Ah, thou most unfortunate and tender girl! art thou then destined to be unhappy? I try in vain to keep thee from sorrow, but thou dost seem to court affliction; thy evil genius is more powerful than all my endeavours. Do not however add chimerical apprehensions to so many real causes of inquietude: and since my caution has been more prejudicial than serviceable to you, let me free you from a mistake which aggravates your misery; perhaps the melancholy truth will be less tormenting. Know then that your dream, was not a dream; that it was not the phantom of your friend which you beheld, but his real person; and that the affecting scene, which is ever present to your imagination, did actually pass in your room, on the day after your disorder was at the crisis.
On the preceding day, I left you very late; and Mr. Orbe, who would take me from you that night, was ready to depart; when on a sudden we perceived that unhappy wretch, whose condition is truly deplorable, enter hastily, and throw himself at our feet. He took post horses immediately on the receipt of your last letter. By travelling day and night, he performed the journey in three days, and never stopped till the last stage; where he waited in order to enter the town under favour of the night. I am ashamed to confess, that I was less eager than Mr. Orbe to embrace him: without knowing the intent of his journey, I foresaw the consequence. The bitter recollection of former times, your danger and his, his manifest discomposure of mind, all contributed to check so agreeable a surprize; and I was too powerfully affected to salute him with eagerness. I nevertheless embraced him with a heart-felt emotion in which he sympathized, and which reciprocally displayed itself in a kind of mute grief, more eloquent than tears and lamentations. The first words he uttered were——"How does she? O, how is my Eloisa? am I to live or die?" I concluded from thence, that he was informed of your illness, and upon the supposition that he was likewise acquainted with the nature of it, I spoke without any other precaution than that of extenuating the danger. When he understood that it was the small-pox, he made dreadful lamentation, and was taken suddenly ill. Fatigue and the want of sleep, together with perturbation of mind, had so entirely overcome him, that it was some time before we could bring him to himself. He had scarce strength to speak; we persuaded him to take rest.
Nature being quite spent, he slept twelve hours successively, but with so much agitation that such a sleep must rather impair than recruit his strength. The next day gave birth to new perplexity: he was absolutely determined to see you. I represented to him the danger there was that his presence might occasion some fatal revolution in your distemper. He proposed to wait till there was no risque; but his stay itself was a terrible risque, of which I endeavoured to make him sensible. He rudely interrupted me. "Cease, said he, with a tone of indignation, your cruel eloquence: it is too much, to exert it for my ruin. Do not hope to drive me from hence as you did when I was forced into exile. I would travel a hundred times from the farthest extremity of the world for one glance of my Eloisa: but I swear, added he with vehemence, by the author of my being, that I will not stir till I have seen her. We will try for once, whether I shall move you with compassion, or you make me guilty of perjury."
His resolution was fixed. Mr. Orbe was of opinion that we should contrive some means to gratify him, that we might send him away before his return was discovered: for he was only known to one person in the house, of whose secrecy I was assured; and we called him by a feigned name before the family.[39]I promised him that he should see you the next night, upon condition that he staid but a minute, that he did not utter a syllable, and that he departed the next morning before break of day. To these conditions, I exacted his solemn promise; then I was easy, I left my husband with him, and returned to you.
I found you much better, the irruption was quite compleat; and the physician raised my courage, by giving me hope. I laid my plan beforehand with Bab, and the increase of your fever, though a little abated, leaving you still somewhat light-headed, I took that opportunity to dismiss every body, and send my husband word to introduce his guest, concluding that before the paroxysm of your disorder was over, you would be less likely to recollect him. We had all the difficulty in the world to get rid of your disconsolate father, who was determined to sit up with you every night. At length I told him with some warmth, that he would spare nobody the trouble of watching, for that I was determined likewise to sit up with you, and that he might be assured, though he was your father, his tenderness for you was not more diligent than mine. He departed with reluctance, and we remained by ourselves Mr. Orbe came about eleven, and told me that he had left your friend in the street. I went in search of him: I took him by the hand: he trembled like a leaf. As he went through the anti-chamber, his strength failed him: he drew his breath with difficulty, and was forced to sit down.
At length, having singled out some objects by the faint glimmering of a distant light——yes, said he, with a deep sigh, I recollect these apartments. Once in my life I traversed them——about the same hour——with the same mysterious caution——I trembled as I do now——My heart fluttered with the same emotion——O! rash creature that I was——though but a poor mortal, I nevertheless dared to taste.——What am I now going to behold in that same spot, where every thing diffused a delight with which my soul was intoxicated? what am I going to view, in that same object which inspired and shared my transports?——the retinue of melancholy, the image of death, afflicted virtue, and expiring beauty!
Dear cousin; I will spare thy tender heart the dismal detail of such an affecting scene. He saw you, and was mute. He had promised to be silent;——but such a silence! he fell upon his knees; he sobbed, and kissed the curtains of your bed; he lifted up his hands and eyes; he fetched deep and silent groans; he could scarce stifle his grief and lamentations. Without seeing him, you accidentally put one of your hands out of bed; he seized it with extravagant eagerness; the ardent kisses he impressed on your sick hand, awaked you sooner than all the noise and murmur which buzzed about you. I perceived that you recollected him, and in spite of all his resistance and complaints, I forced him from your chamber directly, hoping to elude the impression of such a fleeting apparition, under the pretence of its being the effect of your delirium. But finding that you took no notice of it, I concluded that you had forgot it. I forbad Bab to mention it, and I am persuaded she has kept her word. A needless caution which love has disconcerted, and which has only served to aggravate the pain of a recollection which it is too late to efface.
He departed as he had promised, and I made him swear not to stop in the neighbourhood. But, my dear girl, this is not all; I must acquaint you with another circumstance, of which likewise you cannot long remain ignorant. Lord B—— passed by two days afterwards; he hastened to overtake him; he joined him at Dijon, and found him ill. The unlucky wretch had caught the small-pox. He kept it secret from me that he had never had the distemper, and I introduced him without precaution. As he could not cure your disorder, he was determined to partake of it. When I recollect the eagerness with which he kissed your hand, I make no doubt but he underwent inoculation purposely. It is impossible to have been worse prepared to receive it; but it was the inoculation of love, and it proved fortunate. The author of life preserved the most tender lover that ever existed; he is recovered, and according to my lord's last letter, they are by this time actually set out for Paris.
You see, my too lovely cousin, that you ought to banish those melancholy terrors, which alarm you without reason. You have long since renounced the person of your friend, and you find that his life is safe. Think of nothing therefore, but how to preserve your own, and how to make the promised sacrifice to paternal affection with becoming grace. Cease to be the sport of vain hope, and to feed yourself with chimeras. You are in great haste to be proud of your deformity; let me advise you to be more humble; believe me you have yet too much reason to be so. You have undergone a cruel infection, but it has spared your face. What you take for seams, is nothing but a redness which will quickly disappear. I was worse affected than you, yet nevertheless you see I am tolerable. My angel, you will still be beautiful in spite of yourself; and do you think that the enamoured Wolmar, who, in three years absence, could not conquer a passion conceived in eight days, is likely to be cured of it, when he has an opportunity of seeing you every hour? Oh! if your only resource is the hope of being disagreeable, how desperate is your condition!
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