ave beat
her; nor could she without difficulty refrain from laughter on seeing my
constrained politeness, though every moment glancing at her the look of
a fury, while, even in spite of myself, I thought the scene truly
diverting.

All this, without being pleasing in itself, contributed to amuse, because
it made up a part of a life which I thought delightful. Nothing that was
performed around me, nothing that I was obliged to do, suited my taste,
but everything suited my heart; and I believe, at length, I should have
liked the study of medicine, had not my natural distaste to it
perpetually engaged us in whimsical scenes, that prevented my thinking of
it in a serious light. It was, perhaps, the first time that this art
produced mirth. I pretended to distinguish a physical book by its smell,
and what was more diverting, was seldom mistaken. Madam de Warrens made
me taste the most nauseous drugs; in vain I ran, or endeavored to defend
myself; spite of resistance or wry faces, spite of my struggles, or even
of my teeth, when I saw her charming fingers approach my lips, I was
obliged to give up the contest.

When shut up in an apartment with all her medical apparatus, any one who
had heard us running and shouting amidst peals of laughter would rather
have imagined we had been acting a farce than preparing opiates or
elixirs.

My time, however, was not entirely passed in these fooleries; in the
apartment which I occupied I found a few books: there was the Spectator,
Puffendorf, St. Everemond, and the Henriade. Though I had not my old
passion for books, yet I amused myself with reading a part of them. The
Spectator was particularly pleasing and serviceable to me. The Abbe de
Gauvon had taught me to read less eagerly, and with a greater degree of
attention, which rendered my studies more serviceable. I accustomed
myself to reflect on elocution and the elegance of composition;
exercising myself in discerning pure French from my provincial idiom.
For example, I corrected an orthographical fault (which I had in common
with all Genevese) by these two lines of the Henriade:

Soit qu' un ancient respect pour le sang de leurs maitres,
Parlat encore pour lui dans le coeur de ces traitres

I was struck with the word 'parlat', and found a 't' was necessary to
form the third person of the subjunctive, whereas I had always written
and pronounced it parla, as in the present of the indicative.

Sometimes my studies