r the reading, Rousseau
said to me in a voice of deep emotion: "Ah, how happy is the
man who can believe...." We walked about for some time in
the cloister and the gardens. They command an immense
prospect. Paris in the distance reared her towers all
covered with light, and made a crown to the far-spreading
landscape. The brightness of the view contrasted with the
great leaden clouds that rolled after one another from the
west, and seemed to fill the valley.... In the afternoon
rain came on, as we approached the Porte Maillot. We took
shelter along with a crowd of other holiday folk under some
chestnut-trees whose leaves were coming out. One of the
waiters of a tavern perceiving Jean Jacques, rushed to him
full of joy, exclaiming, "What, is it you, _mon bonhomme_?
Why, it is a whole age since we have seen you." Rousseau
replied cheerfully, "'Tis because my wife has been ill, and
I myself have been out of sorts." "_Mon pauvre bonhomme_,"
replied the lad, "you must not stop here; come in, come in,
and I will find room for you." He hurried us along to a room
upstairs, where in spite of the crowd he procured for us
chairs and a table, and bread and wine. I said to Jean
Jacques, "He seems very familiar with you." He answered,
"Yes, we have known one another some years. We used to come
here in fine weather, my wife and I, to eat a cutlet of an
evening."[394]

Things did not continue to go thus smoothly. One day St. Pierre went
to see him, and was received without a word, and with stiff and gloomy
mien. He tried to talk, but only got monosyllables; he took up a book,
and this drew a sarcasm which sent him forth from the room. For more
than two months they did not meet. At length they had an accidental
encounter at a street corner. Rousseau accosted St. Pierre, and with a
gradually warming sensibility proceeded thus: "There are days when I
want to be alone and crave privacy. I come back from my solitary
expeditions so calm and contented. There I have not been wanting to
anybody, nor has anybody been wanting to me," and so on.[395] He
expressed this humour more pointedly on some other occasion, when he
said that there were times in which he fled from the eyes of men as
from Parthian arrows. As one said who knew from experience, the fate
of his most intimate friend depended on a word or a gesture.[396]
Anothe