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* LA NOUVELLE HELOISE *&
LA NOUVELLE HELOISE
JULIE, OR THE NEW ELOISE. LETTERS
OF TWO LOVERS, INHABITANTS OF A
SMALL TOWN AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS.
ala BY JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Translated and Abridged by Judith H. McDowell

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

University Park and London 1968

Copyright © 1968 by The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-27114
Printed in the United States of America

Designed by Marilyn Shobaken

 t CONTENTS &

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 4 INTRODUCTION #&

THE FASCINATION of the intellectual, scientific, and social revolutions

of eighteenth century France sometimes casts a shadow over one of
the most interesting developments of that vigorous century: the rise
of the novel. During the glorious age of Louis XIV, the novel had
been a genre of minor importance, condemned by neo-classical writ-
ers, who preferred to cultivate tragedy and the epic, the more
“noble” genres. But after the death of the Sun King, the once abused
literary form began a gradual ascent to a position of eminence
which by the end of the century was to eclipse that of the older, tra-
ditional modes of literary expression. The beginnings were tenuous
and the progress was slow, but around the middle of the century the
novel received an impetus which was to guarantee and to accelerate
its development as a significant, valued literary form. This impetus
was provided by the only extended work of fiction written by one of
the most influential and prominent men of the century: Jean-
Jacques Rousseau.
Between April, 1759, and January, 1760, Rousseau sent sections
of a manuscript of an epistolary novel in six parts to Marc-Michel
Rey, an Amsterdam printer, according to a previous agreement
wherein Rey had consented to publish this book exactly as Rous-
seau had written it, incorporating even the manuscript errors. After
a series of harsh letters between the author and the printer, the for-
mer criticizing the tardiness of the publication and the faultiness
of the proofs and the latter defending himself as well as he could,
the novel finally appeared in Paris in February, 1761, entitled Julie,
ou la Nouvelle Héloise. Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans d'une
petite Ville au pied des Alpes. Recueillies et publiées Par J. J. Rous-
2 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

seau. The success of the book was immediate and overwhelming.

Very shortly after its appearance, counterfeited editions were pro-
duced all over France, there being at that time no legal protection
of foreign printers. In 1763, Rey put out a second authorized edi-
tion, one with numerous changes by the author, and he continued
to republish the novel at intervals during Rousseau’s lifetime. In
all, seventy-two editions in French were put on sale between 1761
and 1800. With the exception of Voltaire’s Contes, Le Sage’s Gil Blas,
and some of Prévost’s novels, no other eighteenth century French
fiction up to the time of Rousseau’s death had even one-tenth this
much circulation.
In his extremely thorough critical edition of La Nouvelle Héloise,
Daniel Mornet carefully traced the history of the French editions
of the novel.1 James H. Warner did the same for the eighteenth cen-
tury English translation,2 and found that the English version first
appeared in April, 1761, testimony of the rapidity with which liter-
ary works crossed the channel in those days. This translation, en-
titled Eloisa: or a series of original letters collected and published
by J. J. Rousseau, was done by William Kenrick, who for some in-
scrutable reason preferred to remain anonymous, and it was the
basis for all subsequent editions of the English text up until this
one. In all, according to Warner, there were ten English editions
between 1761 and 1800.3 La Nouvelle Héloise had, then, an unusu-
ally large reading public in England and, subsequently, in America.

