Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/98

1773] less, was writing to you at Breslau. But why, when making the tour of the world, should any one desire to hear from his friends ? Yes, you are very inconsistent ! in fact, there are moments when I am so weary that I am tempted to leave you on the way. I am ill, I am sad, and it seems to me that I should serve you best by letting myself be forgotten. The more kindness, the more feeling you might show me, the more I should dare to tell you that you will often repent having yielded yourself too quickly to an intimacy from which I alone obtain advantage.

There is a clause in your letter on which I dared not rest my eyes, though my soul fastened on it. Mon Dieu ! what word was that you said ! it froze my blood ! No, no, my soul shall seek for yours no more. Ah ! that thought will kill me ! Be my consolation ; calm, if you can, the trouble of my soul ; but do not think that I could, for one instant, survive a disaster the very fear of which fills my life with a terror that has destroyed my health and disturbs, incessantly, my reason.

Adieu, I cannot continue ; my heart is wrung ; if I compose my mind I will resume ; because I must justify myself on the matter of which you speak, and ask your pardon, though I am not guilty.

Still Sunday.

I intended to warn you that I had repeated your remark on the King of Prussia, which was so charming that I thought I might do so without impropriety. It was thought what it is, and it went far and wide until it reached Mme. du Deffand, who thought it very bad, and twisted and commented upon it, and found, as she thought, many con- tradictions to it. She ended by saying that if your " Connétable " were another " Athalie " it would not prevent her from thinking the form and basis of that thought of yours detestable. Some days later she spoke of it in the same