madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of
ways of attracting and winning a woman's love, but in my own heart
I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to
you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts
turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to
the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am
worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and
shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I
drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me
you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without
you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my
life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies,
in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no
limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you
will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your
friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you
require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen
hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be
cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to
enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I
presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer
an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find
ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I
am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you
to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment,
to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I
make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was
boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any
hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No,
while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be
with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will
not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other
woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were
right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret
perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony,
and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted
heart...."

Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribul