Jean Jacques Rousseau

When the bad weather began again, and I was confined to the house, I tried to resume my stay-at-home occupations, but found it impossible. I saw everywhere nothing but my two charming friends, their friend, their surroundings, the country in which they lived, the objects which my fancy created or embellished for them. I no longer belonged to myself for a single moment. My delirium never left me. After several fruitless attempts to banish all these imaginary creations from my mind, I became at last completely seduced by them, and all my efforts were thenceforth devoted to reducing them to some sort of order and coherence, in order to work them up into a kind of romance.

She had been six years in Annecy when I arrived there, and was twenty-eight years of age, having been born with the century. Her beauty was of the kind which lasts, consisting rather in the expression than the features; besides, hers was still in its first brilliancy.

How then was it that, in the flower of my youth, I felt so little eagerness for the first enjoyment? How was it that I could see the hour approach with more pain than pleasure? How was it that, instead of the rapture which should have intoxicated me, I almost felt repugnance and fear? There is no doubt that, if I had been able to escape my happiness with decency, I should have done so with all my heart. I have promised singularities in the history of my attachment to her; this is surely one which would never have been expected.

Having so long called her mamma, having enjoyed with her the intimacy of a son, I had become accustomed to look upon myself as one. I believe that this was really the cause of the little eagerness I felt to possess her, although she was so dear to me. I well remember that my early feelings, without being livelier, were more sensual. At Annecy, I was intoxicated; at Chambéri, I was no longer so. I still loved her as passionately as possible; but I loved her more for her own sake than for my own, or, at least, I sought happiness with her, rather than enjoyment; she was for me more than a sister, more than a mother, more than a friend, even more than a mistress; and for that very reason she was not a mistress for me. In short, I loved her too well to desire to possess her.

Madame de Warens, seeing that her efforts were unavailing, did not persist in them, to avoid compromising herself, but she said to me, with a look of compassion, ‘Poor little one, you must go where God calls you; but when you are grown up, you will think of me.’ I believe she herself had no idea how cruelly this prediction was to be fulfilled.

Add to this habit the circumstances of my position, living as I was with a beautiful woman, caressing her image in the bottom of my heart, seeing her continually throughout the day, surrounded in the evening by objects which reminded me of her, sleeping in the bed in which I knew she had slept! What causes for excitement! Many a reader, who reflects upon them, no doubt already considers me as half-dead! Quite the contrary; that which ought to have destroyed me was just the thing that saved me, at least for a time. Intoxicated with the charm of living with her, with the ardent desire of spending my life with her, I always saw in her, whether she were absent or present, a tender mother, a beloved sister, a delightful friend, and nothing more. I saw her always thus, always the same, and I never saw anyone but her. Her image, ever present to my heart, left room for no other; she was for me the only woman in the world; and the extreme sweetness of the feelings with which she inspired me did not allow my senses time to awake for others, and protected me against her and all her sex. In a word, I was chaste, because I loved her.

As soon as anyone came – whether man or woman, it did not matter which – I left the room grumbling, being unable to remain with her in the presence of a third party. I counted the minutes in her ante-room, cursing these eternal visitors a thousand times, and unable to imagine how it was that they had so much, because I myself had still more, to say.

At Chambéri I became thoughtful, not on account of the folly which I had just committed – no man ever knew how to console himself so rapidly or so completely in regard to the past – but in regard to the reception which awaited me from Madame de Warens; for I looked upon her house quite as my own home. I had written to inform her of my entry into the Comte de Gouvon’s house; she knew on what footing I stood there, and, while congratulating me, she had given me some excellent advice as to the manner in which I ought to requite the kindness shown to me. She looked upon my fortune as assured, unless I destroyed it by my own fault. What would she say when she saw me arrive?

The success of my first Essay made it easier for me to carry out this resolution. After it had gained the prize, Diderot undertook to get it printed. While I was in bed he wrote me a note, informing me of its publication and the effect it had produced. ‘It has gone up like a rocket,’ he told me; ‘such a success has never been seen before.’

The recollections of the different periods of my life led me to reflect upon the point which I had reached, and I saw myself, already in my declining years, a prey to painful evils, and believed that I was approaching the end of my career, without having enjoyed in its fulness scarcely one single pleasure of those for which my heart yearned, without having given scope to the lively feelings which I felt it had in reserve, without having tasted or even sipped that intoxicating pleasure which I felt was in my soul in all its force, and which, for want of an object, always found itself kept in check, and unable to give itself vent in any other way but through my sighs. How came it to pass that I, a man of naturally expansive soul, for whom to live was to love, had never yet been able to find a friend entirely devoted to myself, a true friend – I, who felt admirably adapted to be one myself? How came it to pass that, with feelings so easily set on ire, with a heart full of affection, I had never once been inflamed with the love of a definite object? Consumed by the desire of loving, without ever having been able to satisfy it completely, I saw myself approaching the portals of old age, and dying without having lived.

These melancholy but touching reflections caused me to turn my thoughts towards myself with a regret which was not without its pleasure. It seemed to me that destiny owed me something which it had not yet granted me. Why had I been born with delicate faculties, if they were to remain unemployed to the end?

Imagine a child, shy and obedient in ordinary life, but fiery, proud, and unruly in his passions: a child who had always been led by the voice of reason and always treated with gentleness, justice, and consideration, who had not even a notion of injustice, and who for the first time becomes acquainted with so terrible an example of it on the part of the very people whom he most loves and respects! What an upset of ideas! what a disturbance of feelings! what revolution in his heart, in his brain, in the whole of his little intellectual and moral being! Imagine all this, I say, if possible. As for myself, I feel incapable of disentangling and following up the least trace of what then took place within me.