To the Chevalier Deterville at Malta.

You would not surely, Sir, complain of me, if you were not entirely ignorant of the condition from which I have been revived by the cruel attention of Celina. It was not possible for me to write to you; I was not even capable of thinking. If any sense had remained in me, undoubtedly it would have been that of a thorough confidence in you. But surrounded by death, the blood frozen in my veins, I was long ignorant of my own existence: I was no longer sensible I was unhappy. Why, O ye Gods! in calling me back to life, have ye also recalled to me that dreadful remembrance.

He is gone! my eyes shall no more behold him! he flies from me; he no longer loves me; he tells me so: Every thing, with regard to my passion, is an end. He takes another for his wife, and religion forbids him to think any more of me. Why! O cruel Aza! since the ridiculous fashions of Europe have such charms for you, why do you not also partake a little of that deceit which accompanies them?

Happy Frenchwomen, it is true you are betrayed! but you are complaisantly indulged in that error which would now be a comfort to my mind. I receive at once the mortal blow, which has long been preparing for you. Fatal sincerity of my nation, which was once my pride, thou art no longer a virtue. Courage and firmness, which freely declare the sentiments of the heart, appear to me now to be crimes.

Barbarous Aza, thou hast seen me at thy feet; those feet have been bathed with my tears, and yet thou hast left me – horrid moment! why does not the remembrance of it deprive me of life?

If I had not swooned beneath the weight of my grief, Aza should not have triumphed over my weakness – he should not have gone alone. I would have followed the ungrateful man, my eyes should have been fixed on him to the latest moment of my life, and I would have had the pleasure of dying in his sight.