Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/150

1774] never speak to me about it, and leave me to believe that you think me more unhappy than culpable. You are not obliged to believe me, and I have lost the right of convinc- ing you ; but I shall still venture to say with Jean-Jacques, " My soul was never made for degradation." The strongest passion, the purest, mspired it too long; he who was the object of that passion was too virtuous; his soul was too great, too lofty to let him desire to reign in mine, if mine had been abject and contemptible. His prepossession, his passion for me raised me to his level. Mon Dieu! how I have fallen ! how sunken I am ! but he never knew it. My misery is dreadful ; he would have shared it. He died for me. I should have made him live unhappy. Oh, my friend ! if in the region of the dead you still can hear me, be tender to my sorrow, my repentance. I have been guilty, I have wronged you, but my despair, has it not expiated my crime ? I have lost you : I live, yes, I live ; is not that being punished enough ?

Forgive me the impulse that has led me to him whom I fain would follow. Adieu. If I receive a letter from you on Saturday I will add a few words ; but I forgive you in advance for whatever you may say that is offensive to me ; and I retract, with the strength and reason that remain to me, all that I have written in the convulsions of despair. It is now that I place in your hands my true profession of faith; I promise and pledge myself to exact no more and expect no more from you. If you preserve to me your friendship I shall enjoy it with peace and gratitude ; if you do not think me worthy of it I shall grieve, but I shall not consider you unjust. Adieu, mon ami ; it is friendship that now employs that word ; it is the dearer to my heart now that it can no longer trouble it.