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"With our lessons as a pretext we
abandoned ourselves entirely to love.
Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired,
with our books open before us more words of love than of our reading
passed between us, and more kissing than teaching. My hands strayed more
often over the curves of her body than to the pages; love drew our eyes to
look on each other more than reading kept them on our texts." "You know, beloved, as the whole world knows,
how much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of fortune that
supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed me of my very self in robbing me
of you." "In my case the pleasures of lovers which we
shared have been too sweet – they can never displease me, and can
scarcely be banished from my thoughts. …. I should be groaning over the
sins I have committed, but I can only sigh for what I have lost." And yet you have it in your power to remedy my grief,
even if you cannot remove it. Translation:
Betty Radice |