Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/115

98 I am sure of it ; never have you been so loved. But do not make me say why — I cannot write to you where you are ; I dare not acknowledge to myself the reason ; it is a thought, an emotion, on which I do not wish to dwell ; it is a sort of torture which horrifies me, which humiliates me, and one which I have never yet known.

You ask me how I liked the habit of seeing you daily. Oh, no ! it was not a habit ; it never "could become one. How cold such colours are, how monotonous ! they cannot be compared with the violent and rapid emotions which the name and presence of the one we love excite. No, no, I have not been happy enough to give myself the illusion that you would come and see me; thus I did not hear the opening and closing of my door. But without interests, without desires, what matters it what people see or hear? Given over to my regrets, I feel but one need ; I implore either you or death. You soothe my soul, you fill it with so tender a sentiment that it is sweet to live during the time that I see you ; but there is nought but death that can deliver me from misery in your absence. Midnight, 1774. So you have forgotten, abandoned, that fury, so foolish and so wicked both ! but had you left her in hell itself she would not complain; the heat and activity of that abode would make her live. Instead of that, the unhappy creature spent her day in purgatory; she awaited a consoling angel who did not come. He was no doubt making the happiness and joy of some celestial being, himself intoxicated with the joys of heaven. In that condition what could recall me to him; and if in truth he is really happy, I desire, from the bottom of my soul, that nothing may remind him of me; for I am sufficiently unjust to detest his happiness and to wish that remorse and repentance may pursue him perpetually.