physical passion for the first time. Feeling assured of a divorce from Charlotte, Eduard presents his plans to his beloved; Ottilie leaves the decision to Charlotte. Wanting to row home across the lake and excited by having met Eduard again, she lets the child slip into the water and drown as she climbs onto the boat. Charlotte, blaming her own hesitation for the accident, finally agrees to a divorce but does not give a definite answer to the major. With the death of the child, Eduard sees the last obstacle to a connection with Ottilie removed, but Ottilie is wracked by guilt and wants to renounce her love. After Eduard manoeuvres her into another meeting, she realizes that their mutual attraction is insurmountable. She stops speaking and eating and dies; Eduard, too, loses his will to live and also dies. Charlotte buries him beside his lover in the chapel that Ottilie had painted. Theory Elective Affinities is supposed to be the first work to model human relationships as chemical reactions or chemical processes since the aphorism of the classical Greek philosopher Empedocles: "people who love each other mix like water and wine; people who hate each other segregate like water and oil." The term "elective affinities" is based on the older notion of chemical affinities. In early nineteenth century chemistry, the phrase "elective affinities" or chemical affinities was used to describe compounds that only interacted with each other under select circumstances. Goethe used this as an organizing metaphor for marriage, and for the conflict between responsibility and passion. In the book, people are described as chemical species whose amorous affairs and relationships were pre-determined via chemical affinities similar to the pairings of alchemical species. Goethe outlined the view that passion, marriage, conflict, and free will are all subject to the laws of chemistry and in which the lives of human species are regulated no differently from the lives of chemical species. Opinions over the years have been split as to whether Goethe's theory was used in metaphor. In the novella, the central chemical reaction that takes place is a double displacement reaction (double elective affinity), between a married couple Eduard and Charlotte (BA), at the end of their first year of marriage (for each their second marriage), and their two good friends the Captain and Ottilie (CD), respectively. The first marriages, for both Eduard and Charlotte, are described as having