asked news of you ; he asked if I were satisfied with you ;
how kind of him ! he wants all my friends to love me as well
as he does ; could you do that ? He came yesterday and re-
turned this evening.
So we shall go to Auteuil Thursday ; be punctual to the rendezvous at my house from midday to half-past twelve. Come, mon ami, come. Be kind, be generous, and give me all the moments that are not employed in your pleasures and your affairs; I wish, I ought, to come after those.
1774.
I have four letters to answer ; I have tried to write, but it is impossible. My mind is occupied with you. I do not know if I love you, but I feel, only too much, that you trouble, you agitate my soul in a painful and sorrowful way when I do not see you, or am not buoyed up by the pleasure and activity of expecting you. Mon ami, in the days when people believed in witchcraft I should have explained all that you have made me experience by saying that you had the power to throw a spell upon me which lifts me out of myself. But if that were so, if you had that power, how cruel I should think you for not prolonging the illusion which makes me fancy, at least for a few moments, that life could be a blessing. Yes, a blessing! I owe it to you that I have tasted that pleasure which intoxicates the soul to the point of taking all feelings of pain and sorrow from it.
But ought I to render thanks to you for that ? the charm ceases the moment that you leave me; I find myself again overwhelmed by regret and remorse; the loss that I have met with rends me. All that I have read is feeble and cold in comparison with the love of M. de Mora; it filled his whole life; you can judge, therefore, how it filled mine.
