This
astonishment would have been carried to inquietude had I then known
what the old creature was preparing for me.
Notwithstanding the pretended zeal for my welfare of which Grimm
made such a public boast, difficult to reconcile with the airs he gave
himself when we were together, I heard nothing of him from any quarter
the least to my advantage, and his feigned commiseration tended less
to do me service than to render me contemptible. He deprived me as
much as he possibly could of the resource I found in the employment
I had chosen, by decrying me as a bad copyist. I confess he spoke
the truth; but in this case it was not for him to do it. He proved
himself in earnest by employing another copyist, and prevailing upon
everybody he could, by whom I was engaged, to do the same. His
intention might have been supposed to be that of reducing me to a
dependence upon him and his credit for a subsistence, and to cut off
the latter until I was brought to that degree of distress.
All things considered, my reason imposed silence upon my former
prejudice, which still pleaded in his favor. I judged his character to
be at least suspicious, and with respect to his friendship I
positively decided it to be false. I then resolved to see him no more,
and informed Madam d'Epinay of the resolution I had taken,
supporting it with several unanswerable facts, but which I have now
forgotten.
She strongly combated my resolution without knowing how to reply
to the reasons on which it was founded.
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