soul, and in these observations there is neither vanity nor
modesty — but truth.
Mon ami, I would like to tell you the secret of my heart as to the slight impression you say you made upon me with the idea of a separation for four months. Here is what I promised myself : to yield wholly to my grief and to the invincible distaste that I feel for life. I believed that when my soul floated no longer between the hope and the pleasure of seeing you, of having seen you, it would have more strength than it needed to deliver me from a life that can offer me henceforth nothing but regrets and remorse. That, I swear to you, is the thought that has filled my mind for the last two months ; and this deep and active need to be de- livered from my troubles has sustained me and protects me still against the grief that your absence would make me feel.
Do not conclude from this that I love you with much passion : no, mon ami ; it proves only that I cling ardently to my pleasure, and that this gives me the strength to suffer. I have already told you that two sayings are graven on my heart, and they pronounce my sentence : to love you, to see you, or to cease to exist. After that, say all the harm you will of my sensibility ; never have I sought to combat your ill opinion of me ; I have not thought you severe or unjust. You alone in the world have the right to disesteem me and to doubt the force and truth of the passion that inspired me during five years for him who loved me.
I left you last night because I thought I wearied you with talking so long of myself ; but listen to me now, because it is of you that I wish to speak; but first and above all, believe, I entreat you, that I am not seekuig to re-
