LOS U’WAS Y EL TERRITORIO

LETTER I To Julie

I must Xee you, Mademoiselle, that I can see: I should not have waited nearly so long, or rather it were better never to have laid eyes on you. But what is to be done at present? How should I go about it? You promised me friendship; behold my confusion, and counsel me.

You know that I entered your house only at the invitation of your wor-thy Mother.¹Knowing that I had cultivated some agreeable talents, she believed that they would not be without usefulness, in a locale wanting in masters, toward the education of a daughter she adores. Taking pride, for my part, in adorning such a Wne natural temperament with a few Xowers, I ventured to assume this dangerous charge without foreseeing the peril, or at least without fear of it. I will not tell you that I am beginning to pay the price for my temerity: I hope I shall never so forget myself as to say to you things that are not suitable for you to hear, and fail in the respect I owe even more to your morals than to your station and your charms. If I suVer, I have at least the consolation of suVering alone, and I have no desire for a happiness that could diminish yours.

Yet I see you every day; and I perceive that without intending to you are innocently exacerbating suVerings which you cannot pity, and of which you ought to remain unaware. I know, to be sure, the course that prudence, in the absence of any hope, dictates in such an case, and I would have made every eVort to follow it, if I could in the circumstance reconcile prudence with honesty; but how could I decently withdraw from a house whose mistress herself invited me in, where she showers kindnesses upon me, and believes I can be of some use to what she holds dearest on earth?

How can I deprive that tender mother of the pleasure of surprising her husband some day with your progress in studies which to this end she conceals from him? Must I leave impolitely, without a word to her? Must I declare to her the cause of my withdrawal, and will not this very avowal oVend her, coming from a man whose station and fortune cannot allow him to aspire to you?

I see, Mademoiselle, but one way out of the quandary I am in: that the

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hand which plunges me into it pull me out, that my punishment as well as my fault come from you, and that out of pity for me at least you do me the favor of banishing me from your presence. Show my letter to your par-ents; have me refused entry to your house; dismiss me in whatever way you prefer; from you I can bear anything; by myself I cannot Xee you.

You, dismiss me! I, Xee you! and why? Why then is it a crime to be sen-sible²to merit, and to love what one has to honor? No, fair Julie; your charms had dazzled my eyes, never would they have led my heart astray without the stronger charm that animates them. It is that touching combi-nation of such lively sensibility and unfailing gentleness, it is that tender pity for all the suVerings of others, it is that sound judgment and exquisite taste that draw their purity from the soul’s own, it is, in a word, the attrac-tions of the sentiments far more than those of the person that I worship in you. I allow that one could imagine you still more beautiful; but more lov-able and more worthy of an honorlov-able man’s heart, no, Julie, that is not possible.

Sometimes I dare to presume that Heaven has put a hidden conformity in our aVections, as it did in our tastes and age. Still so young, we possess all of nature’s penchants undistorted, and all our inclinations seem to co-incide. Not having yet acquired the uniform prejudices of the world, we have uniform ways of feeling and seeing, and why should I not dare imag-ine in our hearts the same accord I perceive in our opinions? Sometimes our eyes meet; sometimes sighs escape us at the same moment; sometimes furtive tears... O Julie! should this harmony have a more profound ori-gin... should Heaven have destined us.... all of human strength... oh, forgive me. I am overstepping: I am presuming to take my wishes for hope: the intensity of my desires lends to their object the possibility it is wanting.

I dread to perceive what torment lies in store for my heart. I seek not to humor my aZiction; I would rather hate it if that were possible. Judge whether my sentiments are pure, by the kind of mercy I come to ask of you. Cut oV if it can be done the source of the poison that nourishes and kills me. I want only to mend or die, and I implore your rigors as a lover would implore your favors.

Yes, I promise, I swear I will for my part do everything I can to recover my reason, or to repress into the recesses of my soul the disorder I feel aris-ing therein: but for pity’s sake avert from me those so gentle eyes that are the death of me; from mine hide your features, your expression, your arms, your hands, your golden hair,³your gestures; elude the eager reck-lessness of my glances; withhold that touching voice which cannot be

heard without emotion: be, alas, someone other than yourself, so my heart can repossess itself.

