Chapter III: Letter II: ), and from it a good view may be obtained over the plains (1)

of Alemtejo as they stretch away to the south. Curiously enough, the tradition of Marianna and her fatal love has been perpetuated in the convent, in spite of the attempts, natural enough, on the part of monastic chroniclers and such like to hide all traces of it.

In this as in most other convents there were two kinds of cells--the dormitories, divided into cubicles, and rooms forming independent abodes dispersed throughout the edifice. These latter the nuns of the seventeenth century called their ‘houses,’--_as suas casas_,--and it was one of these which Marianna possessed. The former were in accordance with the Constitutions, while the latter, though strictly forbidden, nevertheless existed. These separate abodes were, it is true, often necessitated by the growth of the convent population, and generally appertained to nuns of a better position, while the dormitories served for those who were either poorer or of an inferior rank. Many of these _casas_, too, were built by private individuals who had some connection or other with the particular convent, and there are indications that the father of Marianna had caused some to be erected in that of the Conception.[3]

From the year 1665 to 1667, then, Beja was, as we have said, the centre of the various military movements in which Chamilly took part under the leadership of Schomberg, and there is no doubt that he spent much of his time there. Marianna was twenty-five years old. She had been intrusted to the Cloister when a child,[4] as she herself tells us, and her renunciation of the world must have been little more than a form. She had probably made her ‘profession’ too at the age of sixteen, that provided for by the Constitutions, if not at an earlier date.

The dull routine of her life was suddenly broken in upon by the sight of a man surrounded with all the prestige of military glory--one who was the first to awaken in her a consciousness of her own beauty--the first to tell her that he loved her, one, moreover, who was ready to throw all his greatness, his present and his future, at her feet.

‘I was young; I was trustful. I had been shut up in this convent since my childhood. I had only seen people whom I did not care for. I had never heard the praises which you constantly gave me. Methought I owed you the charms and the beauty which you found in me, and which you were the first to make me perceive. I heard you well talked of; every one spoke in your favour. You did all that was necessary to awaken love in me.’[5] Such is her simple confession, and, comments Cordeiro, nothing more natural.

Their first meeting was probably due to the relations which Chamilly, an officer of rank, had entered into with the Alcoforados, one of the chief families in Beja. There are indications, indeed, that Chamilly and Marianna’s eldest brother had met, doubtless in the field, for the latter also followed the profession of arms; and this brother, named Balthazar Vaz Alcoforado, is probably the same as the ‘brother’ referred to in the Letters as the lovers’ go-between. It was for his benefit that Marianna’s father had striven for years to build up an estate which was to be entailed on his offspring. But in the year 1669, just at the very time of the great sensation caused by the publication of the Letters in Paris, Balthazar abandoned his military career and all his brilliant prospects in the world to enter the priesthood. It is impossible not to hazard a guess, although we know nothing for certain on the point, that his motive for so doing was connected in some way with the almost tragic ending of the _liaison_ between his sister and the French captain. But to return:--The customs of the time, curiously enough, allowed a greater relative liberty to nuns as regards the visits which might be paid them than to married women,[6] or, as the Bishop of Gram Para puts it, ‘the liberty of the grating was wide in those miserable times.’[7]

We cannot of course be expected to give an account of the progress of this _liaison_, nor do we wish to indulge in romantic hypotheses.

Chamilly was thirty at the time when he first saw Marianna. Brought up as he had been to war as a trade, a man of small intelligence and few scruples, the intrigue would be a pleasant diversion, a means _pour passer le temps_ which he would otherwise have found dull enough in a Portuguese provincial town after the Paris of ‘Le Grand Monarque.’ The seduction and desertion of a poor nun must have seemed all so perfectly natural to one brought up in contact with the loose morality of camp life and in the France of Louis XIV.

* * * * *

In June 1667 the authorities of Beja received an answer from the new King, Don Pedro, to the complaint which they had made of ‘the oppression which the French cavalry continued to exercise on this people.’[8] Already, on account of similar complaints, Schomberg had been ordered to move his cavalry from the town and district, but he had disobeyed these orders for strategic reasons. Now, we have already seen that it was between 1665 and 1667 that Chamilly carried on his intrigue with Marianna, and it is just in 1667 that the scandal must have attained greater proportions, coinciding with and ending, not in the withdrawal of the French cavalry, but in the sudden retirement of Chamilly to France. But what, it may be asked, was the reason for the King’s order, and what could those ‘oppressions’ have been in an important city where presumably there was a regular and well-appointed police administration? Has it not a relation, asks Cordeiro, with the incident in the ‘Letters,’ which would both afflict and irritate the influential family of the nun and the good burgesses of Beja? The special situation of the French captain, on the other hand--his interest in not aggravating the scandal, and the peril for the religious herself in the adoption of violent means, would all naturally counsel the withdrawal of Chamilly.[9]

