A review by blueyorkie
Cartas Portuguesas by Mariana Alcoforado

3.0

I am writing to you for the last time, and I hope to make known to you, by the difference of the terms and the manner of this letter, that you have finally persuaded me that you do not love me anymore and that thus I do not must love you more. Therefore, I will send you all that I still have of you by the first route: Do not be afraid that I am writing to you; I won't even put your name on top of the package. I have charged Dona Brites with all this detail, whom I have become accustomed to with confidences far removed from her: her care will be less suspect to me than mine. She will take all the necessary precautions to ensure that you have received the portrait and the bracelets you gave me. However, I want you to know that I have felt, for a few days now, in a state of burning, and of tearing up these pledges of your Love, which were so dear to me, but I have shown you so much weakness, that you do not never would have believed that I could have become capable of such an extremity; I, therefore, want to enjoy all the trouble I had to part with it, and at least give you some vexation: I confess to my shame and yours, that I found myself more attached than I want you to say it, to these trifles, and that I felt that I had a new need for all my reflections, to get rid of each one in particular, even when I flattered myself that I was no longer attached to you: But we overcomes anything you want, with so many reasons: I put them in the hands of Dona Brites; how many tears this resolution cost me! After a thousand movements and a thousand uncertainties that you do not know and which I will certainly not report to you. I begged her never to tell me about it, never to return them to me, though I would ask for them to see them again and to send them back to you, well, without notifying me.