“My poor friend,” said I, from the bottom of my heart, “I have a word of advice for you, and it is this:  I believe that you must die.  While there is still some virtue left, profit by it in order that you may not become altogether bad; while a woman you love lies there dying on that bed, and while you have a horror of yourself, strike the decisive blow; she still lives; that is enough; do not attend her funeral obsequies for fear that on the morrow you will not be consoled; turn the poignard against your own heart while that heart yet loves the God who made it.  Is it your youth that gives you pause?  And would you spare those youthful locks?  Never allow them to whiten if they are not white to-night.

“And then what would you do in the world?  If you go away, where will you go?  What can you hope for if you remain?  Ah! in looking at that woman you seem to have a treasure buried in your heart.  It is not merely that you lose her; it is less what has been than what might have been.  When the hands of the clock indicated such and such an hour, you might have been happy.  If you suffer why do you not open your heart?  If you love, why do you not say so?  Why do you die of hunger, clasping a priceless treasure in your hands?  You have closed the door, you miser; you debate with yourself behind locks and bolts.  Shake them, for it was your hand that forged them.

“O fool! who desired and have possessed your desire, you have not thought of God!  You play with happiness as a child plays with a rattle, and you do not reflect how rare and fragile a thing you hold in your hands; you treat it with disdain, you smile at it and you continue to amuse yourself with it, forgetting how many prayers it has cost your good angel to preserve for you that shadow of daylight!  Ah! if there is in heaven one who watches over you, what is he doing at this moment?  He is seated before an organ; his wings are half-folded, his hands extended over the ivory keys; he begins an eternal hymn; the hymn of love and immortal rest, but his wings droop, his head falls over the keys; the angel of death has touched him on the shoulder, he disappears into the Nirvana.

“And you, at the age of twenty-two, when a noble and exalted passion, when the strength of youth might perhaps have made something of you when after so many sorrows and bitter disappointments, a youth so dissipated, you saw a better time shining in the future; when your life, consecrated to the object of your adoration, gave promise of new strength, at that moment the abyss yawns before you!  You no longer experience vague desires, but real regrets; your heart is no longer hungry, it is broken!  And you hesitate?  What do you expect?  Since she no longer cares for your life, it counts for nothing!  Since she abandons you, abandon yourself!