Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/147

128 but I am sorry to see him looking ill ; I am afraid his health is seriously threatened. M. Watelet is quite ill with a chest affection ; he is taking asses' milk. I am very poorly the last few days, but that is almost my habitual condition ; the duration of my trouble takes from me even the consola- tion of complaining of it.

Adieu again. Did I not tell you that I had been to hear Millico sing ? He is an Italian. Never, no never was the perfection of singing so united with sensibility and expres- sion. What tears he made me shed ! what trouble he brought into my soul ! No singing ever left so deep, so sensi- tive, so heart-breaking an impression ; I could have listened to him till it killed me. Oh ! how preferable such a death to life ! Thursday, September 5, 1774. Perhaps you will never read what I am going to write ; perhaps, however, you will receive it immediately. The letter that I expect Saturday will, I think, decide whether to burn what I now write, or send it to you.

Listen to me : it seems to me that all the passions of my soul are calmed ; it has returned, it is restored to its first, its only object. Yes, nion ami, I do not deceive myself; my memories, my regrets even, are dearer, closer, more sacred to me than the violent sentiment I have had for you and the passionate desire I have had to see you share it. I have gathered myself together ; I have re-entered myself ; I have judged myself, and you also ; but I have pronounced judg- ment on myself only ; I have seen that I was seeking the impossible, namely : that you shoidd love me.

By an unspeakable good fortune, which seldom happens, the most tender, the most perfect, the most charming being who ever existed gave me, abandoned to me his soul, his thought, and all his existence. However unworthy I was