She will not see me! all is over! nothing can overcome her stupid, obstinacy which she takes for virtue.  If I could only have spoken to her once, I should have said—­I don’t know what, but I should have found words to make her return to me.  But she entrenches herself behind her obstinacy; she knows that I would vanquish her; she has no good arguments with which to answer me; for I love her madly, desperately, frantically!  Passion is eloquent.  She flies from me!  O perfidy and cowardice! she dare not face the misery she has caused, and veils her eyes when she strikes!

I am going to America.  I will dull my mental grief by physical exhaustion; I will subdue the soul through the body; I will ascend the giant rivers whose bosoms bloom with thousands of islands; penetrate into the virgin forests where no trapper has yet set his foot; I will hunt the buffalo with the savage, and swim upon that ocean of shaggy heads and sharp horns; I will gallop at full speed over the prairie, pursued by the smoke of the burning grass.  If the memory of Louise refuses to leave me, I will stop my horse and await the flames!  I will carry my love so far away that it must perforce leave me.

I feel it, my life is wrecked for ever!—­I cannot live in a world where Louise is not mine!  Perhaps the young universe may contain a panacea for my anguish!  Solitude shall pour its balm in my wound; once away from this civilization which stifles me, nature will cradle me in her motherly arms; the elements will resume their empire over me; ocean, sky, flowers, foliage will draw off the feverish electricity that excites my nerves; I will become absorbed in the grand whole, I will no longer live; I will vegetate and succeed in attaining the content of the plant that opens its leaves to the sun.  I feel that I must stop my brain, suspend the beating of my heart, or I shall go raving mad.

I shall sail from Havre.  A year from now write to me at the English fort in the Rocky Mountains, and I will join you in whatever corner of the globe you have gone to bury your despair over the loss of Irene de Chateaudun!

EDGAR DE MEILHAN

XXVII.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN to MADAME GUERIN,
Pont-de-l’Arche (Eure).

RICHEPORT, July 23d 18—.

Louise, I write to you, although the resolution that I have taken should, no doubt, he silently carried out; but the swimmer struggling with the waves in mid-ocean cannot help, although he knows it is useless, uttering a last wild cry ere he sinks forever beneath the flood.  Perhaps a sail may appear on the desert horizon and his last despairing shout be heard!  It is so hard to believe ourselves finally condemned and to renounce all hope of pardon!  My letter will be of no avail, and yet I cannot help sending it.