She seemed pleased, indeed, with my company,
but had I passed whole days without seeing her she would hardly have
missed me.
Insensibly, I found myself desolate and alone in that house where
I had formerly been the very soul; where, if I may so express
myself, I had enjoyed a double life, and, by degrees, I accustomed
myself to disregard everything that passed, and even those who dwelt
there. To avoid continual mortifications, I shut myself up with my
books, or else wept and sighed unnoticed in the woods. This life
soon became insupportable; I felt that the presence of a woman so dear
to me, while estranged from her heart, increased my unhappiness, and
was persuaded, that, ceasing to see her, I should feel myself less
cruelly separated.
I resolved, therefore, to quit the house, mentioned it to her, and
she, far from opposing my resolution, approved it. She had an
acquaintance at Grenoble, called Madam de Deybens, whose husband was
on terms of friendship with Monsieur Mably, chief Provost of Lyons. M.
Deybens proposed my educating M. Mably's children; I accepted this
offer, and departed for Lyons, without causing, and almost without
feeling, the least regret at a separation, the bare idea of which, a
few months before, would have given us both the most excruciating
torments.
I had almost as much knowledge as was necessary for a tutor, and
flattered myself that my method would be unexceptionable; but the year
I passed at M. Mably's, was sufficient to undeceive me in that
particular.
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