Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/25

vives esteem with difficulty, or rather, it does not survive it, except in prolonging its existence by convulsions," Here, in her, is the history of that fatal passion ; the degrees of which were so rapid that we can scarcely distinguish them. She was then (must we tell it ?) nearly forty years old. She was bitterly regretting the departure of M. de Mora — that true man of delicacy and feeling, that truly superior man — when she involved herself in loving M. de Guibert, the false great man, but who was present and seductive. Her first letter is dated Saturday evening. May 15, 1773. M. de Gui- bert was about to start on a long journey through Germany, Prussia, and, possibly, Eussia. We have his own printed " Eelation " of this journey, and it is curious to put these witty, practical, often instructive and sometimes emphatic and sentimental notes side by side with the letters of his ardent friend. Before he departs he has already done her some wrong. He had said he would leave Tuesday, May 18th, then Wednesday, but he did not start till Thursday, the 20 th, and his friend knew nothing of it. It is evident that she was not the one to receive his last thought, his last farewell. She suffers already, and blames herself for suffering ; she has just received a letter from M. de Mora, full of confidence in her love ; she is ready to sacrifice everything to him, " but," she adds, " for the last two months I have had no sacrifice to make to him." She thinks she still loves M. de Mora ; that she can stop and immolate at will the new feeling which de- taches and drags her away from him. M. de Mora absent, ill, faithful, writes to her, and each letter reopens her wound and quickens her remorse. What will it be when, returning to her, he falls ill and dies on his way at Bordeaux ? Thus, until the end, we find her torn in her delirium between the need, the desire to die for M. de Mora, and the desire to live for M. de Guibert. " Do you conceive, mon ami, the species