This she vehemently opposed, and
by reasons all powerful over my heart. She expressed to me how much
she could have wished I had been of the party to Geneva, foreseeing
she should inevitably be considered as having caused the refusal,
which the letter of Diderot seemed previously to announce. However, as
she was acquainted with my reasons, she did not insist upon this
point, but conjured me to avoid coming to an open rupture let it
cost me what mortification it would, and to palliate my refusal by
reasons sufficiently plausible to put away all unjust suspicions of
her having been the cause of it. I told her the task she imposed on me
was not easy; but that, resolved to expiate my faults at the expense
of my reputation, I would give the preference to hers in everything
that honor permitted me to suffer. It will soon be seen whether or not
I fulfilled this engagement.
My passion was so far from having lost any part of its force that
I never in my life loved my Sophia so ardently and tenderly as on that
day, but such was the impression made upon me by the letter of Saint
Lambert, the sentiment of my duty, and the horror in which I held
perfidy, that during the whole time of the interview my senses left me
in peace, and I was not so much as tempted to kiss her hand. At
parting she embraced me before her servants. This embrace, so
different from those I had sometimes stolen from her under the
foliage, proved I was become master of myself; and I am certain that
had my mind, undisturbed, had time to acquire more firmness, three
months would have cured me radically.
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