Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/211

cousin Sara?" To which little Abraham seriously replied, "That I will, and she shall wait seven years too." These memories stole like twilight shadows through the soul of the young wife, and she saw how she and her little cousin—now so great a man and her husband—played like children together in the leafy tabernacle; how they were delighted with the gay carpets, flowers, mirrors, and gilded apples; how little Abraham petted her more tenderly, till he grew to be little by little larger and less amiable, and at last of full growth and altogether grim. . . . And now she sits in her room alone of a Saturday evening; the moon shines brightly in, and the door flies open, and cousin Abraham, in travelling garb and pale as death, comes in, and grasps her hand and puts a gold ring on her finger, and says solemnly, "I hereby take thee to be my wife, according to the laws of God and of Israel." "But now," he added, with a trembling voice, "now I must go to Spain. Farewell—for seven years thou must wait for me." So he hurried away, and Sara, weeping, told the tale to her father, who roared and raged. "Cut off thy hair, for now thou art a married woman," and he rode after Abraham to compel him to give her a letter of divorcement; but he was over the hills and far away, and the father returned silently to his house. And when Beautiful Sara