strong, that I resisted my greatest pleasure, and — see my
sort of madness ! — I loved you then more actively than ever.
Nothing, for six days, could distract my mind from that
sealed letter ; if I had opened it the moment I received it,
its impression could not have been so sharp nor so profound.
At last, at last, yesterday, receiving no letters from Chante-
loup, from which place you had promised to write to me, I
was struck with the thought that you might be ill at
Eochambeau, and, without knowing what I was doing,
nor to what I yielded, your letter was read, re-read, wetted
with my tears, before I thought that I was not to read
it. Ah ! mon ami, how much I might have lost ! I adore
your sensibility.
What you tell me of Bordeaux opened a wound that is not yet closed, and never will be.[1] No, my life will not be long enough to mourn and cherish the memory of the most sensitive, most virtuous man who ever existed. What an awful thought ! I troubled his last days. Fearing to have to com- plain of me he exposed his life to come to me, and his last impulse was an action of tenderness and passion. I do not know if I shall ever recover strength to read again his last words. If I had not loved you, mon ami, they would have killed me. I shudder still ; I see them ; and it is you who made me guilty ; it is you who made me live ; it is you who brought trouble into my soul ; it is you that I love, that I hate, you who rend and charm a heart that is wholly yours. Mon ami, do not fear to be sad with me ; that is my tone ; sadness is my existence ; you alone — yes, you alone have the power to change my disposition ; your presence leaves me neither memories nor pain. I have experienced that you can divert even my physical sufferings. I love you, and all my faculties
are employed and spell-bound when I see you.
- ↑ M. de Mora died at Bordeaux. — Tr.
