Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/107

90 bring it to me to-morrow, I beg of you ; and bring me also the continuation of your journey which gives me such infinite pleasure. Is it in the morning or is it in the evening that I am to see you ? I should like the morning, because that is sooner, and the evening, because that is longer, but I shall like whatever you choose to give me. Adieu ; I did not sleep last night.

Half-past eight o'clock, 1773.

Mon ami, I shall not see you, and you will tell me that it is not your fault ! but if you had had the thousandth part of the desire I have to see you, you would be here, and I should be happy. No, I am wrong, I should suffer ; but I should not envy the pleasures of heaven. Mon ami, I love you as one should love, to excess, to madness, with transport and despair. All these last days you have put my soul to the torture ; I saw you this morning, and I forgot it all ! It seems to me that I cannot do enough for you in loving you with all my soul, in being in the mind to live and die for you. You are worth more than that ; yes, if I only loved you, it would be nothing ; for what is sweeter and more natural than to love wildly that which is perfectly lovable ? Mon ami, I can do better than love, I know how to suffer ; I know how to renounce my pleasure for your happiness. But there is one who troubles the satisfaction I should have in proving to you that I love you.

Do you know why I write to you ? Because it pleases me ; you would never think it if I did not tell you. But oh ! where are you ? If you are happy I must not complain that you have taken happiness from me.

December, 1773.

Good-morning, mon ami. Have you slept? how are you? shall I see you ? Ah ! take nothing from me; the time is so short and I set such value on that which I spend in seeing