happiness ; I could love you no longer ; I abhorred the mo-
ments of pleasure and consolation which I owed to you. You
had snatched me from death, the sole resource, the sole sup-
port which I had promised myself when I trembled for the
life of M. de Mora, You made me survive that dreadful
moment ; you filled my soul with remorse, and you made me
experience a gi-eater misfortune still — that of hating you ;
yes, mon ami, hating you. For eight days I was filled by
that horrible sentiment, although during that time I received
your letter from Chartres. The need of knowing how you
were in health made me break a resolution I had formed to
open no more of your letters. You told me that you were
well ; you informed me that, in spite of my request, you had
taken some of my letters, and you quoted a verse from
" Zaire," which seemed to sneer at my unhappiness ; and
then — what hurt me most of all — the regrets expressed in
the letter seemed vague, and more fitted to relieve your
soul than to touch mine. In a word, I made poison of all
you said to me, and more than ever I resolved not to love
you, and to open no more of your letters. I kept that reso-
lution, which rent my heart and made me ill. Since your
departure I am changed and shrunken as if I had had a great
illness. Ah ! this fever of the soul, which rises to delirium,
is indeed a cruel illness ; there is no bodily frame robust
enough to bear such suffering. Mon ami, pity me ; you have
done me harm.
I received your letter from Eochambeau only on Saturday. I did not open it, and as I put it away in my portfolio, my heart beat violently : but I commanded myself to be strong, and I was. Ah ! how much it cost me to keep that letter unopened ! how many times I read the address ! how often I held it in my hands ! at night, even, I felt the need of touching it. In the excess of my weakness I told myself I was
