Rafael monologue — The Ghetto: A Drama in Four Acts

No, it's nothing to you, Rebecca! You and I don't want to marry, and they are trying to chain us together against our wills! We must fight them, Rebecca! We must put our backs against the wall! Your father will whisper avarice to you. He'll bid you look around. "This is thy neighbour's house," he'll say. "It will all be Rafael's; see--see--treasure, value, gain; see the jewels there, the gold and silver, the rich laces and old articles of art--all his, my girl--and his father will die soon! He'll die of joy if he gets eight thousand guilders with his daughter-in-law. And then it will be all yours--yours and Rafael's; yours to hug and wrap your soul around, my girl; all--all, from the last atom of diamond dust in the cases there, to the rust on the nail in the latch on the door that keeps away the moans of the starving!"