FOURTH LETTER[32]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,Odeiii.
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,Odeiii.
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,Odeiii.
Ai gostos fugitivos!Ai gloria já acabada e consumida!Ai males tão esquivos!Qual me deixais a vida!Quão cheia de pezar! quão destruida!
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,Odeiii.
Camões,Odeiii.
METHINKSI 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 ofyours! 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 yourwish 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 whichwould 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? Icannot 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 havethought 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 deeplydisposed 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 ofyou. 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.