In late June 1806, Karoline von Günderrode broke with Bettina Brentano. Friedrich Creuzer, a married professor in Heidelberg, had pressured Karoline to do so, knowing that Bettina disapproved of the affair he was having with her. Unaware of these circumstances, Bettina saw the unilateral break as an even graver violation of her trust.

The postscript to the letter from July 1806 contains the final words that Bettina wrote to her friend. Even in this extreme situation, her trust in writing was unwavering. If Karoline had only studied the letters, her doubts about Bettina’s sincerity would have been dispelled and any accusations from third parties would have been refuted. For Bettina, intimacy and writing were closely intertwined, which the letter probably demonstrates more clearly than any other document. And the portrait that best captures this connection is the drawing Ludwig Emil Grimm made of Bettina in 1809.

Bettina did not include the final letter in her epistolary novel. The end of their friendship is left out, as is the end of the poet’s life. With her book she memorialises their friendship, but the work can also be seen as a late gesture of reconciliation. It shows that Bettina continued her efforts to understand their relationship long after her correspondent had fallen silent.