Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/104

1773] address. Am I wrong ? is it too much to exact equality in confidence? This is the fourth letter you have still to acknowledge, do not forget that. I think it was folly to have written to you at Breslau ; you may not have thought of the post and my letter will still be there. You must burn all my letters. I fancy that I see them falling in great bundles from your pockets ; the disorder in which you keep your papers affects my confidence — but you see it does not check it. Adieu. I have pain in my chest. Is your leg cured? Send me news of yourself.

Monday, September 6, 1773.

Your silence hurts me. I do not blame you, but I suffer, and I can scarcely persuade myself that if your interest were equal to mine I should be one month without hearing from you. Mon Dieu ! tell me, v/hat value do you place on friend- ship if absence and travel distract you from it wholly ? Ah ! how fortunate you are ! A king, an emperor, troops, camps, can make you forget the one who loves you and (more touch- ing perhaps to a feeling soul) the person whom your friend- ship sustains and consoles. No ; I do not blame you ; I even wish that your forgetfulness did not seem to me a wrong ; I should like to find within me the disposition that approves of all, or suffers all without complaint.

I know not why I was persuaded that I should hear from you at Breslau whether you received my letter, or whether it were lost ; my hope was balked. Oh ! I hate you for making me know hope, fear, pain, pleasure ; I had no need of those emotions — why did you not leave me in repose? My soul had no need to love ; it was filled with a tender senti- ment, profound, participated, mutual, but sorrowful neverthe- less ; and that sorrow was the emotion that drew me to you. I meant that you should only please me, but you have