...You speak to me therein with frankness, you display me confidence, and you offer me your friendship: what good things, Madame, and how I regret that I can not profit by them! Why am I no longer what I was?Originally Posted by Toothfairy
If I were, indeed, if I felt for you only an ordinary fancy, that light fancy which is the child of seduction and pleasure, which to-day, however, is christened love, I should hasten to extract advantage from all that I could obtain. With scant delicacy as to means, provided that they procured me success, I should encourage your frankness from my need of finding you out; I should desire your confidence with the design of betraying it; I should accept your friendship with the hope of beguiling it… What, Madame! does this picture alarm you?…Ah, well, it would be a true picture of me, were I to tell you that I consented to be no more than your friend. (!!)
What, I! I consent to share with any one a sentiment which has emanated from your soul! If I ever tell you so, do not believe me. From that moment I should seek to deceive you; I might desire you still, but I should assuredly love you no longer.
It is not that amiable frankness, sweet confidence, sensible friendship are without value in my eyes…But love! True love, and such as you inspire, by uniting all these sentiments, by giving them more energy, would not know how to lend itself, like them, to that tranquillity, to that coldness of soul, which permits comparisons, which even suffers preferences.
No, Madame, I will not be your friend; I will love you with the most tender, even the most ardent love, although the most respectful. You can drive it to despair, but you cannot annihilate it...


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