave society and attention, especially from men, and has even been warned that this attribute of hers could put her marriage at risk. "I said it to her more than once," the family's servant reflects, "she shouldn't push things too far." (Hence the title of the story.) Odoard spends the evening in a room at a local inn, pacing and brooding. He asks the innkeeper not to let on to anyone that he is there, but when a company of women arrive at the same inn, and insist on meeting the unnamed guest – believing that it is an uncle of theirs – Odoard falls to the feet of one of the women, recognizing her as an old love. At home, meanwhile, Albertine finally arrives, explaining to the servant that there had been an accident; her coach had fallen into a ditch en route. (The servant tells her that Odoard was called away on business.) When the accident occurs, a gentleman, Lelio, who was riding with them, helps her friend Florine out of the overturned wagon, but leaves Albertine inside to be helped by the coachman and a servant. It soon becomes clear that there is an amorous affair between Lelio and Florine; from Albertine's feeling of shock and betrayal at this revelation, it becomes clear that she herself had been involved with Lelio. Once the coachman has gotten the wagon out of the ditch, the three are nonetheless forced to ride onward together, "and in hell itself there could not have been a group with more mutually repulsed feelings – traitors together with the betrayed – so tightly packed together."

Chapter Eleven: conversation regarding "that which genuinely holds people together: religion and custom." Christianity, time, police and authority, law, and the state are all discussed; the narrator relates only the "quintessence" of the conversation, however, rather than its entirety.

Chapter Twelve: Odoard speaks generally and abstractly about plans for building settlements, and about the roles of discipline and creative freedom in the arts.

Chapter Thirteen: three further entries from Lenardo's journal, telling of his observation of the yarn industry and of his conversation with a young woman named Gretchen, who tells of her past romantic attachment to an unnamed man. After this relationship ended, Gretchen kept a page composed by her ex-lover summarizing the ideas of certain conversations they had had together; Lenardo recognizes the handwriting as being Wilhelm's.

Chapter Fourteen: narration of Wilhelm's travels resumes

Chapter Fifteen: consists of a characterization of the character Makarie. This characterization, the narrator tells us, is taken from Makarie's own archive, but, as he also tells us, cannot necessarily be seen as "authentic." Makarie's unique nature and her relation to the solar system are described.

Chapter Sixteen: narration of Wilhelm's travels resumes

Chapter Seventeen: letter from Hersilie to Wilhelm telling of her encounter with his son Felix. Felix kisses her, but although the affection is mutual, she scolds him for doing so. Taking this rebuff to be a true reflection of her feelings, he takes offense and rides off on his horse.

Chapter Eighteen: close of the narration: By the side of a river, Wilhelm sees a horseman slip and fall into the water. Wilhelm saves him by helping bring him to land, and then opening one of his veins with a blade. The young man – Felix – comes to and embraces his father; the two stand together "like Castor and Pollux."

"From Makarie's Archive": collection of 182 aphorisms

Untitled poem: "In the austere charnelhouse..." (often referred to as "Upon Viewing Schiller's Skull," though this title is not from Goethe himself).

At the close of the poem it reads, "(To be continued.)"