Do but think, my love, how much thou wert wanting in foresight. Ah! unfortunate, thou wert betrayed, and thou didst betray me with illusive hopes. A passion on which thou didst rest so many prospects of pleasure now only causes thee a deadly despair, which is like nothing else but the cruelty of the absence which occasions it. What! must this absence, to which my sorrow, all ingenious though it be, cannot give a sad enough name, deprive me for ever of a sight of those eyes in which I was wont to see so much love, which made me feel so full of joy, which took the place of all else to me, and which, in a word, were all that I desired? Mine eyes, alas! have lost the only light that gave them life, tears alone are left them, and ceaseless weeping is the sole employment I have given them since I learned that you were bent upon a separation so unbearable to me that it must soon bring about my death. But yet it seems to me that I cling in some sort to the sorrows of which you are the sole cause. I consecrated my life to you from the moment when I first saw you, and I feel a certain pleasure in sacrificing it to you. I send you my sighs a thousand times each day, they seek you everywhere, and as sole recompense of so much disquietude they bring me back a warning too true, alas, of my unhappiness: an unhappiness which is cruel enough to prevent me from flattering myself with hope, and which is ever calling to me--Cease, cease to wear thyself out in vain, ill-fated Marianna, cease looking for a lover whom thou wilt never see again, who has crossed the seas to fly from thee, who is now in France in the midst of pleasures, who is not thinking for one moment on thy sorrows, who would not thank thee for these pangs for which he feels no gratitude. But no, I cannot make up my mind to think so ill of you, and I am too much concerned that you should right yourself. I do not even wish to think that you have forgotten me. Am I not unhappy enough already without torturing myself with false suspicions? And why should I try so hard to forget all the care you took to prove your love for me? I was so enchanted with it all that I should be ungrateful indeed were I not still to love you with the same transports that my passion lent me when I enjoyed the pledges of your love. How can the memory of moments so sweet have become so bitter? And, contrary to their nature, must they serve only to tyrannise over my heart? Alas, poor heart! your last letter brought it into a strange state; it endured such strong pangs that it seemed to be trying to tear itself from me to go and seek for you. I was so overcome by all these violent emotions that I was beside myself for more than three hours.[25] It was as though I refused to come back to a life which I feel bound to lose for you since I cannot preserve it for you. In spite of myself, however, I became myself again; I flattered myself with the feeling that I was dying of love, and besides, I was