All these interruptions ought to have cured me of my fantastic amours, and they were perhaps the means offered me by Heaven to prevent their destructive consequences; but my evil genius prevailed, and I had scarcely begun to go out before my heart, my head, and my feet returned to the same paths.I say the same in certain respects; for my ideas, rather less exalted, remained this time upon earth, but yet were busied in making so exquisite a choice of all that was to be found there amiable of every kind, that it was not much less chimerical than the imaginary world I had abandoned.
I figured to myself love and friendship, the two idols of my heart, under the most ravishing images.I amused myself in adorning them with all the charms of the sex I had always adored.I imagined two female friends rather than two of my own sex, because, although the example be more rare, it is also more amiable.I endowed them with different characters, but analogous to their connection, with two faces, not perfectly beautiful, but according to my taste, and animated with benevolence and sensibility.I made one brown and the other fair, one lively and the other languishing, one wise and the other weak, but of so amiable a weakness that it seemed to add a charm to virtue.I gave to one of the two a lover, of whom the other was the tender friend, and even something more, but I did not admit either rivalry, quarrels, or jealousy: because every painful sentiment is painful to me to imagine, and I was unwilling to tarnish this delightful picture by anything which was degrading to nature.
Smitten with my two charming models, I drew my own portrait in the lover and the friend, as much as it was possible to do it; but Imade him young and amiable, giving him, at the same time, the virtues and the defects which I felt in myself.
That I might place my characters in a residence proper for them, Isuccessively passed in review the most beautiful places I had seen in my travels.But I found no grove sufficiently delightful, no landscape that pleased me.The valleys of Thessaly would have satisfied me had I but once had a sight of them; but my imagination, fatigued with invention, wished for some real place which might serve it as a point to rest upon, and create in me an illusion with respect to the real existence of the inhabitants I intended to place there.I thought a good while upon the Borromean Islands, the delightful prospect of which had transported me, but I found in them too much art and ornament for my lovers.I however wanted a lake, and I concluded by making choice of that about which my heart has never ceased to wander.I fixed myself upon that part of the banks of this lake where my wishes have long since placed my residence in the imaginary happiness to which fate has confined me.The native place of my poor mamma had still for me a charm.The contrast of the situations, the richness and variety of the sites, the magnificence, the majesty of the whole, which ravishes the senses, affects the heart, and elevates the mind, determined me to give it the preference, and I placed my young pupils at Vervey.This is what I imagined at the first sketch; the rest was not added until afterwards.
I for a long time confined myself to this vague plan, because it was sufficient to fill my imagination with agreeable objects, and my heart with sentiments in which it delighted.These fictions, by frequently presenting themselves, at length gained a consistence, and took in my mind a determined form.I then had an inclination to express upon paper some of the situations fancy presented to me, and, recollecting everything I had felt during my youth, thus, in some measure, gave an object to that desire of loving, which I had never been able to satisfy, and by which I felt myself consumed.
I first wrote a few incoherent letters, and when I afterwards wished to give them connection, I frequently found a difficulty in doing it.What is scarcely credible, although most strictly true, is my having written the first two parts almost wholly in this manner, without having any plan formed, and not foreseeing I should one day be tempted to make it a regular work.For this reason the two parts afterwards formed of materials not prepared for the place in which they are disposed, are full of unmeaning expressions not found in the others.
In the midst of my reveries I had a visit from Madam d'Houdetot, the first she had ever made me, but which unfortunately was not the last, as will hereafter appear.The Comtesse d'Houdetot was the daughter of the late M.de Bellegarde, a farmer-general, sister to M.d'Epinay, and Messieurs de Lalive and De la Briche, both of whom have since been introductors to ambassadors.I have spoken of the acquaintance I made with her before she was married: since that event I had not seen her, except at the fetes of La Chevrette, with Madam d'Epinay, her sister-in-law.Having frequently passed several days with her, both at La Chevrette and Epinay, I always thought her amiable, and that she seemed to be my well-wisher.She was fond of walking with me; we were both good walkers, and the conversation between us was inexhaustible.However, I never went to see her in Paris, although she had several times requested and solicited me to do it.Her connections with M.de St.Lambert, with whom I began to be intimate, rendered her more interesting to me, and it was to bring me some account of that friend who was, I believe, then at Mahon, that she came to see me at the Hermitage.