The danger of remaining longer in Beja was not in the nature of those which the French colonel could confront with his recognised courage. If he were surprised in the convent, if he were denounced as its violator and as the seducer of a nun, the daughter of a well-known family, and one, too, which was on excellent terms with the new sovereign, neither his own position nor the protection of Schomberg would avail him, since both the one and the other began to lose their importance with the approach of peace.[10]

However this may be, certain it is that Chamilly’s own excuses for departure, referred to in the ‘Letters,’ were merely empty pretexts, and a reference to the history of the time will show this. If Louis XIV. needed his presence so much for the invasion of Franche Comté, why not, it may be asked, for the important campaign in Flanders in 1667?

He seems to have left Portugal, too, a little clandestinely, for no notice is to be met with, as in the case of other French officers, of his asking and obtaining leave from the Portuguese Government, and he probably did not even embark in Lisbon. Already, in the beginning of February 1668, we find him with Louis XIV. in Dijon, so that he must have quitted Beja and the seat of war quite at the end of the preceding year.

It is now that the ‘Letters’ enter into the history of the lives of Marianna and Noel Bouton de Chamilly. As is well known, they were all written after the latter’s retirement from Portugal, and probably between the December of 1667 and the June of 1668, and they express better than any remarks which we could make the stages of faith, doubt, and despair through which poor Marianna passed. As a piece of unconscious, though self-made, psychological analysis they are unsurpassed; as a product of the Peninsular heart they are unrivalled. If they are not, as Theophilo Braga calls them, the only beautiful work produced by his countrymen in the seventeenth century, they are, at any rate, by far the most beautiful. To compare them, as regards literary form, with those of Heloïse would be manifestly unfair, the situation of the two women was so different.[11] Think of the Abbess of the Paraclete, mistress of all the learning of the time, and surrounded by things to console her, or at least to divert her attention, and then regard poor Marianna, persecuted by her family, and liable to the tender mercies of the Inquisition, with none of the comforts, none of the consolations of the former. But if the ‘Letters’ of Heloise are superior to those of Marianna from the point of view of correctness of expression and style, they are inferior in all else. The nun’s are far more natural, and therefore more beautiful, and the very confusion of feelings and ideas which we should expect from one in her position rather adds to their charm. Finally, the moral character of Heloïse as displayed in her epistles cannot certainly, be placed beside that of the Portuguese nun with any advantage.

Henceforth, we only meet with the name of Marianna at intervals--once in 1668, again in 1676 and 1709, and lastly in an obituary notice in 1723.

She, at any rate, is not an example of the well-known saying of Cervantes--‘the Portuguese die of love.’ It is true that some words at the end of the Fifth Letter seem to suggest suicide, but there is, on the other hand, throughout the whole of these _ultima verba_ an expression of energy and of her determination to tread under foot, if she cannot extinguish, the flames of her passion. Marianna came of a vigorous race, and, in spite of the great infirmities of which her obituary speaks, she lived, as we shall see, to the age of fourscore years and three.

She was made Portress, as mentioned in the Letters, at the beginning of 1668, no doubt to distract her mind by giving her some definite occupation and a sense of responsibility. It is, however, significant, as Cordeiro remarks, that we do not find the name of Marianna, a daughter of one of the principal and most influential families in Beja, filling any more elevated post, whereas her younger sister Peregrina Maria appears in the conventual register as both Amanuensis and Abbess. This sister, before professing in the same convent in 1676, made her will, ‘being more than twelve years of age,’ and there she spoke of the many obligations which she owed Marianna for having brought her up ‘from the age of three years.’[12] Her entering the Conception at such an early age is explained by the fact of the death of her mother, which took place at the end of 1663 or the beginning of 1664. Again, in 1709, Marianna is mentioned as beaten by only ten votes in an election for the office of Abbess by a certain nun of the name of Joanna de Bulhão, of whom nothing is known.

