To the Chevalier Deterville at Malta.

Be not discouraged, too generous friend: I was determined to write to you no more till my life was out of danger, and my mind a little more at ease, that I might be able to calm the uneasiness of yours. I live: Fate will have it so, and I submit to my destiny.

The extreme care of your amiable sister has restored my health, and some returns of reason have supported it. The certainty that my misfortune is past remedy has, in some measure, reconciled me to it. I know that Aza is arrived in Spain, and that he has completed his crime; my grief is not gone, but the cause of it is no longer worthy. If any regret now remains upon my mind, it is for the vexation I have given you, for my sad mistake, and the dreadful wanderings of my reason.

In proportion as this reason enlightens me, I cannot help taking notice of its impotence. How small its power in an afflicted soul! Excess of grief throws us back to childhood. As in that first stage, so in this, objects alone have power over us: the sight seems to be the only sense that has any intimate communication with the soul. This I may say from woeful experience.

When I recovered from the long and senseless lethargy into which the departure of Aza had thrown me, the first desire which I felt was that of retiring into the solitude which I owe to your providential goodness. It was with great difficulty that Celina suffered me to return thither; but there I found such relief from despair, as neither the world, nor even friendship itself, could afford me. In your sister's house, even her conversation was incapable of banishing from my mind those objects which continually renewed the remembrance of Aza's perfidy.