Dissatisfied with herself, with him, and with the rash admission she had just made, she wrote and tore up three or four letters after his departure; at last she sent him the following:—
“I have tried three times to write to you, without having been able to express the agitation of my heart. How changed are my prospects since yesterday! I feel humiliated, degraded.... I granted the very first request you made, but I wished to place between us a barrier which your delicacy of feeling would respect. On reflection I perceive that my surrender has only added to my imprudence. I have shown you my weakness, whilst you have shown me how honour should control nature. I forgot myself whilst you remembered; this is not the moment to claim your esteem, time alone will restore it to me.
“P.S.—My thoughts are so full of yesterday’s events that I have not been able to close my eyes. Can it be possible that a single day should thus influence my life; I feel that, henceforth, it is yours, and yours alone!”
Hélène spoke truly, for this affection, already so deeply rooted, was to last all her life.
It appears that the Count replied in a way that sufficed to dispel the anxiety of the young Princess; for he received the following note from her, which we find carefully preserved amongst her other letters.[87]
“The few words you have written have filled me with joy. I read and reread them ten times whilst dressing, and I found the pastime a sweet one. I shall see you this evening at Madame Jean’s.”[88]
We do not possess any of the letters which the Count wrote at that time; but, judging by Hélène’s answers, he must have been a jealous and despotic man. She submitted to his tyranny in a most extraordinary manner. He insisted on her burning all the letters she had received from her husband and her friends, and made so severe a selection among her numerous acquaintances at Warsaw, that little by little he narrowed her sphere to a small circle, in which he reigned supreme; Hélène accepted everything.
“I wrote to you last night, and intended sending off my note this morning,” she writes, “but when I awoke it was too late.
“What is it that worries you? Tell me at once. If a complete sacrifice of all that displeases you can secure your peace of mind, say but one word, and it will cost me nothing. I shall consider myself the gainer if, by giving up everything, I am able to make you happy and contented.
“If these ladies had not insisted on my going with them, I would willingly have stayed at home.