The next time we hear of her is in 1723, the date of her death. The obituary notice speaks for itself and for her life, since the episode which the ‘Letters’ contain, and needs no comment. ‘On the 28th day of the month of July, in the year 1723, died, in this Royal Convent of Our Lady of the Conception, Mother D. Marianna Alcanforada,[13] at the age of eighty-seven years,[14] all of which she spent in the service of God. She was always very regular in the choir and at the confraternities, and withal fulfilled her (other) obligations. She was very exemplary, and none had fault to find with her, for she was very kind to all. For thirty years she did rigid penance and suffered great infirmities with much conformity, desiring to have more to suffer. When she knew that her last hour was come, she asked for all the sacraments, which she received in a state of perfect consciousness, giving many thanks to God for having received them. Thus she ended her life with all the signs of predestination, speaking up to the last hour, in proof of which I, D. An^{ia} Sophia Bap^{ta} de Almeida, Amanuensis of the Convent, wrote this, which I signed on the same day, month and year as above.[15]

D. AN^{IA} SOPHIA BAP^{TA} DE ALM^{DA},
Amanuensis.’

No such obscurity as that which hangs over the life of Marianna hides the doings of Chamilly after his return to France. Acts like the famous defence of Grave in 1674 against the Prince of Orange, and that of Oudenarde two years later, marked him out for future distinction. But if he knew how to defend towns he no less could attack and take them. He distinguished himself greatly at the sieges of Gand, Condé, Yprés and Heidelberg, and in 1703 received the recompense of his great services, being made a Marshal of France.

M. Asse tells several anecdotes about him, which _seem_ to show that he was a generous man as well as a brave soldier.[16] United in 1671 by a _mariage de convenance_ to a lady who, according to S. Simon, was far from being gifted with personal beauty, he was always a most exemplary husband. S. Simon, who knew him well, also tells us that Chamilly was ‘the best man in the world, the bravest, and the most honourable.’ He says, too, that no one after seeing him or hearing him speak, could understand how he had inspired such an unmeasured love as that revealed in the famous ‘Letters.’[17]

How, then, are we to reconcile the Chamilly of the ‘Letters’ with the man of whom his contemporaries and friends speak so highly? The publication of the Epistles of Marianna was doubtless due to vanity, a fault which we may certainly credit Chamilly with possessing. It was, too, the custom in seventeenth-century France to hand round copies of letters, either received or written, for the admiration of friends, and thus, what now appears to us a brutal and cynical want of confidence, was then the most natural thing in the world.[18] It is not, however, so easy, even if it is possible, to excuse the conduct of the French captain in the betrayal and desertion of poor Marianna. Posterity, as M. Asse says, especially the feminine portion, has condemned him, and there seems to be no reason why we should seek to reverse the verdict.

* * * * *

It was in 1669 that the first edition of what we know as the ‘Portuguese Letters’ was published by Claude Barbin, the well-known Parisian bookseller. The translation seems to have been made towards the middle of the year preceding, and shortly after the return of Chamilly to France. The Letters were evidently shown by their possessor as one of those trophies, or at least souvenirs, which persons are accustomed to bring back with them from a foreign country.[19] The incognito, however, was complete, and neither the name of their recipient nor that of their translator was inscribed on this _editio princeps_. That of Marianna, indeed, the authoress, was not known until early in this present century, when in 1810 Boissonade discovered her name written in a copy of the edition of 1669 by a contemporary hand. The veracity of this note has since been placed beyond doubt by the recent researches of Senhor Cordeiro, who has shown the persistence of a tradition in Beja connecting the French captain and the Portuguese nun.

The success of the first edition was rapid and complete. A second by Barbin, and two in foreign countries, one in Amsterdam, the other in Cologne, all in the same year, attest this. The success, indeed, took such proportions, that from the mutual rivalry of authors and publishers there sprung up a new kind of literature, that of ‘les Portugaises.’ The Five Letters of the nun had followers like most successful romances, and the title of ‘Portuguese Letters’ became a generic name applying not only to the imitations which amplified subsequent editions, but also to every kind of correspondence where passion was shown _toute nue_.[20]

‘Brancas,’ says Mme. de Sévigné, ‘has written me a letter so excessively tender as to make up for all his past neglect. He speaks to me from his heart in every line; if I were to reply to him in the same tone, _ce seroit une Portugaise_.’[21]

In the same year, 1669, Barbin issued a ‘second part’ of the Portuguese Letters, which was counterfeited shortly afterwards at Cologne, as the real ones had been. This was written, we are told in the preface, by a _femme du monde_, and its publication was suggested by the favour with which the letters of the nun had been received.

The publisher counted, as he said, on the difference of style which distinguished these fresh letters from the original ones, to assure a success as great as the first five had obtained.

