And then, ecstatically recalling the old happy times, she deplores that she has nothing left but the painful memory that they are past. Beyond that, she has no regret except that against her will she must now be innocent. "My misfortune was to have cruel relatives whose malice destroyed the calm we enjoyed; had they been reasonable, I had now been happy in the enjoyment of my dear husband. Oh, how cruel were they when their blind fury urged a villain to surprise you in your sleep! Where was I--where was your Heloise then? What joy should I have had in defending my lover! I would have guarded you from violence at the expense of my life. Oh, whither does this excess of passion hurry me? Here love is shocked, and modesty deprives me of words."

She goes on to reproach him with his neglect and silence these ten years. When she pronounced her "sad vow," he had protested that his whole being was hers; that he would never live but to love Heloise. But he has proved the "unfaithful one." Though she is immured in the convent, it was only harsh relatives and "the unhappy consequences of our love and your disgrace" that made her put on the habit of chastity. She is not penitent for the past. At one moment she is swayed by the sentiment of piety, and next moment she yields up her imagination to all that is amorous and tender. "Among those who are wedded to God I am wedded to a man; among the heroic supporters of the Cross I am the slave of a human desire; at the head of a religious community I am devoted to Abelard alone. Even here I love you as much as ever I did in the world. If I had loved pleasures could I not have found means to gratify myself? I was not more than twenty-two years old, and there were other men left though I was deprived of Abelard. And yet I buried myself in a nunnery, and triumphed over life at an age capable of enjoying it to its full latitude. It is to you I sacrifice these remains of a transitory beauty, these widowed nights and tedious days."

And then she closes passionately: "Oh, think of me--do not forget me--remember my love, and fidelity, and constancy: love me as your mistress, cherish me as your child, your sister, your wife! Remember I still love you, and yet strive to avoid loving you. What a terrible saying is this! I shake with horror, and my very heart revolts against what I say. I shall blot all my paper with tears. I end my long letter wishing you, if you desire it (would to Heaven I could!), for ever adieu!"

II. Abélard to Héloïse

Abelard's answer to this letter is almost as passionate. He tells how he has vainly sought in philosophy and religion a remedy for his disgrace; how with equal futility he has tried to secure himself from love by the rigours of the monastic life. He has gained nothing by it all. "If my passion has been put under a restraint, my thoughts yet run free. I promise myself that I will forget you, and yet cannot think of it without loving you. After a multitude of useless endeavours I begin to persuade myself that it is a superfluous trouble to strive to free myself; and that it is sufficient wisdom to conceal from all but you how confused and weak I am. I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding you as an enemy; and yet I incessantly seek for you in my mind; I recall your image in my memory, and in different disquietudes I betray and contradict myself. I hate you! I love you! You call me your master; it is true you were entrusted to my care. I saw you, I was earnest to teach you; it cost you your innocence and me my liberty. If now, having lost the power of satisfying my passion, I had also lost that of loving you, I should have some consolation. But I find myself much more guilty in my thoughts of you, even amidst my tears, than in possessing you when I was in full liberty. I continually think of you; I continually call to mind your tenderness."

He explains some of the means he has tried to make himself forget. He has tried several fasts, and redoubled studies, and exhausted his strength in constant exercises, but all to no purpose. "Oh, do not," he exclaims, "add to my miseries by your constancy. Forget, if you can, your favours and that right which they claim over me; allow me to be indifferent. Why use your eloquence to reproach me for my flight and for my silence? Spare the recital of our assignations and your constant exactness to them; without calling up such disturbing thoughts I have enough to suffer. What great advantages would philosophy give us over other men if, by studying it, we could learn to govern our passions? What a troublesome employment is love!"

Then he tries to excuse himself for his original betrayal. "Those charms, that beauty, that air, which I yet behold at this instant, occasioned my fall. Your looks were the beginning of my guilt; your eyes, your discourse, pierced my heart; and, in spite of that ambition and glory which tried to make a defence, love was soon the master." Even now "my love burns fiercer amidst the happy indifference of those who surround me. The Gospel is a language I do not understand when it opposes my passion. Void of all relish for virtue, without concern for my condition and without application to my studies, I am continually present by my imagination where I ought not to be, and I find I have no power to correct myself." He advises her to give up her mind to her holy vocation as a means of forgetting him. "Make yourself amends by so glorious a choice; make your virtue a spectacle worthy of men and angels. Drink of the chalice of saints, even to the bottom, without turning your eyes with uncertainty upon me. To forget Heloise, to see her no more, is what Heaven demands of Abelard; and to expect nothing from Abelard, to forget him even as an idea, is what Heaven enjoins on Heloise."

He acknowledges that he made her take the veil for his own selfish reasons, but is now bound to admit that "God rejected my offering and my prayer, and continued my punishment by suffering me to continue my love. Thus I bear alike the guilt of your vows and of the passion that preceded them, and must be tormented all the days of my life." Once more he adjures her to deliver herself from the "shameful remains" of a passion which has taken too deep root. "To love Heloise truly," he closes, "is to leave her to that quiet which retirement and virtue afford. I have resolved it: this letter shall be my last fault. Adieu! I hope you will be willing, when you have finished this mortal life, to be buried near me. Your cold ashes need then fear nothing, and my tomb shall be more rich and renowned."

III.--Héloïse to Abélard

The passion of Heloise is only inflamed by this letter from Abelard. She has got him to write, and now she wants to see him and to hear more about him. She cynically remarks that he has made greater advances in the way of devotion than she could wish. There, alas! she is too weak to follow him. But she must have his advice and spiritual comfort. "Can you have the cruelty to abandon me? The fear of this stabs my heart." She reproaches him for the "fearful presages" of death he had made in his letter. And as regards his wish that she should take care of his remains, she says: "Heaven, severe as it has been to me, is not so insensible as to permit me to live one moment after you. Life without Abelard were an insupportable punishment, and death a most exquisite happiness if by that means I could be united to him. If Heaven but hearken to my continual cry, your days will be prolonged and you will bury me." It is his part, she says, to prepare her for the great crisis, to receive her last sighs. What could she hope for if he were taken away? "I have renounced without difficulty all the charms of life, preserving only my love, and the secret pleasure of thinking incessantly of you and hearing that you live. Dear Abelard, pity my despair! The higher you raised me above other women, who envied me your love, the more sensible am I now of the loss of your heart. I was exalted to the top of happiness only that I might have the more terrible fall. Nothing could be compared to my pleasures, and now nothing can equal my misery."