_The_ Presidente de Tourvel _to_ Madame de Rosemonde.
My dear indulgent mother, what obligations do I not lay under to you!
what comfort have I not received from your letter! I have read it over
and over; I cannot lay it down; to it I owe the few moments of ease I
have had since my departure. Your bounty, your virtue, your prudence
can, then, compassionate my weakness. You pity my misfortunes. Ah!
could you but be sensible of them—they are frightful. I imagined I had
experienced the pangs of love; but the most excruciating, which must
be felt to have any idea of it, is to be separated from the beloved
object, for ever separated!—The anguish that sinks me to-day will
again return to-morrow, the next day, all my life! Great God! I am yet
but young, what a length of sufferings!
To be the cause of one’s own misery; to tear one’s heart with their own
hands; and during those insupportable torments, to know one can put a
period to them with a word, and that word to be criminal!—Alas, my
dear friend!—
When I took the painful resolution to banish myself from him, I was
flattered with the hope that absence would increase my strength and
resolution. How fatally am I deceived! They seem to have totally
abandoned me. I had more to struggle with, it’s true: but in my
resistance I was not deprived of all resource; I could sometimes
see him; often even not daring to look on him, I was sensible his
eyes were fixed on me, they seemed to cheer my heart. But now in my
dismal solitude, separated from all my heart held dear, lonely with my
misfortunes, every moment of my painful existence is marked with tears,
nothing to soften their bitterness, no consolation to mingle with my
sacrifices; and those I have already made, render those I still must
make more sorrowful.
Even yesterday, how forcibly did I experience this! Among the
letters brought me, there was one from him, which I distinguished
from among the rest before they were delivered. I trembled—I rose
involuntarily—scarce could conceal my emotion; and yet that state was
not unpleasing. Soon after left alone, this deceitful pleasure fled,
and left one more sacrifice to be made: for how could I open this
letter, which I was impatient to read? Strange fatality! that the few
consolations which offer are so many new privations to me; which are
still made more intolerable by the idea that M. de Valmont shares them.
It is out at last; that name that incessantly possesses me, that I had
so much pain to write: the kind of reproach you gave me, has been truly
alarming—I beseech you will be persuaded, no false shame has altered
my confidence in you;—then why should I be afraid to name him? Ah! I
am ashamed of my sentiments, but not of him who causes them. Where is
there another so worthy to inspire them? Yet I can’t account why that
name does not naturally flow from my pen; and even now, I could not
write it without some pause: but to return to him. You write me, he
appeared _amazingly affected at my departure_. What did he say then?
What did he do? Did he talk of returning to Paris? I beg you will put
him off it, if you possibly can. If he does me justice, he ought not
to be angry with me for this step: but he must be sensible it is an
irreversible resolution. One of my greatest tortures is to be ignorant
of his thoughts. I still have his letter there—but you will certainly
agree with me, I ought not to open it.
It is only through you, my most indulgent friend, I shall not be
entirely separated from him. I will not abuse your goodness. I know
well you must not write long letters: but you will not refuse a few
words to your child, to assist her resolution, and console her. Adieu,
my most respectable friend!
_Paris, Oct._ 5, 17—.