"And because you let fall this glance--a mere grain of dust,yet a grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at the summit of a subject's ambition--I long to tell you,Louise,how dear you are to me,and that my love is for yourself alone,without a thought beyond,a love that far more than fulfils the conditions laid down by you for an ideal passion.
"Know,then,idol of my highest heaven,that there is in the world an offshoot of the Saracen race,whose life is in your hands,who will receive your orders as a slave,and deem it an honor to execute them.I have given myself to you absolutely and for the mere joy of giving,for a single glance of your eye,for a touch of the hand which one day you offered to your Spanish master.I am but your servitor,Louise;I claim no more.
"No,I dare not think that I could ever be loved;but perchance my devotion may win for me toleration.Since that morning when you smiled upon me with generous girlish impulse,divining the misery of my lonely and rejected heart,you reign there alone.You are the absolute ruler of my life,the queen of my thoughts,the god of my heart;I find you in the sunshine of my home,the fragrance of my flowers,the balm of the air I breathe,the pulsing of my blood,the light that visits me in sleep.
"One thought alone troubled this happiness--your ignorance.All unknown to you was this boundless devotion,the trusty arm,the blind slave,the silent tool,the wealth--for henceforth all Ipossess is mine only as a trust--which lay at your disposal;unknown to you,the heart waiting to receive your confidence,and yearning to replace all that your life (I know it well)has lacked --the liberal ancestress,so ready to meet your needs,a father to whom you could look for protection in every difficulty,a friend,a brother.The secret of your isolation is no secret to me!If Iam bold,it is because I long that you should know how much is yours.
"Take all,Louise,and is so doing bestow on me the one life possible for me in this world--the life of devotion.In placing the yoke on my neck,you run no risk;I ask nothing but the joy of knowing myself yours.Needless even to say you will never love me;it cannot be otherwise.I must love you from afar,without hope,without reward beyond my own love.
"In my anxiety to know whether you will accept me as your servant,I have racked my brain to find some way in which you may communicate with me without any danger of compromising yourself.
Injury to your self-respect there can be none in sanctioning a devotion which has been yours for many days without your knowledge.Let this,then,be the token.At the opera this evening,if you carry in your hand a bouquet consisting of one red and one white camellia--emblem of a man's blood at the service of the purity he worships--that will be my answer.I ask no more;thenceforth,at any moment,ten years hence or to-morrow,whatever you demand shall be done,so far as it is possible for man to do it,by your happy servant,"FELIPE HENAREZ."/P.S./--You must admit,dear,that great lords know how to love!See the spring of the African lion!What restrained fire!What loyalty!
What sincerity!How high a soul in low estate!I felt quite small and dazed as I said to myself,"What shall I do?"It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations.He is at once sublime and touching,childlike and of the race of giants.In a single letter Henarez has outstripped volumes from Lovelace or Saint-Preux.Here is true love,no beating about the bush.Love may be or it may not,but where it is,it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.
Here am I,shorn of all my little arts!To refuse or accept!That is the alternative boldly presented me,without the ghost of an opening for a middle course.No fencing allowed!This is no longer Paris;we are in the heart of Spain or the far East.It is the voice of Abencerrage,and it is the scimitar,the horse,and the head of Abencerrage which he offers,prostrate before a Catholic Eve!Shall Iaccept this last descendant of the Moors?Read again and again his Hispano-Saracenic letter,Renee dear,and you will see how love makes a clean sweep of all the Judaic bargains of your philosophy.
Renee,your letter lies heavy on my heart;you have vulgarized life for me.What need have I for finessing?Am I not mistress for all time of this lion whose roar dies out in plaintive and adoring sighs?Ah!
how he must have raged in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin!I know where he lives,I have his card:/F.,Baron de Macumer/.
He has made it impossible for me to reply.All I can do is to fling two camellias in his face.What fiendish arts does love possess--pure,honest,simple-minded love!Here is the most tremendous crisis of a woman's heart resolved into an easy,simple action.Oh,Asia!I have read the /Arabian Nights/,here is their very essence:two flowers,and the question is settled.We clear the fourteen volumes of /Clarissa Harlowe/with a bouquet.I writhe before this letter,like a thread in the fire.To take,or not to take,my two camellias.Yes or No,kill or give life!At last a voice cries to me,"Test him!"And Iwill test him.
