Young Jean Jacques was at length apprenticed to an engraver. He describes the contrast of his new situation and the effect of the contrast upon his own character and career:
I learned to covet in silence, to dissemble, to dissimulate, to lie, and at last to steal, a propensity for which I had never hitherto had the slightest inclination, and of which I have never since been able quite to cure myself....
My first theft was the result of complaisance, but it opened the door to others which had not so laudable a motive.
My master had a journeyman named M. Verrat.... [He] took it into his head to rob his mother of some of her early asparagus and sell it, converting the proceeds into some extra good breakfasts. As he did not wish to expose himself, and not being very nimble, he selected me for this expedition. Long did I stickle, but he persisted. I never could resist kindness, so I consented. I went every morning to the garden, gathered the best of the asparagus, and took it to “the Molard,” where some good creature, perceiving that I had just been stealing it, would insinuate that little fact, so as to get it the cheaper. In my terror I took whatever she chose to give me and carried it to M. Verrat.
This little domestic arrangement continued for several days before it came into my head to rob the robber, and tithe M. Verrat for the proceeds of the asparagus.... I thus learned that to steal was, after all, not so very terrible a thing as I had conceived, and ere long I turned this discovery to so good an account, that nothing I had an inclination for could safely be left within my reach....
And now, before giving myself over to the fatality of my destiny, let me, for a moment, contemplate what would naturally have been my lot had I fallen into the hands of a better master. Nothing was more agreeable to my tastes, nor better calculated to render me happy, than the calm and obscure condition of a good artisan, more especially in certain lines, such as that of an engraver at Geneva.... In my native country, in the bosom of my religion, of my family, and my friends, I should have led a life gentle and uncheckered as became my character, in the uniformity of a pleasing occupation and among connections dear to my heart. I should have been a good Christian, a good citizen, a good father, a good friend, a good artisan, and a good man in every respect. I should have loved my station; it may be I should have been an honor to it; and after having passed an obscure and simple, though even and happy, life, I should peacefully have departed in the bosom of my kindred. Soon, it may be, forgotten, I should at least have been regretted as long as the remembrance of me survived.
Instead of this ... what a picture am I about to draw!
Thus ends the first book of the “Confessions.”
The picture Rousseau is “about to draw” has in it a certain Madame de Warens for a principal figure. This lady, a Roman Catholic convert from Protestantism, had forsaken a husband, not loved, and was living on a bounty from King Victor Amadeus of Sardinia. For Annecy, the home of Madame de Warens, our young Jean Jacques, sent thither by a Roman Catholic curate, sets out on foot. The distance was but one day’s walk; which one day’s walk, however, the humor of the wanderer stretched into a saunter of three days. The man of fifty-four, become the biographer of his own youth, finds no lothness of self-respect to prevent his detailing the absurd adventures with which he diverted himself on the way. For example:
Not a country-seat could I see, either to the right or left, without going after the adventure which I was certain awaited me. I could not muster courage to enter the mansion, nor even to knock, for I was excessively timid; but I sang beneath the most inviting window, very much astonished to find, after wasting my breath, that neither lady nor miss made her appearance, attracted by the beauty of my voice, or the spice of my songs—seeing that I knew some capital ones that my comrades had taught me, and which I sang in the most admirable manner.