After the second part came the so-called ‘Replies,’ all in the same year, and their publisher tells us in the preface that ‘he is assured that the gentleman who wrote them has returned to Portugal.’ Shortly afterwards appeared the ‘New Replies,’ but this time they were given for what they were, ‘a _jeu d’esprit_ for which the example of Aulus Salinus writing replies to the Heroides of Ovid, and, above all, the beauty of the first Portuguese Letters, should serve as an excuse.’[22]

The motive, then, for the production of the second part of the ‘Portuguese Letters’ as for that of the ‘New Replies’ is satisfactorily explained, but how about the ‘Replies’ themselves? Can we not account for them by supposing that it was felt necessary on the part of the friends of Chamilly to attenuate the sympathy expressed on all sides for the unfortunate nun, and the censure which must naturally have followed such a base betrayal? Hence, proceeds Senhor Cordeiro, the author of this suggestion, the publication of these Replies, whose capital idea is to show us the seducer of Marianna under a perfectly different aspect and character from that which readers of the Letters would naturally attribute to him. However this may be, it was not long before the name of their hero came to be printed in editions of the Letters, though, curiously enough, it was first divulged in an edition printed abroad--in Cologne--in 1669, a copy of which is to be found in the British Museum, marked 1085 _b._ 5 (2), containing the following:--

‘The name of him to whom they (the Letters) were written is the Chevalier de Chamilly, and the name of him who made the translation is Cuilleraque.’[23]

More strange still, the French editions of the Letters preserved a discreet silence as to the name of the recipient with the exception of the 1671 edition of the Replies, until the year 1690, when a similar notice to that above referred to as being in the Cologne edition was made public; so that even in Chamilly’s lifetime his name was appended to editions of the Letters as their recipient, and as far as we know he never denied the authenticity of the ascription.

* * * * *

The question as to whether the Letters were originally written in French, or whether they are a translation, hardly needs discussion here, for the principal critics, both French and Portuguese--Dorat, Malherbe, Filinto Elysio and Sousa Botelho--have unanimously decided from the text itself that they are a translation, and a bad one. The last-named says:--‘A Portuguese, or indeed any one knowing that language, cannot doubt but that the Five Letters of the Nun have been translated almost literally from a Portuguese original. The construction of many of the phrases is such that, if re-translated word for word, they are found to be entirely in harmony with the genius and character of that language.’[24]

But it is just this baldness for which we should all be truly thankful, because we are thus enabled to listen to what Marianna said, and hear how she said it. Had the translation been what the seventeenth century would have called a good one, we should have known M. Guilleragues well enough, it is true, but only seen the nun ‘darkly as through a glass.’

* * * * *

As to the present version, the author can only add to what he has already said in the Preface, by confessing that he feels its inadequacy as much as any of his critics will doubtless do. At the same time, however, if its result be to excite competition, and call forth a better one, his labour will not, he thinks, have been in vain.

LETTERS

She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’

_Mariana._--TENNYSON.

FIRST LETTER

Meu amigo verdadeiro, quem me vos levou tão longe? ... Como vós vos fostes, tudo se tornou tristeza; nem parece ainda, senão que estava espreitando já que vos fosseis.

BERNARDIM RIBEIRO, _Saudades_, cap. i.

