Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/133

114 Eleven o'clock at night, 1774. I have no news of you; I hoped for none, and yet I awaited some. Ah ! mon Dieu ! how can you say that pain is no longer in my soul ? I fainted from it yesterday ; I had a crisis of despair which gave me convulsions that lasted four hours. Mon ami, if I must tell you what I believe, what is true, it is that I love you to madness, to the point of believ- ing that I never loved better, but — I have need of your presence to love you; all the rest of my life is spent in remembering, in regretting, in weeping.

Yes, go : tell me that you love another ; I desire it, I wish it ; I have a wound so deep, so lacerating, that I can hope for no relief but that of death. The relief that you have given me is like the effect of opium ; it suspends my sorrow, but does not cure it; on the contrary, I am feebler and more sensitive in consequence. You are right, I am no longer capable of love ; I can only suffer. I did find hope in you, and I gave myself up to it ; I thought that the pleasure of loving you would calm my sorrow. Alas ! in vain do I flee it ; it recalls me incessantly ; it compels me ; it leaves me but one resource. Ah ! do not speak to me of that which I find in society ; society has become to me an intolerable re- straint ; and if I could induce M. d'Alembert not to live with me, my door would be closed. How can you suppose that the productions of the mind would have more empire over me than the charm, the consolation of friendship ? I have the most worthy friends, the most feeling, the most virtuous. Each, in his own way and according to his own tone, would fain reach my soul ; I am filled with a sense of so much kindness but — I remain unhappy : you alone, mon ami, have the power to make me know happiness. Alas ! it holds me to life while invoking death !

But why have you set such value on being loved by me ?