Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/112

1774] out it all, I love you wildly. Pity me, but do not tell me so. Bring back my letters; yes, do that. Three o'clock, 1774. It was not myself who answered you. If you love me it must have made you uneasy, and I shall be grieved to have caused you a pain I could have avoided. I was in a state of anguish, like the agony of death, preceded by a fit of tears which lasted four hours. No, never, never did my soul feel such despair. I have a sort of terror which bewilders my reason. I await Wednesday, and it seems to me that death itself is not sufficient remedy for the loss I fear ; it needs no courage to die, but it is awful to live. It is beyond my strength to think that, perhaps, the one I love, he who loved me, will hear me no more, will never come again to succour me. He views death with horror because the thought of me is added to it. He wrote me on the 10th, " I have in me that which will make you forget all that I have made you suffer ; " and that very day the fatal hemorrhage struck him down !

Ah ! mon Dieu ! you who have known passion, despair, can you conceive my sorrow ? Pity me so long as I shall live, but never regret the unhappy being who has existed eight days in a state of suffering to which thought cannot attain. Adieu. If I must live, if my sentence is not pronounced, I may still find sweetness, charm, and consolation in your friendship; will you preserve it for me ? 1774. I distrustful, and of you ! Think with what complete sur- render I have given myself to you ; not only have I put no distrust, no caution, into my conduct, but I should not even know regret or remorse if it were my happiness alone that I had compromised. Oh ! mon ami ! I know not if I now