e, for I know how precious your
time is. I have paid my rent in advance, and I have, therefore,
only to ask you to give a small present to the porter. Excuse,
mademoiselle, the trouble of these details; but you are the only
person in the world to whom I dare and can address myself. I
might, perhaps, have asked one of M. Ferrand's clerks to do this
service for me, as we were on friendly terms, but I feared his
curiosity as to certain papers. Several concern you, as I have
said, and others relate to the sad events in my life. Ah,
believe me, Mlle. Rigolette, if you grant me this last favour,
this last proof of former regard, it will be my only consolation
under the great affliction in which I am plunged; and, in spite
of all, I hope you will not refuse me. I also beg of you to give
me permission to write to you sometimes. It will be so
consoling, so comforting to me, to be able to pour out my heavy
sorrows into a kind heart. Alas, I am alone in the world,--no
one takes the slightest interest in me! This isolation was
before most painful to me. Think what it must be now! And yet I
am honest, and have the consciousness of never having injured
any one, and of always having, at the peril of my life,
testified my aversion for what is wicked and wrong; as you will
see by the papers, which I pray of you to take care of, and
which you may read. But when I say this, who will believe me? M.
Ferrand is respected by all the world; his reputation for
probity is long established; he has a just cause of accusation
against me, and he will crush me. I resign myself at once to my
fate. Now, Mlle. Rigolette, if you do believe me, you will not,
I hope, feel any contempt for me, but pity me; and you will,
perhaps, carry your generosity so far as to come one day,--some
Sunday (alas, what recollections that word brings up!)--some
Sunday, to see me in the reception-room of my prison. But no,
no; I never could dare to see you in such a place! Yet you are
so good, so kind, that--if--I am compelled to break off this
letter and send it to you at once, with the key, and a line for
the porter, which I write in great haste. The turnkey has come
to tell me that I am going directly before the magistrate.
Adieu, adieu, Mlle. Rigolette! Do not discard me, for my hope is
in you, and in you only!