Do but think, my love, how much thou wert wanting in foresight. Ah! unfortunate, thou wert betrayed, and thou didst betray me with illusive hopes. A passion on which thou didst rest so many prospects of pleasure now only causes thee a deadly despair, which is like nothing else but the cruelty of the absence which occasions it. What! must this absence, to which my sorrow, all ingenious though it be, cannot give a sad enough name, deprive me for ever of a sight of those eyes in which I was wont to see so much love, which made me feel so full of joy, which took the place of all else to me, and which, in a word, were all that I desired? Mine eyes, alas! have lost the only light that gave them life, tears alone are left them, and ceaseless weeping is the sole employment I have given them since I learned that you were bent upon a separation so unbearable to me that it must soon bring about my death. But yet it seems to me that I cling in some sort to the sorrows of which you are the sole cause. I consecrated my life to you from the moment when I first saw you, and I feel a certain pleasure in sacrificing it to you. I send you my sighs a thousand times each day, they seek you everywhere, and as sole recompense of so much disquietude they bring me back a warning too true, alas, of my unhappiness: an unhappiness which is cruel enough to prevent me from flattering myself with hope, and which is ever calling to me--Cease, cease to wear thyself out in vain, ill-fated Marianna, cease looking for a lover whom thou wilt never see again, who has crossed the seas to fly from thee, who is now in France in the midst of pleasures, who is not thinking for one moment on thy sorrows, who would not thank thee for these pangs for which he feels no gratitude. But no, I cannot make up my mind to think so ill of you, and I am too much concerned that you should right yourself. I do not even wish to think that you have forgotten me. Am I not unhappy enough already without torturing myself with false suspicions? And why should I try so hard to forget all the care you took to prove your love for me? I was so enchanted with it all that I should be ungrateful indeed were I not still to love you with the same transports that my passion lent me when I enjoyed the pledges of your love. How can the memory of moments so sweet have become so bitter? And, contrary to their nature, must they serve only to tyrannise over my heart? Alas, poor heart! your last letter brought it into a strange state; it endured such strong pangs that it seemed to be trying to tear itself from me to go and seek for you. I was so overcome by all these violent emotions that I was beside myself for more than three hours.[25] It was as though I refused to come back to a life which I feel bound to lose for you since I cannot preserve it for you. In spite of myself, however, I became myself again; I flattered myself with the feeling that I was dying of love, and besides, I was well pleased at the thought of being no longer obliged to see my heart torn by grief at your absence. Ever since those first symptoms I have suffered much from ill-health, but can I ever be well again until I see you? And yet I am bearing it without a murmur since it comes from you. What! is this the reward you give me for loving you so tenderly? But it matters not; I am resolved to adore you all my life and to care for no one else, and I tell you that you too will do well to love no other. Could you ever content yourself with a love colder than mine? You will perhaps find more beauty elsewhere (yet you told me once that I was very beautiful), but you will never find so much love: and all the rest is nothing. Do not fill any more of your letters with trifles: and do not write and tell me again to remember you. I cannot forget you, and as little do I forget the hope you gave me that you would come and spend some time with me. Alas! why are you not willing to pass your whole life at my side? Could I leave this unhappy cloister I should not await in Portugal the fulfilment of your promises. I should go fearlessly over the whole world seeking you, following you, and loving you. I dare not flatter myself that this can be. I do not care to feed a hope that would certainly give me some pleasure, while I wish to feel nothing but sorrow. Yet I confess the chance of writing to you which my brother gave me suddenly aroused in me a certain feeling of joy, and checked for a time the despair in which I live. I conjure you to tell me why you set yourself to bewitch me as you did, when you well knew that you would have to forsake me. Why were you so bent on making me unhappy? Why did you not leave me at peace in my cloister? Had I done you any wrong? But I ask your pardon. I am not accusing you. I am not in a state to think on vengeance, and I only blame the harshness of my fate. It seems to me that in separating us it has done us all the harm that we could fear from it. It will not succeed in separating our hearts,--for love, more powerful than it, has united them for ever. If you take any interest in my lot write to me often. I well deserve your taking some pains to let me know the state of your heart and fortune. Above all, come and see me. Good-bye. I cannot make up my mind to part from this letter. It will fall into your hands: would I might have the same happiness! Ah, how foolish I am! I know so well that this is impossible. Good-bye. I can no more. Good-bye. Love me always and make me suffer still more.

SECOND LETTER[26]

Das tristezas, não se pôde contar náda ordenadamente, porque desordenadamente acontescem ellas.

BERNARDIM RIBEIRO, _Saudades_, cap. i.

Your lieutenant has just told me that a storm has forced you to put into port in the Algarve.[27] I am afraid you have suffered much on the sea, and so much has this fear absorbed me that I have thought no more on all my troubles. Do you think, perchance, that your lieutenant takes more interest in what happens to you than I do? If not, why then is he better informed of it? And then, why have you not written to me? I am unlucky indeed if you have found no time for writing since you left, and still more so if you could have written and would not. Your injustice and ingratitude are too great; but I should be in despair if they were to cause you any harm. I had rather you should remain unpunished than that they should avenge me. I withstand all the appearances which ought to persuade me that you do not love me at all, and I feel much more disposed to yield myself blindly to my passion than to the reasons you give me to complain of your neglect. What mortification you would have spared me, if, in the days when I first saw you, your conduct had been as cold as it has seemed to me for some time now! But who would not have been deceived by such ardour as you then showed, and who would not have thought it sincere? How hard it is to make up one’s mind to doubt for any time the sincerity of those one loves! I see clearly that the least excuse is good enough for you; and, without your troubling to make it to me, my love for you serves you so faithfully that I cannot consent to find you guilty, except for the sake of enjoying the infinite pleasure of declaring you guiltless myself. You overcame me by your assiduities, you kindled my passions with your transports, your tenderness fascinated me, your vows persuaded me, but it was the violence of my own love which led me away; and this beginning at once so sweet and so happy, has left nothing behind it but tears, sighs, and a wretched death, without the possibility of my ministering any relief to myself. It is true that in loving you I enjoyed a pleasure unthought of before, but this very pleasure is now costing me a sorrow, which once I knew nothing of. All the emotions which you cause me run to extremes. If I had shown obstinacy in resisting your love, if I had given you any motive for anger or jealousy in order to draw you on the more, if you had detected any artifice in my conduct, if, in a word, I had wished to oppose my reason to the natural inclination I felt for you, and which you soon made me perceive (though doubtless my efforts would have been useless), you might then have punished me severely and used your power over me with some show of justice. But you seemed to me worthy of my love before you had told me that you loved me: you gave evidence of a great passion for me: I was overjoyed at it, and I gave myself up to love you to distraction. You were not blinded as I was. Why then did you let me fall into the state in which I now am? What did you want with all my raptures, which must have been very troublesome to you? You well knew that you would not stay in Portugal for ever. Then why did you single me out to make me so unhappy? Doubtless you might, in this country, have found some woman more beautiful than I am, one with whom you could have enjoyed as much pleasure,--since in this you only sought the grosser kind--one who would have loved you faithfully as long as you were with her, whom time would have consoled for your absence, and whom you might have left without either treachery or cruelty. You act more like a tyrant bent on persecution than a lover whose only thought should be how to please. Alas! why do you treat so harshly a heart which is yours? I can see very well that you let yourself be turned against me as easily as I let myself be convinced in your favour. Without needing to call on all my love, and without imagining that I had done anything out of the way, I should have resisted much stronger arguments than those can be which have moved you to leave me. They would have seemed to me very weak, and none could have been strong enough to tear me from your side. But you were ready to make use of the first pretexts that you found in order to get back to France. A vessel was sailing. Why did you not let it sail? Your family had written to you. Surely you know all the persecutions which I have suffered from mine? Your honour obliged you to abandon me. Did I take any care of mine? You were forced to go and serve your king. If all they say of him is true he has no need of your help, and would have excused you. I should have been only too happy if we could have passed our whole lives together, but since it was fated that a cruel absence should separate us, I think I ought to be glad indeed at the thought of not having been faithless, and I would not wish to have committed such a base act for anything in the world. What! you who have known the depths of my heart and affection, could you make up your mind to leave me for ever and expose me to the dread of feeling that you only remember me in order to sacrifice me to some new passion?

