Oh, Eloisa! you whom once I could call mine, though now I profane your virtuous name! my pen drops from my trembling hand, I blot the paper with my tears, I can hardly trace the first words of a letter, which ought never to be written; alas! I can neither speak nor be silent. Come, thou dear and respectable image of my love, come, purify and strengthen a heart depressed with shame and torn to pieces by remorse. Support my resolution that fails me, and give my contrition the power to avow the involuntary crime into which the absence of Eloisa has plunged me.
Oh! Eloisa, how contemptible will you think me! and yet you cannot hold me in greater contempt than I do myself. Abject as I may seem in your eyes, I am yet a hundred times more so in my own; for, in reflecting on my own demerits, what mortifies me most is to see, to feel you still in my heart, in a place henceforward so little worthy of your image and to think that the remembrance of the truest pleasures of love could not prevent me from falling into a snare that had no lure, from being led into a crime that had presented no temptation.
Such is the excess of my confusion, that I am afraid, even in recurring to your clemency, lest the perusal of the lines in which I confess my guilt should offend you. Let your purity and chastity forgive me a recital which should have been spared your modesty, were it not the means to expiate, in some degree, my infidelity. I know I am unworthy of your goodness; I am a mean, despicable wretch, but I will not be an hypocrite or deceive you, for I had rather you should deprive me of your love, and even life itself, than to impose on Eloisa for a moment. Lest I should be tempted, therefore, to seek excuses to palliate my crime, which will only render me the more criminal, I will confine myself to an exact relation of what has happened to me; a relation that shall be as sincere as my repentance, which is all I shall say in my defence.
I had commenced acquaintance with some officers in the guards, arid other young people among my countrymen, in whom I found a good innate disposition, which I was sorry to see spoiled by the imitation of I know not what false airs, which nature never designed for them. They laughed at me in their turn, for preserving in Paris the simplicity of our ancient Helvetian manners; and, construing my maxims and behaviour into an indirect censure of theirs, resolved to make me a convert to their own practices at all hazards. After several attempts which did not succeed, they made another too well concerted to fail of success. Yesterday morning they came to me, with a proposal to go with the lady of a certain colonel they mentioned, who, from the report, they were pleased to say, of my good sense, had a mind to be acquainted with me. Fool enough to give into this idle story, I represented to them the propriety of first making her a visit; but they laughed at my punctilios, telling me the frankness of a Swiss did not at all agree with such formality, and that so much ceremony would only serve to give her a bad opinion of me. At nine o'clock then in the evening, we waited on the lady. She came out to receive us on the stair-case, through an excess of civility which I had never seen practised before. Having entered the apartment, I observed a servant lighting up pieces of old wax candles over the chimney, and over all an air of preparation which did not at all please me. The mistress of the house appeared handsome, tho' a little past her prime: there were also several other women with her much about the same age and figure; their dress, which was rich enough, had more of finery in it than taste; but I have already observed to you that this is not a sure sign by which to judge of the condition of the women of this country.——The first compliments were made as usual, custom teaching one to cut them short, or to turn them into pleasantry, before they grew tiresome. Something unusual however appeared as soon as our discourse became general and serious. I thought the ladies seemed to wear an air of restraint as if it were not familiar to them, and now, for the first time since I have been at Paris, I saw women at a loss to support a rational conversation. To find an easy topic, they brought up at length their family affairs, and as I knew none of them, I had little share in the conversation. Never before did I hear so much talk of the colonel, and the colonel; which not a little surprized me, in a country where it is the custom to distinguish people rather by their names than by their profession, and in which almost every man of rank in the army has besides some other title of distinction.
This affectation of dignity soon gave way to a behaviour more natural to them: they began to talk low, and, running insensibly into an air of indecent familiarity, they laughed and whispered every time they looked at me; while the lady of the house asked me the situation of my heart, with a certain boldness of manner, not at all adapted to make a conquest of it. The table was spread, and that freedom which seems to make no distinction of persons, but generally puts every one without design in the proper place, fully convinced me what sort of company I was in. But it was too late to recede: putting my confidence therefore in my aversion, I determined to apply that evening to observation, and to employ in the study of that order of women, the only opportunity I might ever have. Little, however, was the fruit of my attention: I found them so insensible to their present situation, so void of apprehensions for the future, and, excepting the tricks of their profession, so stupid in all respects, that the contempt into which they sunk in my opinion, soon effaced the pity I first entertained for them. In speaking even of pleasure itself, I saw they were incapable of feeling it. They appeared rapacious after every thing that could gratify their avarice; and, excepting what regarded their interest, I heard not a word drop from their lips that came from the heart. I was astonished to think how men, not abandoned like themselves, could support so disgustful a society. It were, in my opinion, the most cruel punishment that could be inflicted, to oblige them to keep such company.
We sat a long while at supper, and the company at length began to grow noisy. For want of love, the wine went briskly round to inflame the guests: the discourse was not tender but immodest, and the women strove by the disorder of their dress to excite those passions which should have caused that disorder. All this had a very different effect upon me, and their endeavours to reduce me only heightened my disgust. Sweet modesty! said I to myself, it is thine to inspire the sublimest raptures love can bestow! how impotent are female charms when thou hast left them! if the sex did but know thy power, what pains would they not take to preserve thee inviolate; if not for the sake of virtue, at least for their interest! but modesty is not to be assumed. There is not a more ridiculous artifice in the world than that of the prude who affects it. What a difference, thought I, is there between the impudence of these creatures, with their licentious expressions, and those timid and tender looks, those conversations so full of modesty, so delicate, so sentimental, which——but I dare not finish the sentence; I blush at the comparison.——I reproach myself, as if it were criminal, with the delightful remembrance of her who pursues me wherever I go. But how shall I now dare to think of her?——alas! it is impossible to eraze your image from my heart: let me then strive to conceal it there.
The noise, the discourse I heard, together with the objects that presented themselves to my view, insensibly inflamed me; my two neighbours plied me incessantly with wine. I found my head confused, and, though I drank all the while a good deal of water in my wine, I now took more water, and at length determined to drink water only. It was then I perceived the pretended water set before me was white wine, and that I had drank it from the first. I made no complaints, as they would only have subjected me to raillery, but gave over drinking entirely. But it was too late, the mischief was already done, and the intoxicating effects of what I had already drank soon deprived me of the little sense that remained. I was surprized, in recovering my senses, to find myself in a retired closet, locked in the embraces of one of those creatures I had supped with, and in the same instant had the mortification to find myself as criminal as I could possibly be.
I have finished this horrible relation. Would to heaven it might never more offend your eyes, nor torture my memory. O Eloisa! it is from you I expect my doom; I demand, I deserve, your severity. Whatever be my punishment it will be less cruel than the remembrance of my crime.
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