Shall I say it outright? In these games spawned by idle evening hours, you allow yourself cruelly unguarded gestures in front of everyone; you show no more reserve with me than with anyone else. Only yesterday, you very nearly let me take a kiss from you as a forfeit: you resisted feebly.

Thank goodness I was careful not to insist. I could tell from my increasing turmoil that I was about to give myself away, and I checked myself. Ah, if only I might have savored it as I would have wished, that kiss would have been my last sigh, and I would have died the happiest of men!

Pray, let us give up such games which can have fatal consequences. No, not one of them is without its danger, not even the most childish of all. I am ever trembling lest my hand touch yours, and somehow it always does.

No sooner does your hand rest on mine than a tremor goes through me;

such sport gives me a fever or rather delirium; I cease to see or feel any-thing, and in that moment of alienation,⁴what can I say, what can I do, where can I hide, how can I answer for myself?

When we do our readings, another diYculty arises. If I see you for an instant without your mother or your cousin, your demeanor abruptly changes; you take on so serious, so cold, so icy an air that respect and the fear of displeasing you deprive me of my presence of mind and my judg-ment, and I can scarcely manage to stammer a few trembling words from a lesson which for all your sagacity you have diYculty following. Thus your willful inconsistency works against the interest of us both: you dismay me and make no progress, yet I cannot conceive for what motive so reason-able a person has such a change of humor. I presume now to ask you, how can you be so playful in public and so solemn when we are alone together?

I would have expected just the opposite, and that one’s demeanor should be controlled in proportion to the number of Observers. Instead of this, I am equally bewildered to see you maintain with me a ceremonious tone in private, and a familiar one in company. Do be more consistent, perhaps I shall be less tormented.

If the commiseration natural to well-born souls can move you with the suVerings of an unhappy man on whom you have bestowed some marks of esteem, slight changes in your behavior will make his situation less vio-lent, and help him bear both his silence and his woes more peaceably: if his restraint and his condition do not touch you, and you choose to avail yourself of your right to do him in, you may do so without his uttering a murmur: he would still rather perish by your command than by some in-discreet transport that would indict him in your eyes. In short, whatever

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fate you prescribe for me, at least I shall not have to reproach myself for having conceived a presumptuous hope, and if you have read this letter, you have done all that I would dare to ask of you, even were there no re-fusal for me to fear.

LETTER II To Julie

How I deceived myself, Mademoiselle, in my Wrst Letter! Instead of re-lieving my aZictions, I have only increased them by exposing myself to your disfavor, and I feel that the worst of them all is to displease you. Your silence, your cold and reserved manner only too clearly proclaim my rejec-tion. If you have partly answered my prayer, it is only the better to punish me for it;

E poi ch’amor di me vi fece accorta Fur i biondi capelli allor velati, E l’amoroso sguardo in se raccolto.⁵ And love having made you aware of me, you veiled your blond hair

and kept your sweet eyes to yourself.

You withdraw in public the innocent familiarity of which I was foolish enough to complain; but you are all the more severe when we are in pri-vate, and your wily severity manifests itself as much in your indulgence as in your refusals.

Could you only appreciate how cruel this coldness is to me! You would deem me too well punished. How eagerly would I move backward in time so that you should never have seen that fatal letter! No, for fear of oVend-ing you once more, I would not now be writoVend-ing this one, had I not writ-ten the Wrst, and I want not to repeat my fault, but repair it. To appease you must I say I was deceiving myself? Must I protest that what I felt for you was not love?... I, utter such a loathsome perjury! Is a vile lie wor-thy of a heart over which you reign? Ah! let me be unhappy, if I must; for having been too bold I will be neither a liar nor a coward, and the crime that my heart has committed my pen cannot disown.

I can already feel the weight of your indignation, and I anticipate its worst eVects as a favor you owe me for want of any other; for the Wre that consumes me deserves punishment, but not contempt. For pity’s sake, do not abandon me to my own devices; be so good at least as to dispose of my fate; declare what is your will. Whatever you may dictate, I can but obey.

