Sunday, 3 p.m. (1834).
I have abandoned hope ... yet love remains. I no longer believe that any happiness is possible for me in the future, but you I love more every day; better than the first day, better than yesterday, better than this morning, better than a moment ago; and still I am not happy.
You remember what I used to say to you when Marie Tudor was in rehearsal? “Those wretches have robbed me of my self-confidence; I dare not, cannot rehearse any more; I feel paralysed.”
To-day, it is not a theatrical part that is in question—it is my life. Now that calumny has crushed me, now that my mode of life has been condemned without my having a chance of self-defence, now that my health and reason have been expended in this struggle without profit or glory, now that I have been held up before the public as a woman without a future, I dare not, cannot live longer ... this is absolutely true ... I dare not live. This fear has brought me to the verge of suicide ... a peculiar suicide. I do not propose to kill myself like other people. I mean to sever myself from you, and, to me, such a severance signifies death. Death certainly. I have already made one experiment of the kind, therefore I am sure.
I am confirmed in this project by the reflection that you will thereby be restored to liberty; that you will be free to direct your life and your genius in the way best suited to your happiness; that I shall no longer be an obstacle in your path, but an object of pity and indulgence—pity for what I shall suffer, indulgence and forgiveness for such of my faults as have made you suffer.
If the excess of my love and grief should bring me back to your side, do not notice me ... shut your eyes, stop your ears, remain in your own house ... thus you may learn to forget, while I ... I ... shall die. I shall not suffer long. I shall soon be at rest.