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MADAME GUERIN,
Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure).
RICHEPORT, July 23d 18—.
Louise, I write to you, although the resolution that I have taken should, no doubt, he silently carried out; but the swimmer struggling with the waves in mid-ocean cannot help, although he knows it is useless, uttering a last wild cry ere he sinks forever beneath the flood. Perhaps a sail may appear on the desert horizon and his last despairing shout be heard! It is so hard to believe ourselves finally condemned and to renounce all hope of pardon! My letter will be of no avail, and yet I cannot help sending it.
I am going to leave France, change worlds and skies. My passage is taken for America. The murmur of ocean and forest must soothe my despair. A great sorrow requires immensity. I would suffocate here. I should expect, at every turn, to see your white dress gleaming among the trees. Richeport is too much associated with you for me to dwell here longer; your memory has exiled me from it for ever. I must put a huge impossibility between myself and you; six thousand miles hardly suffice to separate us.
If I remained, I should resort to all manner of mad schemes to recover my happiness; no one gives up his cherished dream with more reluctance than I, especially when a word could make it a reality.
Louise, Louise, why do you avoid me and close your heart against me! You have not understood, perhaps, how much I love you? Has not my devotion shone in my eyes? I have not been able, perhaps, to convey to you what I felt? You have no more comprehended my adoration than the insensate idol the prayers of the faithful prostrated before it.
Nevertheless, I was convinced that I could make you happy; I thought that I appreciated the longings of your soul, and would be able to satisfy them all.
What crime have I committed against heaven to be punished with this biting despair? Perhaps I have failed to appreciate some sincere affection, repulsed unwittingly some simple, tender heart that your coldness now avenges; perhaps you are, unconsciously, the Nemesis of some forgotten fault.