Ai gostos fugitivos!
Ai gloria já acabada e consumida!
Ai males tão esquivos!
Qual me deixais a vida!
Quão cheia de pezar! quão destruida!
CAMÕES, _Ode_ iii.
Methinks I do the greatest possible wrong to the feelings of my heart
in trying to make them known to you in writing. How happy should I be
could you judge of my passion by the violence of yours! But I must
not compare my feelings with yours, though I cannot help telling you,
much less strongly than I feel it, it is true, that you ought not to
maltreat me as you do by a forgetfulness which thrusts me into despair,
and which even for you is dishonourable. It is but fair that you should
allow me to complain of the evils which I clearly foresaw when I
perceived that you were resolved to forsake me. I well know now that I
deluded myself, thinking as I did that you would deal with me in better
faith than is usually the case, because the excess of my love put me,
it seemed, above all kind of suspicion, and merited more fidelity than
is ordinarily met with. But your wish to deceive me overruled the
justice you owe me for all that I have done for you. I should still be
unhappy even if you only loved me because I love you, and I would wish
to owe it all to your inclination alone. But so far is this from being
the case that I have not received a single letter from you for the last
six months. I put down all my misfortunes to the blindness with which I
gave myself up to love of you. Should I not have foreseen that the end
of my pleasure would come before that of my love? Could I expect you to
stay all your life in Portugal and give up both country and career and
think only of me? Nothing can lighten my sorrow, and the remembrance
of all that I enjoyed fills me with despair. What! is all my desire
then to be in vain? and shall I never see you again in my room with all
the ardour and passion which you once showed? But, alas! I am deceiving
myself, and I know too well that all the feelings that filled my head
and heart were only excited in you by a few pleasures, and that they
both ended at the same time. I ought then in those moments of supreme
happiness to have called reason to my aid to moderate the deadly excess
of my delight, and to foretell to me all that I am now suffering. But
I gave myself up to you entirely, and I was not in a state to think
of anything which would have poisoned my pleasure and prevented me
from fully enjoying the pledges of your ardent love. I was too much
delighted to feel that I was with you to think that you would one day
be far from me. I remember, however, having told you sometimes that
you would make me unhappy, but these fears were soon dissipated, and I
took pleasure in sacrificing them to you, and in giving myself up to
the enchantment and the faithlessness of your protests. I see clearly
the remedy for all the evils which I suffer, and I should be soon rid
of them if I loved you no more. But alas! what a remedy! I had rather
suffer still more than forget you. Does that, alas! depend on me? I
cannot reproach myself with having for a single moment wished to cease
to love you. You are more to be pitied than I am, and all my sufferings
are better than the cold pleasures which your French mistresses give
you. I do not envy you your indifference, and you make me pity you. I
defy you to forget me entirely. I flatter myself that I have put you in
a state in which you can enjoy but imperfect pleasures without me, and
I am happier than you because I am more occupied. Some little time ago
I was made portress of this convent. All who speak to me think that I
am mad. I know not what I answer them. The religious must be as mad as
myself to have thought me capable of taking care of anything. Oh how I
envy the good fortune of Manoel and Francisco![33] Why am I not always
with you, as they are? I would have followed you and waited upon you
with more goodwill, it is certain. To see you is all that I desire in
this world. At least remember me; for you to remember me will content
me, but I dare not make sure even of this. I used not to limit my hopes
to your remembrance of me when I saw you daily, but you have taught
me the necessity of submitting to all that you wish. Withal I do not
repent of having adored you; I am glad that you betrayed me, and your
absence, cruel though it is, and perhaps eternal, diminishes in no way
the violence of my love. I wish everybody to know it; I make no mystery
of it; and I pride myself on having done for you all that I did against
every kind of decorum. My honour and religion consist but in loving you
to distraction all my life through, since I have begun to love you. I
am not telling you all this to oblige you to write to me. Oh do not
force yourself; I only wish from you what comes spontaneously, and I
reject all the testimonies of your love which you can control. I shall
find pleasure in excusing you, because you will perhaps be glad not
to have the trouble of writing to me, and I feel deeply disposed to
pardon you all your faults. A French officer had the charity to talk
to me of you for three hours this morning; he told me that peace was
made with France.[34] If this is so could you not come and see me, and
take me to France? But I do not deserve it. Do as you please, for my
love no longer depends on the way in which you may treat me. I have
not been well for a single moment since you left, and my only pleasure
has been that of repeating your name a thousand times each day. Some
religious who know the deplorable state into which you have plunged me
often speak to me of you. I leave my room, where you so often used to
come to see me, as little as possible, and I constantly look at your
likeness, which is to me a thousand times clearer than life itself. It
gives me some pleasure, but also much sorrow, when I consider that I
shall perchance never see you again.
Why must it be that I shall possibly never see you again? Have you then
left me for ever? I am in despair. Your poor Marianna can no more; she
is almost fainting while she finishes this letter. Good-bye, Good-bye.
Have pity on me.