I am not pleased with you. If you did not cry over Racine's _Berenice_,
and feel it to be the most terrible of tragedies, there is no kinship in
our souls; we shall never get on together, and had better break off
at once. Let us meet no more. Forget me; for if I do not have a
satisfactory reply, I shall forget you. You will become M. le Baron de
Macumer for me, or rather you will cease to be at all.
Yesterday at Mme. d'Espard's you had a self-satisfied air which
disgusted me. No doubt, apparently, about your conquest! In sober
earnest, your self-possession alarms me. Not a trace in you of
the humble slave of your first letter. Far from betraying the
absent-mindedness of a lover, you polished epigrams! This is not the
attitude of a true believer, always prostrate before his divinity.
If you do not feel me to be the very breath of your life, a being nobler
than other women, and to be judged by other standards, then I must
be less than a woman in your sight. You have roused in me a spirit of
mistrust, Felipe, and its angry mutterings have drowned the accents of
tenderness. When I look back upon what has passed between us, I feel in
truth that I have a right to be suspicious. For know, Prime Minister of
all the Spains, that I have reflected much on the defenceless condition
of our sex. My innocence has held a torch, and my fingers are not burnt.
Let me repeat to you, then, what my youthful experience taught me.
In all other matters, duplicity, faithlessness, and broken pledges are
brought to book and punished; but not so with love, which is at once the
victim, the accuser, the counsel, judge, and executioner. The cruelest
treachery, the most heartless crimes, are those which remain for ever
concealed, with two hearts alone for witness. How indeed should the
victim proclaim them without injury to herself? Love, therefore, has its
own code, its own penal system, with which the world has no concern.
Now, for my part, I have resolved never to pardon a serious misdemeanor,
and in love, pray, what is not serious? Yesterday you had all the air of
a man successful in his suit. You would be wrong to doubt it; and yet,
if this assurance robbed you of the charming simplicity which sprang
from uncertainty, I should blame you severely. I would have you neither
bashful nor self-complacent; I would not have you in terror of losing
my affection--that would be an insult--but neither would I have you wear
your love lightly as a thing of course. Never should your heart be freer
than mine. If you know nothing of the torture that a single stab of
doubt brings to the soul, tremble lest I give you a lesson!
In a single glance I confided my heart to you, and you read the meaning.
The purest feelings that ever took root in a young girl's breast are
yours. The thought and meditation of which I have told you served only
to enrich the mind; but if ever the wounded heart turns to the brain for
counsel, be sure the young girl would show some kinship with the demon
of knowledge and of daring.
I swear to you, Felipe, if you love me, as I believe you do and if I
have reason to suspect the least falling off in the fear, obedience, and
respect which you have hitherto professed, if the pure flame of passion
which first kindled the fire of my heart should seem to me any day to
burn less vividly, you need fear no reproaches. I would not weary you
with letters bearing any trace of weakness, pride, or anger, nor even
with one of warning like this. But if I spoke no words, Felipe, my face
would tell you that death was near. And yet I should not die till I
had branded you with infamy, and sown eternal sorrow in your heart; you
would see the girl you loved dishonored and lost in this world, and know
her doomed to everlasting suffering in the next.
Do not therefore, I implore you, give me cause to envy the old, happy
Louise, the object of your pure worship, whose heart expanded in the
sunshine of happiness, since, in the words of Dante, she possessed,
Senza brama, sicura ricchezza!
I have searched the _Inferno_ through to find the most terrible
punishment, some torture of the mind to which I might link the vengeance
of God.
Yesterday, as I watched you, doubt went through me like a sharp, cold
dagger's point. Do you know what that means? I mistrusted you, and the
pang was so terrible, I could not endure it longer. If my service be
too hard, leave it, I would not keep you. Do I need any proof of your
cleverness? Keep for me the flowers of your wit. Show to others no fine
surface to call forth flattery, compliments, or praise. Come to me,
laden with hatred or scorn, the butt of calumny, come to me with the
news that women flout you and ignore you, and not one loves you; then,
ah! then you will know the treasures of Louise's heart and love.
We are only rich when our wealth is buried so deep that all the world
might trample it under foot, unknowing. If you were handsome, I don't
suppose I should have looked at you twice, or discovered one of the
thousand reasons out of which my love sprang. True, we know no more of
these reasons than we know why it is the sun makes the flowers to bloom,
and ripens the fruit. Yet I could tell you of one reason very dear to
me.
The character, expression, and individuality that ennoble your face are
a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power which transforms you into
the most lovable of men, and that is why I would keep your mental gifts
also for myself. To others they should be as meaningless as your eyes,
the charm of your mouth and features. Let it be mine alone to kindle the
beacon of your intelligence, as I bring the lovelight into your eyes.
I would have you the Spanish grandee of old days, cold, ungracious,
haughty, a monument to be gazed at from afar, like the ruins of some
barbaric power, which no one ventures to explore. Now, you have nothing
better to do than to open up pleasant promenades for the public, and
show yourself of a Parisian affability!
Is my ideal portrait, then, forgotten? Your excessive cheerfulness was
redolent of your love. Had it not been for a restraining glance from me,
you would have proclaimed to the most sharp-sighted, keen-witted,
and unsparing of Paris salons, that your inspiration was drawn from
Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu.
I believe in your greatness too much to think for a moment that your
love is ruled by policy; but if you did not show a childlike simplicity
when with me, I could only pity you. Spite of this first fault, you are
still deeply admired by LOUISE DE CHAULIEU.