Never the hand of God on fifteen years
Had marked a soul more lovely or more human.
What more was wanting to feed a love which, having no object, created its image for itself?
Another book, however, was destined to enter still more deeply into my sensibility, corresponding as it did with that condition of independence and enfranchisement to which I deemed myself to have attained. Into the pile of almanacs brought thither by grandfather had slipped that copy of the “Confessions” which had puzzled me as a child, and which I had taken for a manual of piety. The innocent Limping Messenger of Berne and Vevey came leading by the hand that Jean-Jacques whom, long before I knew him, I had heard spoken of as if he were still living and we might meet him anywhere in our walks. I had read in school only short fragments of his writings in which I had found nothing personal. I fell upon the narrative of that troubled life, which at first disgusted me. The theft of the ribbon in the house of Mme de Vercellis and the cowardly accusation that followed, certain physiological details which I could ill understand, the title of maman bestowed upon Mme de Warens, produced upon me the effect of immodest confidences, and all alone as I was in the forest, or lying in the grass on the top of the mountain, I felt myself blushing to the ears. My deepest nature resisted, but by an insensible decline I came even to admire the man who could humiliate himself by such avowals; not perceiving their pride I felt giddied by their truth.
After that the volume never left me. Louise, disturbed by this preoccupation, tried to wield some censorship. One evening as I came in from gazing at the stars—those in the South, which I most easily recognised—I found her under the lamp looking into the “Confessions.” She did not see me and I watched her; she suddenly closed the book, and perceiving me, her indignation burst forth:
“You have no right to read this book.”
“I read what I please.”
She appealed to grandfather, who declined all responsibility.
“Oh, every one is free. And at least Jean-Jacques is sincere.”
The love passages excited me, and what rendered them more precious and more seductive to me was the writers lovely way of praising at once the peace of the country and the happiness of bucolic life. In the peace that environed me I felt more plainly the movements of my own heart. I was at the feet of Mme Basile without daring so much as to touch her dress. A slight movement of her finger,—hand lightly pressed against my lips, were the only favours I ever received from her, and the memory of these slight favours transports me as I think of them. I would try to represent to myself the gentle air of those fair women whom no heart could resist, and—shall I be believed?—I found a personal application in a lament which touched my hardly completed and already disquieted eighteen years. Tormented with the desire to love without ever finding its satisfaction, I saw myself drawing nigh to the gates of old age and dying without having lived. When I climbed high enough to see the lake, far away at the foot of the hills, I would repeat the simple aspiration, All I desire is a sure friend, a loving wife, a cow and a little boat, and my growing exaltation of sentiment seemed endowed with innocence. I could have wept for love while eating strawberries smothered in sweet cream.