Till now we had slept in her chamber, and during the
winter, even in her bed; but two days after another room was
prepared for us.
Who would believe this childish discipline, received at eight
years old, from the hand of a woman of thirty, should influence my
propensities, my desires, my passions, for the rest of my life, and
that in quite a contrary sense from what might naturally have been
expected? The very incident that inflamed my senses, gave my desires
such an extraordinary turn, that, confined to what I had already
experienced, I sought no further, and, with blood boiling with
sensuality almost from my birth, preserved my purity beyond the age
when the coldest constitutions lose their sensibility; long tormented,
without knowing by what, I gazed on every handsome woman with delight;
imagination incessantly brought their charms to my remembrance, only
to transform them into so many Miss Lamberciers. Even after having
attained the marriageable age this odd taste still continued and drove
me nearly to depravity and madness.
If ever education was perfectly chaste, it certainly that I
received; my three aunts were of exemplary prudence. My father, it
is true, loved pleasure, but his gallantry was rather of the last than
the present century. At M. Lambercier's a good maidservant was
discharged for having once made use of an expression before us which
was thought to contain some degree of indelicacy. I entertained a
particular aversion for courtesans, nor could I look on a rake without
a degree of disdain mingled with terror.
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