Who can describe, and how few can feel, the charms of these repasts, consisting of a quartern loaf, a few cherries, a morsel of cheese, and half-a-pint of wine which we drank between us? Friendship, confidence, intimacy, sweetness of disposition, how delicious are your reasonings!
We sometimes remained in this situation until midnight, and never thought of the hour, unless informed of it by the old lady.But let us quit these details, which are either insipid or laughable; I have always said and felt that real enjoyment was not to be described.
Much about the same time I indulged in one not so delicate, and the last of the kind with which I have to reproach myself.I have observed that the minister Klupffel was an amiable man; my connections with him were almost as intimate as those I had with Grimm, and in the end became as familiar; Grim and he sometimes ate at my apartment.
These repasts, a little more than simple, were enlivened by the witty and extravagant wantonness of expression of Klupffel, and the diverting Germanicisms of Grimm, who was not yet become a purist.
Sensuality did not preside at our little orgies, but joy, which was preferable, reigned in them all, and we enjoyed ourselves so well together that we knew not how to separate.Klupffel had furnished a lodging for a little girl, who, notwithstanding this, was at the service of anybody, because he could not support her entirely himself.
One evening as we were going into the coffee-house, we met him coming out to go and sup with her.We rallied him; he revenged himself gallantly, by inviting us to the same supper, and there rallying us in our turn.The poor young creature appeared to be of a good disposition, mild and little fitted to the way of life to which an old hag she had with her, prepared her in the best manner she could.
Wine and conversation enlivened us to such a degree that we forgot ourselves.The amiable Klupffel was unwilling to do the honors of his table by halves, and we all three successively took a view of the next chamber, in company with his little friend, who knew not whether she should laugh or cry.Grimm has always maintained that he never touched her; it was therefore to amuse himself with our impatience, that he remained so long in the other chamber, and if he abstained, there is not much probability of his having done so from scruple, because previous of his going to live with the Comte de Friese, he lodged with girls of the town in the same quarter of St.
Roch.
I left the Rue des Moineaux, where this girl lodged, as much ashamed as Saint-Preux left the house in which he had become intoxicated, and when I wrote his story I well remembered my own.Theresa perceived by some sign, and especially by my confusion, I had something with which I reproached myself; I relieved my mind by my free and immediate confession.I did well, for the next day Grimm came in triumph to relate to her my crime with aggravation, and since that time he has never failed maliciously to recall it to her recollection; in this he was the more culpable, since I had freely and voluntarily given him my confidence, and had a right to expect he would not make me repent of it.I never had a more convincing proof than on this occasion, of the goodness of my Theresa's heart; she was more shocked at the behavior of Grimm than at my infidelity, and I received nothing from her but tender reproaches, in which there was not the least appearance of anger.
The simplicity of mind of this excellent girl was equal to her goodness of heart; and this is saying everything: but one instance of it, which is present to my recollection, is worthy of being related.I had told her Klupffel was a minister, and chaplain to the prince of Saxe-Gotha.A minister was to her so singular a man, that oddly confounding the most dissimilar ideas, she took it into her head to take Klupffel for the pope.I thought her mad the first time she told me when I came in, that the pope had called to see me.I made her explain herself and lost not a moment in going to relate the story to Grimm and Klupffel, who amongst ourselves never lost the name of pope.We gave to the girl in the Rue des Moineaux the name of Pope Joan.Our laughter was incessant; it almost stifled us.They, who in a letter which it hath pleased them to attribute to me, have made me say I never laughed but twice in my life, did not know me at this period, nor in my younger days; for if they had, the idea could never have entered into their heads.
The year following (1750), I learned that my discourse, of which Ihad not thought any more, gained the premium at Dijon.This news awakened all the ideas which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the fermentation of my heart of that first leaven of heroism and virtue which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior circumstance.Although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these principles, and from suddenly quarreling with the maxims of the age in which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do it.** And of this I purposely delayed the execution, that irritated by contradiction, it might be rendered triumphant.
While I was philosophizing upon the duties of man, an event happened which made me better reflect upon my own.Theresa became pregnant for the third time.Too sincere with myself, too haughty in my mind to contradict my principles by my actions, I began, examine the destination of my children, and my connections with the mother, according to the laws of nature, justice, and reason, and those of that religion, pure, holy, and eternal, like its author, which men have polluted while they pretended to purify it, and which by their formularies they have reduced to a religion of words, since the difficulty of prescribing impossibilities is but trifling to those by whom they are not practiced.
