Das tristezas, não se pôde contar náda ordenadamente, porque
desordenadamente acontescem ellas.
BERNARDIM RIBEIRO, _Saudades_, cap. i.
Your lieutenant has just told me that a storm has forced you to put
into port in the Algarve.[27] I am afraid you have suffered much on
the sea, and so much has this fear absorbed me that I have thought no
more on all my troubles. Do you think, perchance, that your lieutenant
takes more interest in what happens to you than I do? If not, why then
is he better informed of it? And then, why have you not written to
me? I am unlucky indeed if you have found no time for writing since
you left, and still more so if you could have written and would not.
Your injustice and ingratitude are too great; but I should be in
despair if they were to cause you any harm. I had rather you should
remain unpunished than that they should avenge me. I withstand all
the appearances which ought to persuade me that you do not love me
at all, and I feel much more disposed to yield myself blindly to my
passion than to the reasons you give me to complain of your neglect.
What mortification you would have spared me, if, in the days when I
first saw you, your conduct had been as cold as it has seemed to me
for some time now! But who would not have been deceived by such ardour
as you then showed, and who would not have thought it sincere? How
hard it is to make up one’s mind to doubt for any time the sincerity
of those one loves! I see clearly that the least excuse is good enough
for you; and, without your troubling to make it to me, my love for you
serves you so faithfully that I cannot consent to find you guilty,
except for the sake of enjoying the infinite pleasure of declaring you
guiltless myself. You overcame me by your assiduities, you kindled
my passions with your transports, your tenderness fascinated me, your
vows persuaded me, but it was the violence of my own love which led
me away; and this beginning at once so sweet and so happy, has left
nothing behind it but tears, sighs, and a wretched death, without
the possibility of my ministering any relief to myself. It is true
that in loving you I enjoyed a pleasure unthought of before, but this
very pleasure is now costing me a sorrow, which once I knew nothing
of. All the emotions which you cause me run to extremes. If I had
shown obstinacy in resisting your love, if I had given you any motive
for anger or jealousy in order to draw you on the more, if you had
detected any artifice in my conduct, if, in a word, I had wished to
oppose my reason to the natural inclination I felt for you, and which
you soon made me perceive (though doubtless my efforts would have been
useless), you might then have punished me severely and used your power
over me with some show of justice. But you seemed to me worthy of my
love before you had told me that you loved me: you gave evidence of
a great passion for me: I was overjoyed at it, and I gave myself up
to love you to distraction. You were not blinded as I was. Why then
did you let me fall into the state in which I now am? What did you
want with all my raptures, which must have been very troublesome to
you? You well knew that you would not stay in Portugal for ever. Then
why did you single me out to make me so unhappy? Doubtless you might,
in this country, have found some woman more beautiful than I am, one
with whom you could have enjoyed as much pleasure,--since in this you
only sought the grosser kind--one who would have loved you faithfully
as long as you were with her, whom time would have consoled for your
absence, and whom you might have left without either treachery or
cruelty. You act more like a tyrant bent on persecution than a lover
whose only thought should be how to please. Alas! why do you treat
so harshly a heart which is yours? I can see very well that you let
yourself be turned against me as easily as I let myself be convinced
in your favour. Without needing to call on all my love, and without
imagining that I had done anything out of the way, I should have
resisted much stronger arguments than those can be which have moved you
to leave me. They would have seemed to me very weak, and none could
have been strong enough to tear me from your side. But you were ready
to make use of the first pretexts that you found in order to get back
to France. A vessel was sailing. Why did you not let it sail? Your
family had written to you. Surely you know all the persecutions which
I have suffered from mine? Your honour obliged you to abandon me. Did
I take any care of mine? You were forced to go and serve your king. If
all they say of him is true he has no need of your help, and would have
excused you. I should have been only too happy if we could have passed
our whole lives together, but since it was fated that a cruel absence
should separate us, I think I ought to be glad indeed at the thought
of not having been faithless, and I would not wish to have committed
such a base act for anything in the world. What! you who have known
the depths of my heart and affection, could you make up your mind to
leave me for ever and expose me to the dread of feeling that you only
remember me in order to sacrifice me to some new passion?
I well know that I love you as one distracted. Withal I do not complain
of all the violence of my heart’s emotions; I am accustoming myself
to its tortures, and I could not live without the pleasure which I
find and enjoy in loving you in the midst of a thousand sorrows. But
a disgust and hatred for everything torments me constantly; I feel
my family, my friends, and this convent unbearable. All I am forced
to see and everything I am obliged to do is hateful to me. I have
grown so jealous of my passion that methinks all my actions and all
my duties have regard to you. Yes, I have scruples in not employing
every moment of my life for you. Ah! what should I do without the
extremities of hate and love which fill my heart? Could I survive that
which incessantly fills my thoughts, and lead a quiet cold life? Such a
void, and such a lack of feeling, could never suit me. All have noticed
how completely I am changed in my humour, my manners, and my person.
My mother[28] spoke to me about it, sharply at first, but afterwards
more kindly. I know not what I said in reply. I think I confessed all
to her. Even the strictest religious pity my condition, and are moved
by a certain consideration and regard for me. Every one, in fact, is
touched by my love: and you alone remain profoundly indifferent. You
write me letters at once cold and full of repetitions; the paper is not
half filled, and you make it quite clear that you are dying to finish
them.
