However, she succeeded, and my robust constitution at length got the better of all my weakness, and my health became so well established that except the illness from languor, of which I have given an account, and frequent heats in the bladder which the least heating of the blood rendered troublesome, I arrived at the age of thirty almost without feeling my original infirmity.The first time this happened was upon my arrival at Venice.The fatigue of the voyage, and the extreme heat I had suffered, renewed the burnings, and gave me a pain in the loins, which continued until the beginning of winter.
After having seen padoana, I thought myself near the end of my career, but I suffered not the least inconvenience.After exhausting my imagination more than my body for my Zulietta, I enjoyed better health than ever.It was not until after the imprisonment of Diderot that the heat of blood, brought on by my journeys to Vincennes during the terrible heat of that summer, gave me a violent nephritic colic, since which I have never recovered my primitive good state of health.
At the time of which I speak, having perhaps fatigued myself too much in the filthy work of the cursed receiver-general's office, Ifell into a worse state than ever, and remained five or six weeks in my bed in the most melancholy state imaginable.Madam Dupin sent me the celebrated Morand who, notwithstanding his address and the delicacy of his touch, made me suffer the greatest torments.He advised me to have recourse to Daran, who managed to introduce his bougies: but Morand, when he gave Madam Dupin an account of the state I was in, declared to her I should not be alive in six months.
This afterwards came to my ear, and made me reflect seriously on my situation and the folly of sacrificing the repose of the few days Ihad to live to the slavery of an employment for which I felt nothing but disgust.Besides, how was it possible to reconcile the severe principles I had just adopted to a situation with which they had so little relation? Should not I, the cash-keeper of a receiver-general of finances, have preached poverty and disinterestedness with a very ill grace? These ideas fermented so powerfully in my mind with the fever, and were so strongly impressed, that from that time nothing could remove them; and, during my convalescence, I confirmed myself with the greatest coolness in the resolutions I had taken during my delirium.I forever abandoned all projects of fortune and advancement, resolved to pass in independence and poverty the little time I had to exist.I made every effort of which my mind was capable to break the fetters of prejudice, and courageously to do everything that was right without giving myself the least concern about the judgment of others.The obstacles I had to combat, and the efforts I made to triumph over them, are inconceivable.I succeeded as much as it was possible I should, and to a greater degree than I myself had hoped for.Had I at the same time shaken off the yoke of friendship as well as that of prejudice, my design would have been accomplished, perhaps the greatest, at least the most useful one to virtue, that mortal ever conceived; but whilst I despised the foolish judgments of the vulgar tribe called great and wise, I suffered myself to be influenced and led by persons who called themselves my friends.These, hurt at seeing me walk alone in a new path, while I seemed to take measures for my happiness, used all their endeavors to render me ridiculous, and that they might afterwards defame me, first strove to make me contemptible.It was less my literary fame than my personal reformation, of which I here state the period, that drew upon me their jealousy; they perhaps might have pardoned me for having distinguished myself in the art of writing; but they could never forgive my setting them, by my conduct, an example, which, in their eyes, seemed to reflect on themselves.I was born for friendship; my mind and easy disposition nourished it without difficulty.As long as Ilived unknown to the public I was beloved by all my private acquaintance, and I had not a single enemy.But the moment Iacquired literary fame, I had no longer a friend.This was a great misfortune; but a still greater was that of being surrounded by people who called themselves my friends, and used the rights attached to that sacred name to lead me on to destruction.The succeeding part of these memoirs will explain this odious conspiracy.I here speak of its origin, and the manner of the first intrigue will shortly appear.
In the independence in which I lived, it was, however, necessary to subsist.To this effect I thought of very simple means: which were copying music at so much a page.If any employment more solid would have fulfilled the same end I would have taken it up; but this occupation being to my taste, and the only one which, without personal attendance, could procure me daily bread, I adopted it.Thinking I had no longer need of foresight, and, stifling the vanity of cash-keeper to a financier, I made myself a copyist of music.I thought I had made an advantageous choice, and of this I so little repented, that I never quitted my new profession until I was forced to do it, after taking a fixed resolution to return to it as soon as possible.