1J.-J. Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloise, ed. Daniel Mornet. Les Grands Ecrivains
de la France, 2nd Ser., 4 vols. (Paris, 1925).
*“Eighteenth Century English Reaction to La Nouvelle Héloise,’ PMLA (Sept.,
1937), 803-19.
5 Tbid., p. 809. The dates of these editions were 1761 (three during that year),
1764, 1773-74 (in a collected works), 1773, 1776, 1784, 1794(?), and 1795. Con-
tradicting Warner, however, is Frank Gees Black, who claims that there were
fourteen English editions before 1800. (“The Epistolary Novel in the Late
Eighteenth Century,” University of Oregon Studies in Literature and Philology,
No. 2 (April, 1940), p. 147.) Black may be including the Irish, Scottish, and
American editions. There was one edition in Philadelphia in 1796, and some
of the copies bear the marks of printers in Dublin and Edinburgh.
As for the English editions during the nineteenth century, I have been unable
to locate any scholarly bibliographical investigations. I have learned of two
editions, both in London, dated 1803 and 1810, and am reasonably sure that
there has not been a printing of Kenrick’s translation since 1810, because of
Rousseau’s decline in popularity in England after the Revolution. As Edmund
Gosse pointed out (in “Rousseau in England in the Nineteenth Century,” Fort-
nightly Review, XCVIII (1912), pp. 22-38), the first attacks upon Rousseau’s
influence in England, spearheaded by Burke, were directed against his political
writings, but his novel also gradually fell into disfavor, among intellectuals at
least. Although Shelley and Byron and even writers as late as Eliot and Ruskin
INTRODUCTION 3

The setting of this remarkably successful book is in the country

of Rousseau’s youth, along the shores of the Lake of Geneva, with
the main part of the action taking place in the small villages of
Vevey and Clarens. By eighteenth century standards the plot is rela-
tively simple and is one familiar to all literatures, that of the fallen
and regenerated woman. The first three parts of the novel are de-
voted to the celebration of the passionate, mutual love of Saint-
Preux and Julie; the last three praise Julie’s return to virtue as a
faithful wife and dedicated mother. Rousseau’s moral point is im-
plicitly but forcefully made: if she is carried away by true love, a
woman may fall from innocence before she is married without leav-
ing a stain upon her character, but after marriage such a lapse would
be criminal. Fidelity between husband and wife is essential, for an
honorable marriage is the true basis of society. Julie must learn to
build a happy and productive domestic life on the ashes of her great
love affair with Saint-Preux, and as long as she maintains the delu-
sion that she has been cured of her passion for him she is successful.
The circumstances surrounding the composition of La Nouvelle
Héloise are interesting to examine for the light they throw upon
the character of the author, as well as upon the novel itself. We
know from the Confessions that Rousseau wrote the book between
1756 and 1758, mostly while at Madame d’Epinay’s country home,
the Hermitage, Rousseau’s temporary sanctuary after his years in
the Parisian salons. He had been accompanied to the Hermitage by
Thérése, a woman who was clearly no true companion to Jean-
Jacques despite her obvious attachment to him, and he was living a
difficult, solitary life. As usual, he took refuge in his imagination.
Despite his many adventures, Rousseau had never had a satis-
factory love affair—satisfactory, that is, for a man who, like Rous-
seau, had been nurtured on the seventeenth century French ro-
mances of La Calprenéde and others, from which by his own admis-
sion he had developed his sensibilities. As a release, therefore, from
his frustrations as a lover, he invented an ideal woman, Julie
d’Etange, and projected himself as the beloved of her heart, Saint-
Preux. The process is described in Book IX of the Confessions:

The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated

were admittedly impressed by La Nouvelle Héloise, the temper of the nine-
teenth century in England was not nearly as tuned to Rousseau as that of the
eighteenth had been. As Gosse remarked, the Victorian sensibility was hostile
to the dubious morals of Rousseau’s hero and heroine, and by the middle of the
nineteenth century both the novel and the Confessions were considered not only
immoral, but dull in their immorality.
4. LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed

worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world
which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after
my own heart. Never was this resource more opportune, and
never did it prove more fertile. In my continual ecstasies I in-
toxicated myself with draughts of the most exquisite sentiments
that have ever entered the heart of a man. Altogether ignoring
the human race, I created for myself societies of perfect creatures
celestial in their virtue and in their beauty, and of reliable,
tender, and faithful friends such as I had never found here
below. . .>.
I imagined two women friends, rather than two of my own
sex, since although examples of such friendships are rarer they
are also more beautiful. I endowed them with analogous but
different characters; with features if not perfect yet to my taste,
and radiant with kindliness and sensibility. I made one dark,
the other fair; one lively, the other gentle; one sensible, the
other weak, but so touching in her weakness that virtue itself
seemed to gain by it. I gave one of them a lover to whom the
other was a tender friend and even something more; but I al-
lowed of no rivalry or quarrels or jealousy because I find it
hard to imagine any painful feelings, and I did not wish to
discolour my charming picture with anything degrading to Na-
ture. Being captivated by my two charming models, I identified
myself as far as I could with the lover and friend. But I made
him young and pleasant, whilst endowing him also with the
virtues and faults that I felt in myself. . . .
I confined myself for a long time to so vague a plan because
it was sufficient to fill my imagination with pleasant objects,
and my heart with those feelings on which it loves to feed. This
fiction, by constant repetition, finally assumed greater consist-
ency and took a fixed and definite shape in my brain. It was
then that the whim seized me to set down on paper some of
the situations that it suggested to me and, by recalling all that
I had felt in my youth, to give some sort of expression to my
desire to love which I had never been able to satisfy, and which
I now felt was devouring me.
At first I jotted down a few scattered letters, unrelated to one
another and in no sequence; and when I made up my mind to
connect them I was often in considerable trouble. What is al-
most incredible but is nevertheless a fact is that the first two
parts were written almost entirely in this manner, without my
having any well-formed plan or even foreseeing that one day
I should be tempted to make a regular work of it.
* All quotations from the Confessions have been taken from the translation
by
J. M. Cohen (Penguin Books, 1953).
INTRODUCTION 5

So much for the composition of the first two parts, which tell of
the lovers’ passionate attraction, their intimacy, and, despite their
separation, their hope of an eventual marriage. But in Part Three,
a note of hopelessness is introduced. With Saint-Preux’s renuncia-
tion of Julie, the novel reverses its emphasis and from celebrating
indulged passion turns to the glorification of sacrifice and virtue.
For the explanation of this reversal, we can again go to the Confes-
sions.
At the end of January, 1757, after the composition of the first two
parts of the novel, the Countess d’Houdetot visited Jean-Jacques at
the Hermitage, a visit which by his own admission was the “begin-
ning of a romance.” At her second visit in the spring, Rousseau
knew then that it was love, “the first and only love in all my life.”
Seeing her repeatedly, he began to look upon her as the realization
of his ideal:
I saw my Julie in Madame d’Houdetot, and soon I saw only
Madame d’Houdetot, but endowed with all the perfections with
which I had just embellished the idol of my heart. (Book IX)
But although Sophie d’Houdetot refused Jean-Jacques “nothing
that the most tender friendship could grant,” she nevertheless failed
to imitate Julie in all particulars, for she had pledged herself to re-
main faithful to her first lover, Saint-Lambert. Rousseau managed
to conquer his passion and respect the countess’ scruples:

If I had been young and attractive, and if subsequently Mme

d’Houdetot had been weak, I should blame her conduct here;
but as all this was not the case I cannot but applaud and admire
her. The course she adopted displayed generosity and prudence
alike. She could not leave me suddenly without telling Saint-
Lambert the reason, which would have compelled him to visit
me. That would have meant risking a break between two
friends, and perhaps a scandal, which she was anxious to avoid.
For me she felt both respect and good-will. She was sorry for
my foolishness; without flattering it she deplored it, and tried
to cure me of it. She was glad to preserve a friend whom she
valued both for her lover and herself, and talked to me about
nothing with so much pleasure as about the intimate and de-
lightful trio we could form together once I had returned to my
senses. But she did not always confine herself to these friendly
exhortations, and did not spare me, when necessary, the harsher
reproaches I thoroughly deserved.
I was still less sparing of them myself. Once I was alone I
came to my senses, and I was calmer for having spoken. A love
6 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

known to the person who inspires it becomes more bearable.

