[FROM KÖNIGSMARCK TO SOPHIA DOROTHEA]
_[September] 2nd {1692}_.
You make me [wish to] die when you pay me compliments. Since you do not
reply to me on all the points of my letters, I have begged you not to
write at all, and simply to let me know through Fräulein von dem
Knesebeck the state of your health. I repeat it again here, and entreat
you not to do it if it causes you the slightest fatigue. It is
sufficient that you should write me two words, so that I may see that
divine handwriting which is able to banish all the fears that I imagine
to myself. The resolution which I must take, according to the opinion of
all my friends, exposes me to the risk that, when I shall have taken my
leave, I shall set all the world arguing about it; and perhaps I might
be told through a third party that it is desired that I should retire.
What will then become of me? Believe me that it is necessary to think of
everything before taking a fixed resolution. The matter is of too great
importance to me. The Duke of Hanover will find a thousand people like
Königsmarck, but I trust that the Hereditary Princess will never find
anyone who is so faithful and who loves her with more ardour than
myself. My passion is so beyond bounds as to rise to madness. Alas! my
dearest, you deserve [lovers] far better than Königsmarck. I am quite
convinced that if they had given you an admirer according to your
deserts, I should not have had the honour of being your Slave; but if
some one with an extraordinary affection and an unequalled constancy was
to have been your admirer, it is right and just that this should be
myself; for I would dispute the place not with Mortals, but with the
Gods themselves, and I defy them to create anyone to equal me. What an
effect vows have when one is in the condition in which you are; never
have I been more satisfied with you, never did I believe you more
implicitly, than at present. You will, then, always love me, I may rest
assured of it, for you swear to me that, so long as I shall love you,
you will do the same. I shall love you all my life, and you vow the same
thing to me; what more can I desire?—all my wishes are fulfilled, I am
the happiest man in the world; recover your health, and I can be at the
height of my bliss. I am not pleased to find that you prefer writing to
me to taking your rest; I entreat you, think first of taking your rest,
and then of your lover. How angry I am with your heart for its bad
taste, to leave you in order to come to me; it does not know the
difference; leave that to mine, one ought not to change for the worse,
but for the better. Your account makes me tremble, and I fear lest the
fever [and] the other accident tire you out so much that you will not be
able to recover as quickly [as you ought]. I do not know, my heart tells
me you are out of danger; I am no longer so much disquieted as I was at
the beginning. I take that for a very good sign; at least I hope it is,
and I ardently wish that it may be so; I hope that my prayers are
granted, and that at the present moment you are better. The resolution
that you have taken, to take what I had left you, is great; I avow to
you that, if I had known it beforehand, it would have made me tremble;
but, since everything has gone off well, I am at rest; and there is only
the trouble of being the cause of so much more suffering on your part,
and, if you found yourself still worse, I should be inconsolable. I am
obliged to confess that the marks of your affection greatly surpass mine
at present; nothing could be so touching as what you write to me ... of
falling ill. I shall not find an opportunity of enabling you to see how
great an affection I have for you. Is it possible that the Duke of
Hanover is stupid enough to have refused you the appointment? I would
rather put twenty field-marshals to death than once refuse such a favour
to the Hereditary Princess. Although the Hereditary Prince does not
return so soon and in response to the orders which it was made known had
been sent, we are in any case already in the month of September, and the
campaign will soon be at an end. Reflect on that! Adieu!