9. “Die Hoffnung fuhr wie ein Stern, der von Himmel fällt, über ihre Häupter weg.” HA VI: 456. I have somewhat modified the Hollingdale translation, p. 261. Goethe’s line, and Benjamin’s gloss on it, inspired Adorno as well. By 1923, Adorno was reading Die_Wahlverwandtschaften and studying the first draft of Benjamin’s essay on it. See Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music, selected, with Introduction, Commentary, and Notes by Richard Leppert (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2002), 2–3. In Aesthetic Theory, he writes, “There are measures in Beethoven’s music that sound like that sentence from Goethe’s Elective Affinities: ‘Wie ein Stern fuhr die Hoffnung vom Himmel hernieder.’ Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften 7: Aesthetische Theorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 5th ed., 1990), 280.