When I arose in the morning, I never could say to myself, I will employ this day as I think proper.And, moreover, besides my being subject to obey the call of Madam d'Epinay, I was exposed to the still more disagreeable importunities of the public and chance comers.The distance I was at from Paris did not prevent crowds of idlers, not knowing how to spend their time, from daily breaking in upon me, and, without the least scruple, freely disposing of mine.When I least expected visitors I was unmercifully assailed by them, and I seldom made a plan for the agreeable employment of the day that was not counteracted by the arrival of some stranger.
In short, finding no real enjoyment in the midst of the pleasures I had been most desirous to obtain, I, by sudden mental transitions, returned in imagination to the serene days of my youth, and sometimes exclaimed with a sigh: "Ah! this is not Les Charmettes!"The recollection of the different periods of my life led me to reflect upon that at which I was arrived, and I found I was already on the decline, a prey to painful disorders, and imagined I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted, in all its plenitude, scarcely any one of the pleasures after which my heart had so much thirsted, or having given scope to the lively sentiments Ifelt it had in reserve.I had not favored even that intoxicating voluptuousness with which my mind was richly stored, and which, for want of an object, was always compressed, and never exhaled but by signs.
How was it possible that, with a mind naturally expansive, I, with whom to live was to love, should not hitherto have found a friend entirely devoted to me; a real friend: I who felt myself so capable of being such a friend to another? How can it be accounted for that with such warm affections, such combustible senses, and a heart wholly made up of love, I had not once, at least, felt its flame for a determinate object? Tormented by the want of loving, without ever having been able to satisfy it, I perceived myself approaching the eve of old age, and hastening on to death without having lived.
These melancholy but affecting recollections led me to others which, although accompanied with regret, were not wholly unsatisfactory.Ithought something I had not yet received was still due to me from destiny.
To what end was I born with exquisite faculties? To suffer them to remain unemployed? The sentiment of conscious merit, which made me consider myself as suffering injustice, was some kind of reparation, and caused me to shed tears which with pleasure I suffered to flow.
These were my meditations during the finest season of the year, in the month of June, in cool shades, to the songs of the nightingale, and the warbling of brooks.Everything concurred in plunging me into that too seducing state of indolence for which I was born, but from which my austere manner, proceeding from a long effervescence, should forever have delivered me.I unfortunately recollected the dinner of the Chateau de Toune, and my meeting with the two charming girls in the same season, in places much resembling that in which Ithen was.The remembrance of these circumstances, which the innocence that accompanied them rendered to me still more dear, brought several others of the nature to my recollection.I presently saw myself surrounded by all the objects which, in my youth, had given me emotion.Mademoiselle Galley, Mademoiselle de Graffenried, Mademoiselle de Breil, Madam Basile, Madam de Larnage, my pretty scholars, and even the bewitching Zulietta, whom my heart could not forget.I found myself in the midst of a seraglio of houris of my old acquaintance, for whom the most lively inclination was not new to me.My blood became inflamed, my head turned, notwithstanding my hair was almost gray, and the grave citizen of Geneva, the austere Jean-Jacques, at forty-five years of age, again became the fond shepherd.The intoxication, with which my mind was seized, although sudden and extravagant, was so strong and lasting, that, to enable me to recover from it, nothing less than the unforeseen and terrible crisis it brought on was necessary.
This intoxication, to whatever degree it was carried, went not so far as to make me forget my age and situation, to flatter me that Icould still inspire love, nor to make me attempt to communicate the devouring flame by which ever since my youth I had felt my heart in vain consumed.For this I did not hope; I did not even desire it.Iknew the season of love was past; I knew too well in what contempt the ridiculous pretensions of superannuated gallants were held, ever to add one to the number, and I was not a man to become an impudent coxcomb in the decline of life, after having been so little such during the flower of my age.Besides, as a friend to peace, I should have been apprehensive of domestic dissensions; and I too sincerely loved Theresa to expose her to the mortification of seeing me entertain for others more lively sentiments than those with which she inspired me for herself.