The violence with which I reproached myself for my passion
should have cured me, if a cure had been possible. What pow-
erful arguments did I not call to my aid in order to stifle it! My
moral sense, my belief, my principles, the shame, the faithless-
ness, the crime, the abuse of a trust I owed to friendship and,
last of all, the absurdity of being consumed at my age by the
most extravagant of passions for an object whose heart was
already engaged, and could neither make me any return nor
afford me any hope: by a passion indeed which far from having
anything to gain by constancy became less bearable every
Cay ance,
ne I am wrong to speak of an unrequited love, for mine
was in a sense returned. There was equal love on both sides,
although it was never mutual. We were both intoxicated with
love,—hers for her lover, and mine for her; our sighs and our
delicious tears mingled together. We confided tenderly in one
another, and our feelings were so closely in tune that it was
impossible for them not to have united in something. Yet even
when our intoxication was at its most dangerous height she
never forgot herself for a moment. As for myself, I protest, I
swear, that if ever I was betrayed by my senses and tried to
make her unfaithful, I never truly desired it. The vehemence
of my passion of itself kept it within bounds. The duty of self-
denial had exalted my soul. The light of every virtue adorned
in my eyes the idol of my heart; to have soiled that divine
image would have been to destroy it. I might have been able
to commit the crime; a hundred times it has been committed
in my heart. But to dishonour my Sophie! Could that ever be
possible? No, no! I told her a hundred times that, if it had
been in my power to gratify myself, if she had put herself at
my mercy of her own free will, except in a few short moments
of madness I should have refused to purchase my own happiness
at such a price. I loved her too well to wish to possess her.
(Book IX)

In a similar way, as we see in La Nouvelle Héloise, Saint-Preux

manages to respect Julie’s scruples and schools himself to live in rel-
ative tranquillity with Julie and her husband, Wolmar, though this
ménage a trois may seem not a little unusual to modern readers.
The novel, then, abruptly turns from the theme of requited passion
to that of virtuous sacrifice at a point corresponding to the time that
Jean-Jacques was forced to stifle his passion for Sophie d’Houdetot.5
° However, Daniel Mornet, in his investigation into the chronology of the com-
position’ of La Nouvelle Héloise, found that Rousseau had conceived the char-
INTRODUCTION 7)

That Rousseau projected Julie from Madame d’Houdetot and

Saint-Preux from himself in the last three parts of La Nouvelle Hé-
loise is even more evident when one examines some of the corres-
pondence between the novelist and the countess, for they write to
each other in the same effusive style and sentimental vein as do
Saint-Preux and Julie. Here, for example, are some excerpts from
Madame d’Houdetot’s letters to Rousseau:

Oh love! Oh friendship! As long as you will exist for me,

you will embellish my life and you will make it dear to me.
Do you not ask me what my life consists of? Indifferently, I
perform the duties of society, to which I only lend myself; I go
to plays for my amusement and my diversion. But my most
beloved, most continual, most delightful occupation is to give
myself up to the sentiments of my heart, to contemplate them,
to be nourished by them, to express them to the one who in-
spires them in me. That is what my true life consists of, and
what makes me feel the pleasures of existence... .
Let us not, my friend, scorn a sentiment which elevates the
soul as much as love does and which is capable of giving so
much vitality to the virtues. Love, such as we conceive of it,
cannot exist in a mediocre soul, and it can never debase the
one in which it dwells nor inspire in it anything for which it
may be ashamed.®

And here is a typical letter from Jean-Jacques to Sophie:

To whom can I sooner speak of the delights of these memories

than to her who has made me enjoy them so well once more?
It is you whose duty it is to make dear to me the memory of my
last errors by that of the virtues which have reclaimed me from
them. You have made me too ashamed of my faults for me to
be able to be ashamed of them now; and I do not know what
makes me prouder, the victories won over myself or the assist-
ance which has made me win them. If I had listened only to a
criminal passion, if I had been base for one moment, and if I

acter of Wolmar and had even planned out the scene of the visit to Meillerie,
with which Part Four concludes, before Madame d’Houdetot’s second visit in
the spring of 1757. As one easily surmises, the Confessions are not always to be
trusted as a reliable record of Rousseau’s life. Nevertheless, it seems very clear
that the heavily moralistic tone of the last three parts of the novel was directly
inspired by Rousseau’s own sacrifice of Sophie to Saint-Lambert, even though
he may have conceived of Saint-Preux’s similar sacrifice somewhat earlier.
* Quoted in Hippolyte Buffenoir, La Comtesse d’Houdetot, Une Amie de J.-J.
Rousseau (Paris, 1901), pp. 133, 135-36. Translation mine.
8 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

had found you weak, how dear I would be paying today for
the ecstasies which would have seemed so sweet! Deprived of all
the sentiments which have united us, we would have ceased to
be united; shame and remorse would have made us odious to
each other. I would hate you for having loved you too much,
and what intoxication of voluptuousness might ever have been
able to recompense my heart for so pure and so tender an at-
tachment? Would you be as dear to me, after having gratified
my desires, as you are after having made me virtuous? 7

