, I endeavored to enliven our tete-a-tete and, although
this frequently fatigued me, I was never disgusted with it. I was happy
to show her little attentions, and gave her little fraternal kisses,
which seemed not to be more sensual to herself; these were all. She was
very thin, very pale, and had a bosom which resembled the back of her hand.
This defect alone would have been sufficient to moderate my most ardent
desires; my heart never could distinguish a woman in a person who had it;
and besides other causes useless to mention, always made me forget the sex
of this lady.

Having resolved to conform to an assiduity which was necessary,
I immediately and voluntarily entered upon it, and for the first year at
least, found it less burthensome than I could have expected. Madam
d'Epinay, who commonly passed the summer in the country, continued there
but a part of this; whether she was more detained by her affairs in
Paris, or that the absence of Grimm rendered the residence of the
Chevrette less agreeable to her, I know not. I took the advantage of
the intervals of her absence, or when the company with her was numerous,
to enjoy my solitude with my good Theresa and her mother, in such a
manner as to taste all its charms. Although I had for several years
passed been frequently in the country, I seldom had enjoyed much of its
pleasures; and these excursions, always made in company with people who
considered themselves as persons of consequence, and rendered insipid by
constraint, served to increase in me the natural desire I had for rustic
pleasures. The want of these was the more sensible to me as I had the
image of them immediately before my eyes. I was so tired of saloons,
jets d'eau, groves, parterres, and of more fatiguing persons by whom they
were shown; so exhausted with pamphlets, harpsichords, trios,
unravellings of plots, stupid bon mots, insipid affections, pitiful
storytellers, and great suppers; that when I gave a side glance at a poor
simple hawthorn bush, a hedge, a barn, or a meadow; when, in passing
through a hamlet, I scented a good chervil omelette, and heard at a
distance the burden of a rustic song of the Bisquieres; I wished all
rouge, furbelows and amber at the d---l, and envying the dinner of the
good housewife, and the wine of her own vineyard, I heartily wished to
give a slap on the chaps to Monsieur le Chef and Monsieur le Maitre, who
made me dine at the hour of supper, and sup when I should