I well know that I love you as one distracted. Withal I do not complain of all the violence of my heart’s emotions; I am accustoming myself to its tortures, and I could not live without the pleasure which I find and enjoy in loving you in the midst of a thousand sorrows. But a disgust and hatred for everything torments me constantly; I feel my family, my friends, and this convent unbearable. All I am forced to see and everything I am obliged to do is hateful to me. I have grown so jealous of my passion that methinks all my actions and all my duties have regard to you. Yes, I have scruples in not employing every moment of my life for you. Ah! what should I do without the extremities of hate and love which fill my heart? Could I survive that which incessantly fills my thoughts, and lead a quiet cold life? Such a void, and such a lack of feeling, could never suit me. All have noticed how completely I am changed in my humour, my manners, and my person. My mother[28] spoke to me about it, sharply at first, but afterwards more kindly. I know not what I said in reply. I think I confessed all to her. Even the strictest religious pity my condition, and are moved by a certain consideration and regard for me. Every one, in fact, is touched by my love: and you alone remain profoundly indifferent. You write me letters at once cold and full of repetitions; the paper is not half filled, and you make it quite clear that you are dying to finish them.

Dona Brites has been importuning me for several days to get me to leave my room, and thinking to divert me she took me for a walk upon the balcony, from which one sees the gates of Mertola.[29] I went with her, but at once cruel memories assailed me, and these made me weep for the rest of the day. She brought me back to my room, and there I threw myself on the bed and thought a thousand times on the little hope I have of ever being well again. What is done to alleviate only embitters my grief, and I find in the very remedies themselves particular reasons for fresh sorrows. It was from that spot that I often saw you pass by with that air which charmed me so, and I was up on that balcony on the fatal day when I began to feel the first effects of my unhappy passion. Methought you were wishing to please me, although as yet you did not know me. I persuaded myself that you singled me out among all my companions. When you paused I thought you were pleased for me to see you better and admire your skill and grace whilst you caracoled your horse. A sudden fright came over me when you made it go over some difficult place. In a word, I interested myself secretly in every act of yours. I felt quite sure you were not indifferent to me, and I took as meant for me all that you did. You know too well what came of all this; and although I have nothing to hide, I ought not to write to you so much about it, lest I make you more guilty than you are already, if that be possible, and lest I have to reproach myself with so many useless efforts to oblige you to be faithful. This you will never be. Can I ever hope that my letters and reproaches will have an effect on your ingratitude that my love for you and your desertion of me have not had? I know my sad fate too well: your injustice leaves me not the slightest reason to doubt of it, and I am bound to fear the worst, since you have cast me off. Have you a charm only for me, and do not other eyes find you pleasing? I should not be annoyed, I think, were the feelings of others in some sort to justify mine, and I would wish all the women in France to find you agreeable, but none to love you, none please you. This idea is ridiculous and impossible I well know. I have already, however, found by experience that you are incapable of a great affection, and that you could easily forget me without any help, and without a fresh love obliging you to it. I would, perhaps, wish you to have some reasonable pretext for your desertion of me. It is true that I should then be more unhappy, but you would not be so guilty. You mean to stay in France, I perceive, without great enjoyments, may be, but in the possession of full liberty. The fatigue of a long voyage, some punctilios of good manners, and the fear of not being able to correspond to my ardent passion, keep you there. Oh do not be afraid of me; I will be content with seeing you from time to time, and knowing only that we are in the same country; but perhaps I flatter myself, and may be you will be more touched by the rigour and hardness of another woman than you have been by all my favours. Can it be that cruelty will inflame you more?

