bert, he says, been less
wise, less generous, less worthy, I should have been a lost man. As it
was, he passed four or five hours with her in a delicious calm,
infinitely more delightful than the accesses of burning fever which had
seized him before. They formed the project of a close companionship of
three, including the absent lover; and they counted on the project
coming more true than such designs usually do, "since all the feelings
that can unite sensitive and upright hearts formed the foundation of it,
and we three united talents enough as well as knowledge enough to
suffice to ourselves, without need of aid or supplement from others."
What happened was this. Madame d'Houdetot for the next three or four
months, which were among the most bitter in Rousseau's life, for then
the bitterness which became chronic was new and therefore harder to be
borne, wrote him the wisest, most affectionate, and most considerate
letters that a sincere and sensible woman ever wrote to the most
petulant, suspicious, perverse, and irrestrainable of men. For patience
and exquisite sweetness of friendship some of these letters are
matchless, and we can only conjecture the wearing querulousness of the
letters to which they were replies. If through no fault of her own she
had been the occasion of the monstrous delirium of which he never shook
off the consequences, at least this good soul did all that wise counsel
and grave tenderness could do, to bring him out of the black slough of
suspicion and despair into which he was plunged.[284] In the beginning
of 1758 there was a change. Rousseau's passion for her somehow became
known to all the world; it reached the ears of Saint Lambert, and was
the cause of a passing disturbance between him and his mistress. Saint
Lambert throughout acted like a man who is thoroughly master of himself.
At first, we learn, he ceased for a moment to see in Rousseau the virtue
which he sought in him, and which he was persuaded that he found in him.
"Since then, however," wrote Madame d'Houdetot, "he pities you more for
your weakness than he reproaches you, and we are both of us far from
joining the people who wish to blacken your character; we have and
always shall have the courage to speak of you with esteem."[285] They
saw one another a few times, and on one occasion the Count and Countess
d'Houdetot, Saint Lambert, and Rousseau all sat at table together,
happily without breach of the peace.[286] One curious thing