THIRD LETTER
... Que este pequeno penhor de meus longos suspiros vá ante os seus olhos. Muitas outras cousas desejo, mas esta me seria assaz.’—Bernardim Ribeiro, Saudades, cap. i.
WHAT will become of me, and what would you have me do? How far I am now from all that I had looked forward to! I hoped that you would write me from every place you passed through, and that your letters would be very long ones,—that you would feed my love by the hope of seeing you again, that full trust in your fidelity would give me some sort of rest, and that I should then remain in a state bearable enough, and without the extremes of sorrow. I had even thought of some poor plans of endeavouring, as far as possible, my own cure, in case I could but once assure myself that you had entirely forgotten me. The distance which you are at, certain impulses of devotion, the fear of entirely destroying the remainder of my health by so many wakeful nights and so many cares, the improbability of your return, the coldness of your love, and your last good-byes, your departure based on such cruel pretexts, and a thousand other reasons which are only too good and too useless, seemed to offer me a safe refuge if I needed one. Having indeed only myself to reckon with, I could never have been on my guard against all my weaknesses, nor foresee all that I now suffer. Ah! how pitiful it is for me,—I that am not able to share with you my sorrows, and must be all alone in my grief! This thought is killing me, and I almost die of horror when I think that you were never really affected by all the bliss that we shared. Yes, I understand now the untruth of all your transports. You betrayed me every time you told me that your supreme delight was to be alone with me. It is to my importunities alone that I owe your warmth and passion. Deliberately and in cold blood you formed a design to kindle my love; you only regarded my passion as your triumph, and your heart was never deeply touched. Are you not very wretched? and have you so little delicacy that you made no other use of my love but this?
How then can it be that with such love I have not been able to make you entirely happy? It is solely for love of you that I regret the infinite pleasures you have lost. Can it be that you did not care to enjoy them? Ah! if you only knew them you would doubtless find them much greater than that of having deceived me, and you would have experienced how much happier it is, and how much more poignant it is to love violently than to be loved. I know not what I am, or what I do, or what I wish for. I am torn asunder by a thousand contrary emotions. Can a more deplorable state be imagined? I love you to distraction, and therefore I spare you sufficiently not to dare to wish that the same emotions should trouble you. I should kill myself or die of grief without were I to be assured that you were never having any rest, that your life was as anxious and disturbed as mine, that you were weeping ceaselessly, and that everything was hateful to you. I cannot bear my own sufferings, how then could I support the sorrow a thousand times more grievous which yours would give me? I cannot, on the other hand, make up my mind to wish that you should think no more of me; and to speak frankly, I am furiously jealous of all that gives you pleasure, and comes near to your heart and fancy in France. I know not why I write to you. I perceive that you will only pity me, and I wish for none of your pity. I hate myself when I look back on all that I have sacrificed for you. I have lost my honour. I have exposed myself to the anger of my parents, to all the severity of the laws of this country against religious, and finally to your ingratitude, which has seemed to me the greatest of all my evils. Withal, I feel that my remorse is not real, and that I would willingly, with all my heart, have run the greatest risks for the love of you, and that I experience a sad pleasure in having risked my life and honour in your service. Ought not all that I hold most dear to be at your disposal? Ought I not to be satisfied at having employed it as I have done? Methinks, even, I am not at all content with my sorrows, or the excess of my love, although I cannot, alas! flatter myself sufficiently to be content with you. I live, unfaithful that I am; I do as much to preserve my life as to lose it. Ah! I am dying of shame. Is my despair then only in my letters? If I loved you, as I have told you a thousand times, should I not have been dead long ago? I have deceived you, and you may rightly complain of me. Alas! why do you not complain of me? I saw you leave, I can never hope to see you come back, and in spite of all I yet breathe! I have deluded you. I ask your pardon, but do not grant it me. Treat me harshly—say my love for you is too weak; be more hard to please; tell me that you would have me die of love for your sake. Help me thus, I conjure you, to overcome the weakness of my sex, and to put an end to all my wavering in real despair. Doubtless a tragic end would force you to think of me often, my memory would become dear to you, and perhaps you would be really touched by so uncommon a death. Would not death be better than the state to which you have brought me? Good-bye. How I wish that I had never seen you. Ah! I feel how false this phrase is, and I know at the very moment in which I write it that I had far rather be unhappy in my love for you than never have seen you. Willingly, and without a murmur, I consent to my evil fate, since it has not been your wish to make it happier. Good-bye; promise me a few tender regrets if I die of grief, or at least that you will let the violence of my love give you a disgust and repulsion for everything else. This consolation will suffice me, and if I must leave you for ever, I would wish not to leave you to another woman. Would it not be very cruel indeed of you to make use of my despair to render yourself more agreeable, and to let it be seen that you have inspired the greatest passion in the world? Good-bye once again. My letters are too long, and I do not regard you sufficiently. I ask your pardon, and dare hope that you will show some indulgence to a poor mad woman who was not so, as you know, before she loved you. Good-bye. Methinks I too often speak to you of the insufferable state in which I am, yet I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the despair which you cause me, and I hate the peace which I lived in before I knew you.
Good-bye! My love grows stronger each moment. Oh what a world of things I have to tell you of!
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, 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.