But before engaging yourself in any great passion, think well on the excess of my sorrows, on the uncertainty of my purposes, on the contradictions in my emotions, on the extravagance of my letters, on my trustfulness, my despair, my desires, and my jealousy. Oh! you are on the way to make yourself unhappy. I conjure you to profit by my example, that at least what I am suffering for you may not be useless to you. Five or six months ago you told me a secret which troubled me, and acknowledged, only too frankly, that you had once loved a lady in your own country. If it is she who prevents you from returning here, do not scruple to tell me, that I may fret no more. I am borne up by some remnants of hope still, but I should be well pleased, if it can have no good result, to lose it at a blow, and myself with it. Send me her likeness and some one of her letters, and write me all she says. Perchance I shall find reasons wherewith to console myself, or it may be to afflict myself still more. I cannot remain any longer in my present state, and any change whatsoever must be to my advantage. I should also like to have the portrait of your brother and of your sister-in-law.[30] All that concerns you is very dear to me, and I am wholly given up to what touches you in any way: I have no inclination of my own left. Sometimes, methinks, I could even submit to wait upon her whom you love. Your bad treatment and disdain have broken me down so far that at times I do not dare to think I could be jealous and yet not displease you, and I go so far as to think that I should be doing the greatest wrong in the world were I to upbraid you. I am often convinced that I ought not to let you see, so madly as I do, feelings which you disown. An officer has now been waiting long for this letter. I had resolved to write it in such a way that you might receive it without annoyance, but as it is, it is too extravagant, and I must close it. Alas! I cannot bring myself to this. I seem to be speaking to you whilst I write, and you seem to be more present to me. The next[31] letter shall neither be so long nor so troublesome; you may open and read it assured of this. It is true that I ought not to speak of a passion which displeases you, and I will not speak of it again. In a few days it will be a year since I gave myself up to you without reserve. Your love seemed to me very warm and sincere, and I should never have thought that my favours would so annoy you as to oblige you to voyage five hundred leagues and expose yourself to the risk of shipwreck to escape from them. I have not deserved such treatment as this at any man’s hands. You may remember my modesty, my shame, and my confusion, but you do not remember what would make you love me in spite of yourself. The officer who is to carry you this letter sends to me for the fourth time to say that he wishes to be gone. How pressing he is! doubtless he is leaving some unhappy lady in this country.

Good-bye. It costs me more to finish this letter than it cost you to quit me, perhaps for ever. Good-bye. I do not dare give you a thousand names of love, nor abandon myself to all my feelings without restraint. I love you a thousand times more than my life, and a thousand times more than I think for. How dear you are to me, and yet how cruel! You do not write to me. I could not help saying this to you again. But I am beginning afresh, and the officer will be gone. What matters it? Let him go. ’Tis not so much for your sake that I write as for my own. I only seek some solace. Besides, the very length of my letter will frighten you, and you will not read it. What have I done to be so unhappy? And why have you poisoned my life? Why was I not born in some other country? Good-bye, and forgive me. I dare not now pray you to love me. See to what my fate has brought me. Good-bye!

THIRD LETTER

... Que este pequeno penhor de meus longos suspiros vá ante os seus olhos. Muitas outras cousas desejo, mas esta me seria assaz.’--BERNARDIM RIBEIRO, _Saudades_, cap. i.

