Is it your
youth that makes 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 have 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
immensity!
"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!
Let those who have loved you in your youth weep for you! They are not
many.
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