One need only turn, almost at random, to the pages of Rousseau’s

novel to find these sentiments and this language duplicated.
La Nouvelle Héloise, then, is clearly a roman vécu in many re-
spects and as such deserves study for the insight it provides into the
character of the author. But, of course, Rousseau did not compose
his novel purely from his personal experience and recollected emo-
tions. He was working, moreover, within the established literary
tradition of the sentimental novel. With customary thoroughness,
Daniel Mornet investigated the history of prose fiction in France,
as it relates to the appearance of La Nouvelle Héloise,8 and con-
cluded that Rousseau’s novel was less original than even the author
himself thought. By the time of its composition, French taste was
veering away from the novel of intrigue and adventure and toward
that of morality and sentiment. The vogue of the comédie larmoy-
ante in the mid-eighteenth century illustrates that well before La
Nouvelle Héloise the French public took pleasure in pouring forth
tears and pious platitudes at prodigious rates. But it was, of course,
the English novel of sentiment to which Rousseau was most in-
debted.
Long before Jean-Jacques entered his land of chimeras, a vigor-
ous anglomania had begun to undermine the neoclassical literary
traditions of the French. The most influential single author in this
English vogue was Richardson, whose Pamela and Clarissa Har-
lowe, translated by Prévost in 1751, made a singular impression
upon French novelists. Certainly Rousseau was influenced by Rich-
ardson, especially by Clarissa Harlowe, which in his Letter to
@Alembert he praised enthusiastically and extravagantly. There
are some noticeable similarities between Clarissa Harlowe and La
Nouvelle Héloise, particularly in the epistolary technique and the

*Ibid., pp. 154-55. Translation mine.

* Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 7-60.
INTRODUCTION 8)

constant eulogizing of simplicity and virtue. We also find some re-

semblances in the plots of the two novels: Clarissa has a confidant
in Miss Howe, just as Julie has one in Claire; Clarissa’s cousin
Morden acts in some ways much like Lord Bomston; Clarissa’s fa-
ther, in attempting to force her to marry Solmes, resembles the
Baron d’Etange in his efforts to unite Julie and Wolmar; both Cla-
rissa and Julie are horrified at the prospects of a duel and endeavor
to prevent it; and Lovelace and Saint-Preux are both haunted by a
fatal dream. But these resemblances must not be pushed too far.°
Mornet urges us to believe that even though the novels of Richard-
son may have created the atmosphere in which Julie and Saint-
Preux breathed, their blood and soul were Rousseau’s alone.
Perhaps more important than the literary sources upon which
Rousseau drew for La Nouvelle Héloise are those compositions
subsequently inspired by it. Even though Voltaire called the success
of the novel one of the infamies of the century, La Nouvelle Hé-
loise became one of the seminal books of the preromantic period.
Of course, it is unrealistic to believe that Rousseau’s novel created
romanticism, as it is sometimes claimed, or that it even created ro-
mantics. As Daniel Mornet found in his investigation of all the
novels published in France between 1761 and 1780, only fifty out
of more than nine hundred books were clearly imitations of La
Nouvelle Héloise in one way or another, and it must be remem-
bered that even when the imitators cited Rousseau as their inspira-
tion, they were also disciples of Richardson and Prévost.1° And
even though there were seventy-two editions of Rousseau’s novel
before 1800, between 1759 and the Revolution there were also at
least fifty editions of Candide. But despite the relatively small quan-
titative influence of La Nouvelle Héloise, it cannot be denied that
the novel created for Rousseau a place beside Voltaire as a director
of European thought.
Moreover, besides the influence of La Nouvelle Héloise upon the
taste and morality of the eighteenth century reading public, the
novel had considerable indirect literary repercussions. For one
thing, as Mornet found, before La Nouvelle Héloise outside nature

