When each night I
reckoned over the limited number of happy days represented by that
small sum, I was seized with fits of despondency, but I should have
blushed to confess my excessive poverty to her I loved. Though far from
wealthy she would have wished to share with me all she possessed, and
that would have degraded our intercourse in my eyes. I valued my love
more than life, but I would rather have died than have debased my love.
The sedentary life I had led all the winter in my dismal room, my
intense application to study all day, the tension of my thoughts
towards one object, the want of sleep at night, but, above all, the
moral exhaustion of a heart too weak to bear a continuous ecstasy of
ten months, had undermined my constitution. A consuming flame, which
burned unfed, shone through my wan and pale face. Julie implored me to
leave Paris, to try the effect of my native air, and to preserve my
life, even at the expense of her happiness. She sent me her doctor, to
add the authority of science to the entreaties of her love.
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