You forgot your promises at once, and you apparently hold my love very cheap.
If you, indifferent though you may be, could see me in imagination, as I sit writing to you, you would be horrified at the condition your injustice and disdain have reduced me to.
It is evident that you no longer love me, and that you are only bound to me by the fear of causing some great calamity if you desert me. It is indeed grievous that this should be the only sentiment which links you to me, and I am unwilling to accept a devotion so hollow and humiliating. I give you back your freedom. From this moment you have no responsibility towards me, although my heart is broken, although my soul is still fuller of love than it is able to contain, although my eyes, as I write, are drenched with bitter tears. I shall still have the courage necessary to bear my life as it will be, when bereft of happiness and laughter.
You have been very cruel to me. I forgive you. Forgive also my tempests of rage. I am ashamed of them, and thoroughly wretched. I swear to you by that which I hold most sacred in life, namely my child, that I am unable to explain how I can have been guilty yesterday of a thing I utterly disapprove of, and which seems to me the acme of effrontery. I swear I never saw those men. I am innocent of any crime. I can say no more. You have crushed me by referring again to my past life, and even while I am assuring you of my love and repentance, and while I still hope for a reconciliation, I tremble to feel that you can suspect me so unjustly. My heart shrinks from the sorrow still in store for it ... my pen fails me ...
Farewell! May you enjoy greater tranquillity and happiness than will fall to my lot. Do not forget that, for a whole year, we were happy solely by means of our love.
Good-bye! I have indeed received my full meed of punishment for the imaginary crime of yesterday.
Farewell. Think of me without bitterness.
Juliette.
Monday, 2 a.m. (1834).
I returned from the Place Royale about two hours ago. It was ten o’clock when I arrived there, and I left at about midnight. I had hoped to bring you back with me, or, failing to do so, to catch at least a glimpse of you. I waited patiently all that time, hoping that you would become aware of my presence, and reward me for it by one glance. But everything remained dark and gloomy for me, though it was easy to see the lights through the drawn blinds, and the shadows of many people moving about.