What will become of me, and what would you have me do? How far I am now from all that I had looked forward to! I hoped that you would write me from every place you passed through, and that your letters would be very long ones,--that you would feed my love by the hope of seeing you again, that full trust in your fidelity would give me some sort of rest, and that I should then remain in a state bearable enough, and without the extremes of sorrow. I had even thought of some poor plans of endeavouring, as far as possible, my own cure, in case I could but once assure myself that you had entirely forgotten me. The distance which you are at, certain impulses of devotion, the fear of entirely destroying the remainder of my health by so many wakeful nights and so many cares, the improbability of your return, the coldness of your love, and your last good-byes, your departure based on such cruel pretexts, and a thousand other reasons which are only too good and too useless, seemed to offer me a safe refuge if I needed one. Having indeed only myself to reckon with, I could never have been on my guard against all my weaknesses, nor foresee all that I now suffer. Ah! how pitiful it is for me,--I that am not able to share with you my sorrows, and must be all alone in my grief! This thought is killing me, and I almost die of horror when I think that you were never really affected by all the bliss that we shared. Yes, I understand now the untruth of all your transports. You betrayed me every time you told me that your supreme delight was to be alone with me. It is to my importunities alone that I owe your warmth and passion. Deliberately and in cold blood you formed a design to kindle my love; you only regarded my passion as your triumph, and your heart was never deeply touched. Are you not very wretched? and have you so little delicacy that you made no other use of my love but this?

How then can it be that with such love I have not been able to make you entirely happy? It is solely for love of you that I regret the infinite pleasures you have lost. Can it be that you did not care to enjoy them? Ah! if you only knew them you would doubtless find them much greater than that of having deceived me, and you would have experienced how much happier it is, and how much more poignant it is to love violently than to be loved. I know not what I am, or what I do, or what I wish for. I am torn asunder by a thousand contrary emotions. Can a more deplorable state be imagined? I love you to distraction, and therefore I spare you sufficiently not to dare to wish that the same emotions should trouble you. I should kill myself or die of grief without were I to be assured that you were never having any rest, that your life was as anxious and disturbed as mine, that you were weeping ceaselessly, and that everything was hateful to you. I cannot bear my own sufferings, how then could I support the sorrow a thousand times more grievous which yours would give me? I cannot, on the other hand, make up my mind to wish that you should think no more of me; and to speak frankly, I am furiously jealous of all that gives you pleasure, and comes near to your heart and fancy in France. I know not why I write to you. I perceive that you will only pity me, and I wish for none of your pity. I hate myself when I look back on all that I have sacrificed for you. I have lost my honour. I have exposed myself to the anger of my parents, to all the severity of the laws of this country against religious, and finally to your ingratitude, which has seemed to me the greatest of all my evils. Withal, I feel that my remorse is not real, and that I would willingly, with all my heart, have run the greatest risks for the love of you, and that I experience a sad pleasure in having risked my life and honour in your service. Ought not all that I hold most dear to be at your disposal? Ought I not to be satisfied at having employed it as I have done? Methinks, even, I am not at all content with my sorrows, or the excess of my love, although I cannot, alas! flatter myself sufficiently to be content with you. I live, unfaithful that I am; I do as much to preserve my life as to lose it. Ah! I am dying of shame. Is my despair then only in my letters? If I loved you, as I have told you a thousand times, should I not have been dead long ago? I have deceived you, and you may rightly complain of me. Alas! why do you not complain of me? I saw you leave, I can never hope to see you come back, and in spite of all I yet breathe! I have deluded you. I ask your pardon, but do not grant it me. Treat me harshly--say my love for you is too weak; be more hard to please; tell me that you would have me die of love for your sake. Help me thus, I conjure you, to overcome the weakness of my sex, and to put an end to all my wavering in real despair. Doubtless a tragic end would force you to think of me often, my memory would become dear to you, and perhaps you would be really touched by so uncommon a death. Would not death be better than the state to which you have brought me? Good-bye. How I wish that I had never seen you. Ah! I feel how false this phrase is, and I know at the very moment in which I write it that I had far rather be unhappy in my love for you than never have seen you. Willingly, and without a murmur, I consent to my evil fate, since it has not been your wish to make it happier. Good-bye; promise me a few tender regrets if I die of grief, or at least that you will let the violence of my love give you a disgust and repulsion for everything else. This consolation will suffice me, and if I must leave you for ever, I would wish not to leave you to another woman. Would it not be very cruel indeed of you to make use of my despair to render yourself more agreeable, and to let it be seen that you have inspired the greatest passion in the world? Good-bye once again. My letters are too long, and I do not regard you sufficiently. I ask your pardon, and dare hope that you will show some indulgence to a poor mad woman who was not so, as you know, before she loved you. Good-bye. Methinks I too often speak to you of the insufferable state in which I am, yet I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the despair which you cause me, and I hate the peace which I lived in before I knew you.

Good-bye! My love grows stronger each moment. Oh what a world of things I have to tell you of!

FOURTH LETTER[32]

Ai gostos fugitivos!
Ai gloria já acabada e consumida!
Ai males tão esquivos!
Qual me deixais a vida!
Quão cheia de pezar! quão destruida!

CAMÕES, _Ode_ iii.