® Joseph Texte points out a great many more parallels in Jean-Jacques Rousseau
and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, trans. J. W. Matthews (London,
1899), pp. 233-49.
10See Mornet, op. cit., Vol. I, Ch. 4, pp. 237-305 (“L’Influence de La Nouvelle
Héloise”). Mornet also appends to his critical notice a lengthy bibliography of
eighteenth century novels, classified according to type.
10 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

played only a small role in the eighteenth century novel; after 1761
nature is extremely important in fiction.14 Furthermore, after Rous-
seau the prestige of the adventure and historical novel declined, not
to be completely revived until Sir Walter Scott, and that of the sen-
timental and moralistic novel increased. The roman personnel also
came into favor for the first time, as M. H. Abrams notes, when La
Nouvelle Héloise invited the reader to identify the hero with his
creator and thus blazed the trail for Goethe’s Werther, Friedrich
Schlegel’s Lucinde, Tieck’s William Lovell, and Chateaubriand’s
Réné.2 Finally, the success of Rousseau’s book possibly had even
a significant negative result, in the formulation of the appeal and
influence of the Marquis de Sade. In one sense, as Mario Praz has
pointed out, de Sade’s books are a reaction to the exaggerated senti-
ment of Richardson and Rousseau: “Justine is a reversal of the
Nouvelle Héloise.” 18
That La Nouvelle Héloise had the enormous success that it did,
and that Rousseau’s characters subsequently became at least the
spiritual parents of countless romantic fictions, can perhaps best be
explained by the particular quality and appeal of Jean-Jacques’
sentimentalism. But before we attempt to analyze the nature of this
sentimentalism, let us first define the term as it applies to Rousseau
and to the sentimentalists who preceded him. Actually, the word
“sentimentalism” may be used in two relatively distinct senses, the
first referring to the optimistic emphasis upon the goodness of the
human being. This line of thought had for its source the deism and
humanitarianism of the early part of the eighteenth century and
represented, in part, a reaction against orthodox. Calvinistic theol-
ogy with its doctrine of the depravity of man. Such optimistic em-
phasis upon human perfectibility is connected closely to the primi-
tivistic doctrine that the savage, who has remained closer to nature
and who has been less subject to the corrupting influence of society,
is thus nobler and more nearly perfect than civilized man. The re-
sult of this emphasis was, quite naturally, a reliance upon the feel-
ings, as opposed to reason and law, as guides to truth and conduct.
This sort of sentimentalism we may call “sensibility,” in order to
distinguish it from the other sense of the term “sentimentalism”

™ See Mornet’s Le Sentiment de la nature de Jean-Jacques Rousseau a4 Bernardin

de Saint-Pierre (Paris, 1907).
“The Mirror and the Lamp (New York, 1958), p. 98. Benjamin Constant’s
Adolphe might be added to this list.
*% The Romantic Agony (New York, 1956), p. 436.
INTRODUCTION 11