Will you impose an everlasting silence? I shall manage to force myself to observe it. Will you banish me from your presence? I swear you shall see me no more. Will you order me to die? Ah! that will not be the most diYcult thing. There is no command to which I will not agree, except to love you no more: and even in this I would obey you, if there were a way for me to do so.

A hundred times a day I am tempted to throw myself at your feet, to bathe them in my tears, there to Wnd death or forgiveness. Each time a mortal terror numbs my courage; my knees tremble and dare not bend;

the words expire on my lips, and my soul can muster no reassurance against the dread of provoking you.

Is there on earth a situation more wretched than mine? My heart is only too aware of its guilt and is unable to diminish it; crime and remorse tor-ment it at the same time, and without knowing what my destiny will be, I drift in unbearable uncertainty between the hope of mercy and the fear of punishment.

But no, I hope for nothing, I have no right to hope for anything. The only favor I seek from you is to hasten my execution. Satisfy a righteous vengeance. When you see me reduced to begging for it myself, am I un-happy enough for you? Punish me, as you must: but if you are not pitiless, cease that cold and discontented mien that drives me to despair: when a criminal is sent to his death, he is no longer treated with anger.

LETTER III To Julie

Be not angered, Mademoiselle; this will be the last of my importunities.

When I began to love you, how far was I from foreseeing all the aZictions I was storing up for myself! At the outset the only one I felt was that of a love without hope, which reason given time can overcome; next I learned of a greater one in the pangs of your displeasure; and now I am ex-periencing the cruellest of all, in the sentiment of your own suVerings. O Julie! I observe with bitterness that my complaints trouble your peace of mind. You maintain an invincible silence, but everything discloses your hidden agitations to my observant heart. Your eyes become somber, dis-tracted, downcast; occasional wandering glances alight on me; your bright color fades; an unwonted pallor comes over your cheeks; gaiety abandons you; a mortal sadness overwhelms you; and only the unfailing gentleness of your soul shields you from a touch of ill temper.

Be it sensibility, disdain, or pity for my suVerings, you are aVected by

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them, I can see that; I fear to contribute to your own, and this fear aZicts me a good deal more than the hope it should kindle can hearten me; for either I delude myself, or your happiness is more precious to me than my own.

And yet when I think back on myself, I begin to discover how greatly I had misjudged my own heart, and see too late that what I had Wrst taken for a transient delirium will determine my lifelong destiny. It is the in-crease of your sadness that has made me feel that of my aZiction. Never, no, never would the Wre in your eyes, the glow of your complexion, the charms of your mind, all the graces of your former gaiety, have produced an eVect comparable to that of your despondency. Doubt not, divine Julie, that could you see the incandescence this long week of languor has kindled in my soul, you yourself would lament the aZictions you are causing me.

They are henceforth beyond remedy, and I sense with despair that the Wre which consumes me will die only in the grave.

No matter; he who cannot achieve happiness can at least be deserving of it, and I will Wnd a way to compel you to esteem a man to whom you have not deigned to address the slightest reply. I am young and may some day merit the consideration of which I am not worthy now. In the mean-while, I must restore to you the peace which I have forever lost, and of which I am here despite myself depriving you. It is just that I should bear alone the punishment for the crime of which I alone am guilty. Adieu, too fair Julie, live in tranquillity, and resume your lively temper; as of tomor-row you shall see no more of me. But be assured that the pure, ardent love for you with which I have burned will never die while I live; that my heart, Wlled with a loved one so worthy, will have lost all capacity to accept less;

that it will henceforth divide its homage solely between you and virtue, and that no one will ever see other Xames profane the altar where Julie once was worshipped.

NOTE From Julie⁶

Do not take away with you the assumption that you have made your re-moval necessary. A virtuous heart would manage to master itself or keep silent, and would perhaps become dangerous. But you...⁷ you may stay.

REPLY

I have long kept my silence; your coldness Wnally has made me speak.

Though one can perhaps master oneself for the sake of virtue, one does not suVer the scorn of the person one loves. Leave I must.

SECOND NOTE