My heart, little fitted for hatred, pitied their misery,
and even their wickedness. This situation, more pleasing but less
sublime, soon allayed the ardent enthusiasm by which I had so long
been transported; and I insensibly, almost to myself even, again
became fearful, complaisant and timid; in a word, the same
Jean-Jacques I before had been.
Had this resolution gone no further than restoring me to myself, all
would have been well; but unfortunately it rapidly carried me away
to the other extreme. From that moment my mind in agitation passed the
line of repose, and its oscillations, continually renewed, have
never permitted it to remain here. I must enter into some detail of
this second revolution; terrible and fatal era, of a fate unparalleled
amongst mortals.
We were but three persons in our retirement; it was therefore
natural our intimacy should be increased by leisure and solitude. This
was the case between Theresa and myself. We passed in conversations in
the shade the most charming and delightful hours, more so than any I
had hitherto enjoyed. She seemed to taste of this sweet intercourse
more than I had until then observed her to do; she opened her heart,
and communicated to me, relative to her mother and family, things
she had had resolution enough to conceal for a great length of time.
Both had received from Madam Dupin numerous presents, made them on
my account, and mostly for me, but which the cunning old woman, to
prevent my being angry, had appropriated to her own use and that of
her other children, without suffering Theresa to have the least share,
strongly forbidding her to say a word to me of the matter: an order
the poor girl had obeyed with an incredible exactness.
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