Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve becomes a boundary Charlotte tries to place around her relationship with Werther: he may join her family then, but must not visit before. Her request makes the approaching holiday a test of whether their intimacy can be restrained; Werther’s return that same Sunday, well before the appointed evening, shows that he will not accept the delay.

Christmas preparations and the proposed meeting

On the Sunday before Christmas, Charlotte is alone at home preparing small gifts for her brothers and sisters, to be distributed on Christmas Day. The conversation turns to the children’s delight at the sudden appearance of a Christmas tree decorated with fruit and sweetmeats and lit by wax candles. Within this domestic scene, Charlotte offers Werther a gift if he behaves well, then specifies what that means: he may come on Thursday night, Christmas Eve, when the children and Charlotte’s father will be there and each child will receive a present. He must not come before then.

The date is not an invitation to renewed private intimacy. Charlotte asks Werther to honor it for the sake of her own peace and says that their present manner of seeing one another cannot continue. She nevertheless insists that they may meet again, but with more discretion. Christmas Eve offers a family setting and a defined interval of separation, an attempt to preserve a friendship without feeding Werther’s attachment.

Werther rejects the interval

The restriction throws Werther into agitation. He repeats Charlotte’s words that they cannot continue in this manner and declares that he will never see her again. Charlotte counters that he should master his passion and recognize that she belongs to another; she urges him to look beyond the narrow circle of his fixation, seek someone free to love him, and take a short journey before returning to their friendship. Her appeal combines pity for his suffering with a firm effort to limit their contact.

After returning home at about five, Werther tells his servant to keep the fire going and to pack books and linen at the bottom of his trunk, with his coats on top. He then adds a note addressed to Charlotte, imagining that on Christmas Eve she will hold the paper and weep, while declaring, “today or never!” The contrast is stark: Charlotte assigns the next meeting to a future family gathering, while Werther treats the delay as intolerable and invests the date with the prospect of a final, emotionally charged message.

The appointed date is bypassed

Charlotte is distressed after the conversation. She knows that refusing Werther’s visits will hurt him, and she also feels an unspoken wish to keep him near; that wish troubles her because she is committed to showing her husband through her conduct that her feelings accord with his. She has told Albert that Werther will not return before Christmas Eve. Albert rides out on business and expects to be away overnight, leaving Charlotte without him at home.

At half past six, still on that Sunday before Christmas, Charlotte recognizes Werther’s voice on the stairs. She tells him he has not kept his word; he answers that he promised nothing. She sends for friends so that she will not be alone with him, yet hopes both that they may arrive and, at the same time, that they may stay away. Christmas Eve has not arrived: Werther’s early return has already broken the interval Charlotte tried to establish. In the available account, the holiday remains an anticipated date, not the setting of this reunion.