etude!

Ought I to regret the past? Will a life of torment be the price of a
single ray of happiness enlightening the highest pinnacle of human
felicity? If the wish which I dare not express should ever be
accomplished, I will surely be equal to my position; but I will also
know how to bear the shipwreck of my dearest hopes.... Great God, how
can I write, how dare I confide to paper what I fear to confess to
myself! When I think of him, I tremble lest any one should divine my
feelings, and yet I write!... If my journal were to fall into any one's
hands I should be deemed mad, or at least most foolishly presumptuous; I
must shut it up under four locks.

CASTLE OF OPOLE, Friday, _April 24th._

We have been here nearly a week; the situation of the castle is very
agreeable, but I am no longer gay, and nothing pleases me. The trees
should already be green, and they are still bare; it should be warm, and
the air freezes me. I desired to embroider, but the indispensable silks
were wanting; I tried the piano, but it was not in tune: it will be
necessary to send to Lublin for the organist. There is quite a large
library here, but I dare not ask the princess for the key. The prince
has several new works; he paid in my presence six gold ducats for ten
little volumes of M. Voltaire's works: Voltaire is now the most
celebrated writer in France. The princess forbids my reading his books,
and I am sure I am quite content. But what I cannot endure is, that I am
not permitted to read a romance lately come from Paris, entitled _La
Nouvelle Heloise_. It is by a certain Rousseau, and has made a great
sensation here. I picked up one volume, and read a few pages of the
preface, but what did I see? Rousseau himself says: 'A mother will
forbid her daughter to read it.' The princess is quite right, and I laid
the book aside with a flutter at my heart which still continues.

The physicians in Warsaw have ordered the princess to ride on horseback
during her sojourn in the country; they say this exercise will be
excellent for her health. She laughed at the prescription, and had not
the faintest intention of trying it; but the prince palatine will hear
of no jesting where physicians are concerned.

He has bought a pretty mare, very gentle and well trained, as also a
most comfortable saddle; but the princess still refuses to mount the
animal. She was with great difficulty persuaded yesterday to mount a
donkey, and thu