Blue flower

In 1794 the 22 year old von Hardenberg becomes mystically attracted to the 12-year-old Sophie von Kühn, an unlikely choice for an intellectual of noble birth given Sophie's age and lack of education and culture, as well as her physical plainness and negligible material prospects. The couple become engaged a year later but never marry as Sophie dies of consumption a few days after her 15th birthday. The blue flower of the novel's title is the subject of the first chapter of a story that von Hardenberg is writing. In it, a young man longs to see the blue flower that "lies incessantly at his heart, so that he can imagine and think about nothing else".