Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/157

138 strength to suffer or to love, until at last I regained the degree of reason which enables us to estimate all things at nearly their true value, and made me feel that, if I could hope for no pleasure, there was little misfortune left for me to fear. I have recovered calmness; but I do not deceive myself : it is the calm of death ; and before long, if I live, I can say, like that man who lived alone for thirty years and had never read anything but Plutarch, when they asked him how he felt, " Almost as happy as if I were dead. " Mon ami, that is my state of mind ; nothing that I see, that I hear, nothing that I do or have to do, can rouse my soul to an emo- tion of interest ; that manner of existing has hitherto been un- known to me. There is but one thing in the world that does me good ; it is music : but it is a good which others would call pain. I long to hear a dozen times a day that air which rends me, and puts me in possession of all that I mourn : J'ai perdu mon Eurydice. ..

I go constantly to the " Orpheus and Eurydice " [Gluck's opera], and I am there alone. Last Tuesday I told my friends that I intended to pay visits, but I shut myself up in a box. On returning home that evening I found a note from the Comte de Crillon telling me that he had had a letter from you the evening before. I waited till the next day and fortunately found him at Mme. Geoffrin's. He read me your letter ; you spoke of me, and did so three times ; that was kind, but very much colder than if you had not named me at all. However, mon ami, I am content; it is just what I wish of you. Hon Dieu ! why should I be hard to satisfy — I, who can no longer love except with a reason- ableness and a moderation hitherto unknown to me ?

I have seen M. Turgot and spoken to him about what you fear as to the domains. He told me that no course had been decided on as yet ; that M. de Beaumont, intendant of