as my only object; I perceived I had gone further and
had given myself a companion. A little intimate connection with this
excellent girl, and a few reflections upon my situation, made me discover
that, while thinking of nothing more than my pleasures, I had done a
great deal towards my happiness. In the place of extinguished ambition,
a life of sentiment, which had entire possession of my heart, was
necessary to me. In a word, I wanted a successor to mamma: since I was
never again to live with her, it was necessary some person should live
with her pupil, and a person, too, in whom I might find that simplicity
and docility of mind and heart which she had found in me. It was,
moreover, necessary that the happiness of domestic life should indemnify
me for the splendid career I had just renounced. When I was quite alone
there was a void in my heart, which wanted nothing more than another
heart to fill it up. Fate had deprived me of this, or at least in part
alienated me from that for which by nature I was formed. From that
moment I was alone, for there never was for me the least thing
intermediate between everything and nothing. I found in Theresa the
supplement of which I stood in need; by means of her I lived as happily
as I possibly could do, according to the course of events.

I at first attempted to improve her mind. In this my pains were useless.
Her mind is as nature formed it: it was not susceptible of cultivation.
I do not blush in acknowledging she never knew how to read well, although
she writes tolerably. When I went to lodge in the Rue Neuve des Petits
Champs, opposite to my windows at the Hotel de Ponchartrain, there was a
sun-dial, on which for a whole month I used all my efforts to teach her
to know the hours; yet, she scarcely knows them at present. She never
could enumerate the twelve months of the year in order, and cannot
distinguish one numeral from another, notwithstanding all the trouble I
took endeavoring to teach them to her. She neither knows how to count
money, nor to reckon the price of anything. The word which when she
speaks, presents itself to her mind, is frequently opposite to that of
which she means to make use. I formerly made a dictionary of her
phrases, to amuse M. de Luxembourg, and her 'qui pro quos' often became
celebrated among those with whom I was most intimate. But this person,
so confined in her intellects, and, if the world pleases, so stupid, can
give excellent a