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RAHEL TO VARNHAGEN
NOTE.—Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriage—so far as he was concerned at any rate—appears to have been satisfactory.
NOW you have read them all; or if not all, As many as in all conscience I should fancy To be enough. There are no more of them— Or none to burn your sleep, or to bring dreams Of devils. If these are not sufficient, surely You are a strange young man. I might live on Alone, and for another forty years, Or not quite forty,—are you happier now?—Always to ask if there prevailed elsewhere Another like yourself that would have held These aged hands as long as you have held them, Not once observing, for all I can see, How they are like your mother's. Well, you have read His letters now, and you have heard me say That in them are the cinders of a passion That was my life; and you have not yet broken Your way out of my house, out of my sight,—Into the street. You are a strange young man.