n his, and all these friends were to become
my rivals, I feel that my jealousy would fire the house, and I would
gladly perish in the flames after seeing them all dead before my eyes.

Oh, fatal preoccupation! I only wished to speak of your affairs, and
here I am talking of my own. The clouds that I heap upon your horizon
roll back towards mine.

In exchange for my advice, render me a service. You know Madame de
Braimes, the friend of Mlle. de Chateaudun. Madame de Braimes is
acquainted with everything that I am ignorant of, and that my happiness
in life depends upon discovering. It is time for the inexplicable to be
explained. A human enigma cannot for ever conceal its answer. Every
trial must end before the despair of him who is tried. Madame de Braimes
is an accomplice in this enigma; her secret now is a burden on her
lips, she must let it fall into your ear, and I will cherish a life-long
gratitude to you both.

Any friend but you would smile at this apparently strange language--I
write you a long chapter of psychological and moral inductions to show
my knowledge about the management of love affairs and affairs
otherwise--I divine all your enigmas; I illuminate the darkness of all
your mysteries, and when it comes to working on my own account, to be
perspicacious for my own benefit, to make discoveries about my own love
affair, I suddenly abdicate, I lose my luminous faculties, I put a band
over my eyes, and humbly beg a friend to lend me the thread of the
labyrinth and guide my steps in the bewildering darkness. All this must
appear singular to you, to me it is quite natural. Through the thousand
dark accidents that love scatters in the path of life, light can only
reach us by means of a friend. We ourselves are helpless; looking at
others we are lynx-eyed, looking at ourselves we are almost blind. It is
the optical nerve of the passions. It is mortifying to thus sacrifice
the highest prerogatives of man at the feet of a woman, to feel
compelled to yield to her caprices and submit to the inexorable
exigencies of love. The artificial life I am leading is odious to me.
Patience is a virtue that died with Job, and I cannot perform the
miracle of resuscitating it.

Take my advice--be prudent--be wise--be generous--leave Richeport and
come to me; we can assist and console each other; you can render me a
great service, I will explain how when we meet--I will remain here for a
few days; do not hesitate to come at once