Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/103

86 will not be here till the end of October ; but will you be here then ? Alas ! I know not if I may dare to hope so far before me. Perhaps I am speaking to you now for the last time. I dare not permit myself either hope or project. Ah ! I had suffered much from the injustice and malignancy of men ; they reduced me to despair ; but I here avow that there is no sorrow comparable to that of a deep, unhappy passion : it has effaced my ten years' early torture. It seems to me that I live only since I love; all that affected me, all that rendered me unhappy until then is obliterated ; and yet in the eyes of calm and reasonable people I have no sorrows but those I have ceased to feel; they call passion a ficti- tious sorrow. Alas ! it is because they love nothing, because they live only for vanity and ambition, and I, I live only to love; no longer have I the tone or the feelings of society. More than that, I am incapable of fulfilling its duties ; but fortunately I am free, I am independent, and in yielding myself up wholly to my inclinations I have no remorse, because I harm no one. But see how little you ought to think of me ; I reproach myself often for the kindness and the esteem that is shown to me ; I usurp so much in society ; people judge me too favourably because they do not know me. It is true that I have been so great a victim to calumny and the malice of enemies that I feel my present position to be a sort of compensation.

May T make you a reproach ? my friendship misses your confidence ; you no longer tell me of yourself ; why is that ? I was unjust to you once, I know ; is it thus you punish me ? How is it that if you love you have nothing to say to me ? You suffer, you hope, you enjoy ; why, then, do you tell me nothing ? You speak to me so little of yourself that your letters might go to nearly every woman of your acquaint- ance. It is not so with mine; they can go to but one