In the old castle on the lake live the baron and baroness. Fortunately for them, it seems, there is no limit, especially since they found it already in adulthood. Edward loved Charlotte from his youth, but he had to force his parents to marry a rich woman who was much older than him. Charlotte also married, obeying the circumstances. When their spouses died, Edward and Charlotte were finally able to connect. Then they decided to leave the courtyard, where both formerly shone, in the countryside, settle in nature and live for each other. (To this end, Charlotte even sent her daughter from her first marriage to Lucian, and with her the orphan niece Ottilia in a boarding house.)
They filled their days with a variety of activities - the reorganization of a neglected park, farm improvements. They had endless conversations, Edward mastered playing the flute, and Charlotte, who played the piano beautifully, accompanied him. It was still necessary to disassemble the travel notes of Edward, which he kept in the wanderings of past years. In a word, the life of a happy couple proceeded in harmony and harmony.
A slight shadow fell on this idyll only at the thought of the heroes about their loved ones. Edward was worried about the fate of an old friend, the captain, who was left out of work. He not without timidity invited his wife to invite the captain to the castle so that he could show his building talents here. Charlotte, after some hesitation, agreed to this, knowing that their life would inevitably be complicated. However, she herself was also worried about Ottilie. Letters from the hostel from the teacher and her assistant confirmed that if Luciana reigned there and did well in all subjects, then the meek and distinctive Ottilia suffered among lively peers and hardly mastered school wisdom. Unfortunately, Luciana teased and tricked her more than others. Charlotte was inclined to think of taking the pupil out of the boarding school and entrusting her with the duties of a housekeeper. When Luciana left the walls of the school to plunge into social life, Ottilia could return to the boarding school and finish her education.
The captain becomes the first guest of the spouses. His appearance brings a pleasant revival, but also entails a slight estrangement of Edward from Charlotte. Now old friends are busy with memories, hunting, exploring the land, buying horses, etc. Nevertheless, all three get along well, trying to maintain an atmosphere of love, friendship and peace. Among the conversations that they accompany reading aloud - and Edward is a big fan of this activity - one turns out to be prophetic for their future. We are talking about the mutual attraction and repulsion of chemical elements, their ability to combine, and then to decay and the formation of new combinations with even closer ones. This phenomenon is defined by the conventional scientific term “selective affinity”.
The day comes when Ottilia arrives at the castle, which Edward remembered as a child. Now this is a charming girl, radiating warmth and in a benevolent atmosphere, quickly overcoming her former stiffness. Some more time passes - and in the hearts of the four heroes complex latent movements are made, leading to an indisputable result: Edward is caught in a fiery - and mutual - passion for Ottily, and the captain and Charlotte are also very much in love with each other. However, the situation is far from a happy resolution. Charlotte does not yet allow the thought of destroying her marriage and the whole way of life. The captain, who had just received a favorable offer of service, leaves at the insistence of the castle. She is inclined to ensure that Ottilia, in turn, leaves, however, Edward categorically opposes this. He himself leaves the castle to settle in the distance in his own small house and relive the gloomy loneliness of love. There, his news arrives, striking the hopes of connecting with Ottilie sooner or later: Charlotte conveys what she expects of a child from him. In desperation, relying on fate, Edward goes to war. "He longed for death, for life threatened to become unbearable to him <...>" Ottilia, when she too knew the secret of Charlotte, was struck just like Edward, even more, and all went inside, trusting only in the diary. "
While Edward “was entrusted with the everlasting happiness of war”, peace in the castle was disturbed by the two-month invasion of Luciana with her fiance and a whole horde of retinue. An uplifting whirlwind of secular amusements pulls Ottile out of concentration and, as it were, awakens it. After Luciana's departure, a series of new worries comes: Charlotte has a baby. Miracle! - the baby at the same time looks like Edward, the captain and Ottily! Perhaps because on the night of their last intimacy, the couple secretly dreamed of lovers and seemed to surrender to them, and not to each other? .. The more expensive the boy is both Charlotte and Ottiles. A sad incident overshadowed his baptism - right in the process of the rite, the old pastor died. Those present were destined to “see and realize in such an immediate neighborhood birth and death, a coffin and a cradle <...>. This episode is in a series of symbolic scenes, conversations, details that permeate the entire fabric of the novel and remind the reader about the main problems of being, about eternity, God, the innermost nature of man and his purpose. The main characters regard life as a sacrament and a gift; they feel themselves to be part of nature - but endowed with creative will and reason. Hence their moral strength, which allows them to overcome the petty, selfish, and in suffering, to become even more noble in spirit and more responsive to others. Among the minor characters of the novel there are people close to them, for example, a young architect or a teacher from a boarding school, and there are deeply alien, like some count and baroness living in a “free union” and not burdened by a sense of moral duty, or self-love Lucian and neighbor Mitler , specialist in settling someone else's heart affairs.
Edward returns from the war renewed and determined to unite with Ottilie. He invites the captain (already a major) to his house, convinces him to marry Charlotte and, to the common happiness, resolve the situation. Both friends go to the castle. And here is the first after separation, Edward’s meeting with Ottilia, which he catches behind the lake walking with a child. After their conversation, hope returns to Ottilia. But that evening a tragedy occurs; the girl hurries home, the boat turns over, and the child dies. Shocked by what had happened, Ottilia refuses Edward in his soul. She intends to return to the boarding house and devote herself to the teaching field. She is collected on the road. She will spend the night in a small roadside hotel. Edward rushes there to beg her to change his mind. The second date is all the more fatal, the more sudden it is for the fragile Ottily. To cope with herself at this moment, she takes a vow of silence - and since then she has not uttered a word. She falls asleep dressed, and in the morning signs asks to return her to the castle. Edward accompanies the carriage, almost distraught with grief.
The last pages of the novel are fanned with light sadness. Again, the heroes are under one roof. The major also comes from time to time. Charlotte promised her her hand, as soon as Ottilia decides to marry Edward. Ottily was cheerful and calm. However, she does not touch food - this becomes known later, as she asks to bring food to her room. Edward is constantly near her, not daring to touch her and in awe. “Yes, and she continued to experience the same feeling, was unable to abandon this blissful need <...>. Life was a mystery for them, the solution to which they found only together. " A quiet autumn holiday of nature sets off their farewell happiness.
The forces leave Ottilie on the eve of the birthday of Edward, for whom she was so prepared. The last straw is the tactlessness of Mitler, who discussed in her presence the commandment of adultery. She quietly goes into her room, and soon the cry of her maid is heard. Friends find the girl dying. Before her last gasp, she turns to Edward with words full of "alien tenderness," asking him to live. However, a few days after the funeral, it fades away. "Charlotte took him a place near Ottilia and forbade anyone to bury in this crypt."
