as if you were alive.  I am afraid of being restrained, governed, swayed by your image as I am by your person.  Then, again, a man cannot destroy the being he loves and fears; for when she has ceased to exist on earth she still exists in himself.  It is the lover’s soul which serves as a coffin for his mistress and which forever preserves her burning remains, that it may feed on them without ever consuming them.  But, great Heaven! what is this tumult in my thoughts?  You see, Edmee, to what an extent my mind is sick; take pity on me, then.  Bear with me, let me be sad, never doubt my devotion.  I am often mad, but I worship you always.  A word, a look from you, will always recall me to a sense of duty, and this duty will be sweet when you deign to remind me of it.  As I write to you, Edmee, the sky is full of clouds that are darker and heavier than lead; the thunder is rumbling, and doleful ghosts of purgatory seem to be floating in the glare of the lightning.  The weight of the storm lies on my soul; my bewildered mind quivers like the flashes which leap from the firmament.  It seems as if my whole being were about to burst like the tempest.  Ah, could I but lift up to you a voice like unto its voice!  Had I the power to lay bare the agonies and passions which rend me within!  Often, when a storm has been sweeping over the great oaks above, you have told me that you enjoy gazing upon the fury of the one and the resistance of the other.  This, you say, is a battle of mighty forces; and in the din in the air you fancy you can detect the curses of the north wind and the mournful cries of the venerable branches.  Which suffers the more, Edmee, the tree which resists, or the wind which exhausts itself in the attack?  Is it not always the wind that yields and falls?  And then the sky, grieved at the defeat of her noble son, sheds a flood of tears upon the earth.  You love these wild images, Edmee; and whenever you behold strength vanquished by resistance you smile cruelly, and there is a look in your inscrutable eyes that seems to insult my misery.  Well, you have cast me to the ground, and, though shattered, I still suffer; yes, learn this, since you wish to know it, since you are merciless enough to question me and to feign compassion.  I suffer, and I no longer try to remove the foot which the proud conqueror has placed on my broken heart.”

The rest of this letter, which was very long, very rambling and absurd from beginning to end, was in the same strain.  It was not the first time that I had written to Edmee, though I lived under the same roof, and never left her except during the hours of rest.  My passion possessed me to such a degree that I was irresistibly drawn to encroach upon my sleep in order to write to her, I could never feel that I had talked enough about her, that I had sufficiently renewed my promises of submission—­a submission in which I was constantly failing.  The present letter, however, was more daring and more passionate