Dona Brites has been importuning me for several days to get me to leave
my room, and thinking to divert me she took me for a walk upon the
balcony, from which one sees the gates of Mertola.[29] I went with her,
but at once cruel memories assailed me, and these made me weep for the
rest of the day. She brought me back to my room, and there I threw
myself on the bed and thought a thousand times on the little hope I
have of ever being well again. What is done to alleviate only embitters
my grief, and I find in the very remedies themselves particular reasons
for fresh sorrows. It was from that spot that I often saw you pass by
with that air which charmed me so, and I was up on that balcony on
the fatal day when I began to feel the first effects of my unhappy
passion. Methought you were wishing to please me, although as yet you
did not know me. I persuaded myself that you singled me out among all
my companions. When you paused I thought you were pleased for me to
see you better and admire your skill and grace whilst you caracoled
your horse. A sudden fright came over me when you made it go over some
difficult place. In a word, I interested myself secretly in every act
of yours. I felt quite sure you were not indifferent to me, and I took
as meant for me all that you did. You know too well what came of all
this; and although I have nothing to hide, I ought not to write to you
so much about it, lest I make you more guilty than you are already,
if that be possible, and lest I have to reproach myself with so many
useless efforts to oblige you to be faithful. This you will never be.
Can I ever hope that my letters and reproaches will have an effect on
your ingratitude that my love for you and your desertion of me have
not had? I know my sad fate too well: your injustice leaves me not the
slightest reason to doubt of it, and I am bound to fear the worst,
since you have cast me off. Have you a charm only for me, and do not
other eyes find you pleasing? I should not be annoyed, I think, were
the feelings of others in some sort to justify mine, and I would wish
all the women in France to find you agreeable, but none to love you,
none please you. This idea is ridiculous and impossible I well know.
I have already, however, found by experience that you are incapable
of a great affection, and that you could easily forget me without any
help, and without a fresh love obliging you to it. I would, perhaps,
wish you to have some reasonable pretext for your desertion of me.
It is true that I should then be more unhappy, but you would not be
so guilty. You mean to stay in France, I perceive, without great
enjoyments, may be, but in the possession of full liberty. The fatigue
of a long voyage, some punctilios of good manners, and the fear of not
being able to correspond to my ardent passion, keep you there. Oh do
not be afraid of me; I will be content with seeing you from time to
time, and knowing only that we are in the same country; but perhaps I
flatter myself, and may be you will be more touched by the rigour and
hardness of another woman than you have been by all my favours. Can it
be that cruelty will inflame you more?
But before engaging yourself in any great passion, think well on
the excess of my sorrows, on the uncertainty of my purposes, on the
contradictions in my emotions, on the extravagance of my letters, on
my trustfulness, my despair, my desires, and my jealousy. Oh! you are
on the way to make yourself unhappy. I conjure you to profit by my
example, that at least what I am suffering for you may not be useless
to you. Five or six months ago you told me a secret which troubled me,
and acknowledged, only too frankly, that you had once loved a lady in
your own country. If it is she who prevents you from returning here,
do not scruple to tell me, that I may fret no more. I am borne up by
some remnants of hope still, but I should be well pleased, if it can
have no good result, to lose it at a blow, and myself with it. Send
me her likeness and some one of her letters, and write me all she
says. Perchance I shall find reasons wherewith to console myself, or
it may be to afflict myself still more. I cannot remain any longer in
my present state, and any change whatsoever must be to my advantage.
I should also like to have the portrait of your brother and of your
sister-in-law.[30] All that concerns you is very dear to me, and I am
wholly given up to what touches you in any way: I have no inclination
of my own left. Sometimes, methinks, I could even submit to wait upon
her whom you love. Your bad treatment and disdain have broken me down
so far that at times I do not dare to think I could be jealous and yet
not displease you, and I go so far as to think that I should be doing
the greatest wrong in the world were I to upbraid you. I am often
convinced that I ought not to let you see, so madly as I do, feelings
which you disown. An officer has now been waiting long for this letter.
I had resolved to write it in such a way that you might receive it
without annoyance, but as it is, it is too extravagant, and I must
close it. Alas! I cannot bring myself to this. I seem to be speaking
to you whilst I write, and you seem to be more present to me. The
next[31] letter shall neither be so long nor so troublesome; you may
open and read it assured of this. It is true that I ought not to speak
of a passion which displeases you, and I will not speak of it again.
In a few days it will be a year since I gave myself up to you without
reserve. Your love seemed to me very warm and sincere, and I should
never have thought that my favours would so annoy you as to oblige
you to voyage five hundred leagues and expose yourself to the risk of
shipwreck to escape from them. I have not deserved such treatment as
this at any man’s hands. You may remember my modesty, my shame, and my
confusion, but you do not remember what would make you love me in spite
of yourself. The officer who is to carry you this letter sends to me
for the fourth time to say that he wishes to be gone. How pressing he
is! doubtless he is leaving some unhappy lady in this country.
Good-bye. It costs me more to finish this letter than it cost you to
quit me, perhaps for ever. Good-bye. I do not dare give you a thousand
names of love, nor abandon myself to all my feelings without restraint.
I love you a thousand times more than my life, and a thousand times
more than I think for. How dear you are to me, and yet how cruel! You
do not write to me. I could not help saying this to you again. But I
am beginning afresh, and the officer will be gone. What matters it?
Let him go. ’Tis not so much for your sake that I write as for my own.
I only seek some solace. Besides, the very length of my letter will
frighten you, and you will not read it. What have I done to be so
unhappy? And why have you poisoned my life? Why was I not born in some
other country? Good-bye, and forgive me. I dare not now pray you to
love me. See to what my fate has brought me. Good-bye!