Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/162

1774] He adds that he ventures in his name, the name of the son he mourns, to ask me for a favour, namely: to induce M, d'Alembert, who was once his friend, to write a funereal eulogy in honour of his son's memory, which would be the consolation of his few remaining years, and which he could read to his family as an honourable record and a source of encouragement in virtue to his other children. And this touching entreaty ends in tears. Ah! how many it made me shed. I do not fear to weary you with a narrative which would not be cold in a novel. Mon Dieu! I adore M. de Fuentfes; he was worthy of having such a son. What a loss for him and for all who loved that son! and yet we live ! His father, his sister, and I, we would have been too fortunate had we died at the moment he was taken from us. Ah! my friend, have pity for me ! You alone in the world can bring some sentiments of comfort and consolation to a soul that is mortally wounded.

I feel that your presence would have lightened the load with which I am crushed ; now that I see you no longer I am lost in the wilderness; my soul is driven to excesses, as you saw by the violence I put into my conduct to you. Mon ami, replace me in the right way. Be my guide, if you wish me to live. Do not abandon me. I dare not say to you, I love you ; I know not if I do. Judge me in the trouble in which I live. You know me better than I know myself. I know not whether it is you or death that I implore : I have need of being succoured, of being delivered from the misery that is killing me. — Mon ami, if I do not have news from you to-day, or at least hear some, I know not how I can wait till Wednesday. Mon Dieu! can you conceive, can you attain to an idea of what I feel, of all I suffer ? Could any one believe that I ever knew calmness? Mon ami, it is true that I lived for twenty-four hours apart from all thought of you; after