—namely, the pure and directionless indulgence in emotion, often

preceded by a direct and conscious effort to induce emotion, and the
failure to restrain or evaluate emotion through the exercise of the
judgment. The earmarks of the first sort of sentimentalism, or sen-
sibility, are a contempt for urban life and the conventions of civil-
ized society, such as its business and legal activities and its aesthetic
tastes, and a love for the simplicity of rural life and the solitude
and beauty of the countryside. The obvious manifestations of sen-
timentalism in the second sense are the copious tears of the senti-
mental heroes and heroines, the numerous sighs and palpitations,
the ecstasies, the thrills, and the swoons which abound in sentimen-
tal fiction.
La Nouvelle Héloise and the sentimental novels which preceded
it clearly illustrate sentimentalism in both these senses. But to un-
derstand why sentimentalism caught on so rapidly and so securely
after the publication of La Nouvelle Héloise, we must observe
Rousseau’s peculiar treatment of the sentiments. We must note
the particular quality of sublimity which he gave to them, and
which thus strengthened their position in the “‘age of reason” as a
source of personal enjoyment which would eventually undermine
the traditionally accepted sources and lead to the romanticism of
the nineteenth century. To do this, let us analyze certain sentimen-
tal attitudes and moods which are apparent in the novel. a]
The first of these attitudes is that toward nature. Now, “na- |
ture” is an extremely ambiguous term in La Nouvelle Héloise. Of
course, there are many fine and eloquent passages of description of
the country around the Lake of Geneva, description of what Saint-
Preux calls ‘“‘the savage places which constitute in my eyes the
charms of this country.” (Part One, Letter XVIII.) There is the
description, too, of Julie’s Elysium at Clarens, which is “without
order and without symmetry.” (Part Four, Letter XI.) These sen-
timental descriptions reflect the author’s sensibility, his preference
for the wild and uncultivated places; for, as Saint-Preux writes, “It
is on the summits of mountains, in the depths of forests, on desert
islands,’ that nature “displays its most affecting charms.” (Part
Four, Letter XI.) But “nature” in the novel is far more than the
wild beauties of the Swiss countryside, the opposite of the formal
and artificial gardens of the neoclassicists. It is, in effect, a reflection
of, or response to, the emotional state of the man of feeling, the
“sensitive soul,” for whom alone natural beauties exist. When, for
example, Saint-Preux believes himself permanently separated from
Julie at Meillerie, he writes to her that
 ba LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

One sees nothing green any more, the grass is yellow and
withered, the trees are bare, the dry and cold north-east wind
heaps up the snow and ice, and all nature is dead in my eyes,
, like the hope in the bottom of my heart. (Part One, Letter
XXVI)

On the other hand, when he eagerly anticipates the proposed ren-

dezvous with his mistress in the isolated chalet near the source of
the Vevaise, he writes,

_ I find the country more gay, the green more fresh and vivid,
the air more pure, the sky more serene. The song of the birds
seems to be more tender and voluptuous; the murmur of the
brooks evokes a more amorous languor; from afar the blooming
vine exudes the sweetest perfumes; a secret charm either em-
bellishes or fascinates my senses. One would say that the earth
adorns itself to make for your happy lover a nuptial bed
worthy of the beauty he adores and of the passion which con-
sumes him. (Part One, Letter XX XVIII)

Moreover, “nature” is also used in La Nouvelle Héloise to refer

to the simplicity of the rustic life in the country, as opposed to the
artificial and corrupt “civilized” life at Paris. Whereas the urban
environment evokes only contempt, “nature” in this sense touches
the purer sentiments of the “sensitive soul’; the appeal of this “na-
ture,” however, is extremely indefinite.
~ But “nature” in La Nouvelle Héloise has still a further signifi-
cance, distinct from the above mentioned aspects of sentimentalism
and sensibility. It is in this further sense that it is closely connected
with the second sentimental attitude,namely, the moral attitude.
Rousseau believes that though most men have been perverted by
society, there remain a few, the “sensitive souls,” in whom “nature”
still persists. Saint-Preux and Julie, of course, belong to this group.
Julie, despite her fall from innocence, is referred to in glowing
terms, and for her moral character she is given praise which formerly
had been reserved for canonized saints at least. And why? Because
the voice of “nature” is strong in her. Because, we are told, she uses
her heart for her guide, not the “absurd maxims” of society, and
therefore her conduct is undeniably right. Though in the eyes of
conventional society or conventional religion she may be “guilty,”
to Saint-Preux and other “sensitive souls” she is completely virtu-
ous.
This sentimental attitude toward virtue is extremely interest-
INTRODUCTION 13

ing, for it constitutes one of the central themes of the novel. Rous-
seau warns the reader in a preface that in his book “all the senti-
ments will be unnatural for those who do not believe in virtue.”
And so, even though the plot of the novel revolves around the
theme of the fallen woman, the theme of virtue is developed to an
extreme degree. All the characters emit seemingly interminable dis-
courses on the subject of virtue, despite the fact that the central
ones, at the beginning of the novel at least, do not have the strength
of will to practice the restraint which virtue imposes. The truth of
the matter is that in La Nouvelle Héloise virtue is not connected
with action or conduct. Rather, it is a sentiment. Indeed, it is a pas-
sion, and, moreover, the strongest of them all. We are told this quite
explicitly by Wolmar, as Julie reports in a letter to Claire:

. . . we triumph over passions only by opposing one to an-

other. When the passion of virtue comes to the fore, it alone
dominates and keeps all the rest in a state of equilibrium.
(Part Four, Letter XII)

Thus it is that the “sensitive soul,’’ no matter what his actual con-
duct may be, will be judged virtuous as long as he has a passion
for virtue. Lord Bomston may therefore say of Saint-Preux and
Julie,

Your two souls are so extraordinary that they cannot be judged

by common rules. . . . Joined to your love is an emulation of
virtue which elevates you, and you would both be less worthy
if you were not in love. (Part One, Letter LX)

This attitude toward the passion of virtue and those toward

other passions as well, are another interesting sentimental aspect of
La Nouvelle Héloise. For the possession of passions, the stronger
the better, is a proof of the excellent character of the passionate
“sensitive soul.’”” Lord Bomston thus says in a letter to Claire, de-
scribing the suffering Saint-Preux, who has been forcibly separated
from his mistress,

An ardent and unhappy passion is for a time, for always per-

haps, capable of smothering some of his faculties, but it is
itself a proof of their excellence and of the use he could make
of them in cultivating wisdom; for the highest reason is only
attained through the same power of the soul which gives rise
to great passions, and we serve philosophy worthily only with
the same ardor that we feel for a mistress. (Part Two, Letter IT)
14 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

The passionate “sensitive soul,” thus, has this advantage over the
common herd. There is still a further advantage in that, though he
may be a victim of the prejudices of society, he may console himself
by expressing his passions. As Rousseau tells us in a preface to the
novel,

Passion, overflowing, expresses itself more effusively than force-

fully. It does not even think of being persuasive; it does not
suspect that anyone may question it. When it expresses what
it feels, it is less to expose its feelings to others than to comfort
itself.

And the proper method of this expression, characteristically, is

vague and directionless, disordered and repetitious. The eloquence
of a passionate love letter is in its very disorder, Rousseau tells us,
again in a preface, and in reading such a letter, “one feels oneself
moved without knowing why.”
Besides these various sentimental attitudes toward nature, virtue,
and passion in La Nouvelle Héloise, there are certain observable
moods of feeling in the novel which, though distinct, are closely
connected and seem to bring about relatively similar results. As we
have observed in the definition of the second sort of sentimentalism,
there is in Rousseau—and in preceding sentimentalists, to be sure
—an intense delight in the subjective emotional state, an enjoyment
of sentiment and emotional thrills. The distinctive feature of La
Nouvelle Héloise, it would appear, is that this enjoyment is carried
to the point of sublimity and thus subverts the common sense ra-
tionalism which is observable in earlier sentimentalists such as Pré-
vost. For example, Saint-Preux describes to Claire in the following
manner the days he spent with Julie :

Days of pleasure and glory, no, they were not those of a mortal!
They were too beautiful to have perished. A gentle ecstasy filled
their whole duration, and converged them like eternity into a
point. There was neither past nor future for me, and I tasted
the delights of a thousand centuries at once. (Part Three,
Letter VI)

One would suspect that this description of a period of intense emo-

tion is simply a matter of the jargon of the sentimentalist, were it
not for the fact that there are so many such expressions throughout
the novel. Saint-Preux seems to live spasmodically in sublime rap-
tures, ‘to seek constantly to experience the sensation-packed, sublime
INTRODUCTION 15

moment. And this experience is not always connected with his pas-
sion for Julie; often it ties in with his affinity to nature.
But, of course, the sublime moments of intense emotional thrill
are transitory, and sometimes, no matter how earnestly the “sensi-
tive soul” seeks to experience them, they are not to be had. Here
lies the source of a second sentimental mood of the novel: melan-
choly. The numerous laments and threats of suicide which Saint-
Preux utters whenever he feels himself cut off from the object of his
heart’s desire, are an ample indication of the intensity of this mel-
ancholy. And even when his desires have been satisfied, he is inca-
pable of any mood but one of melancholy, for the sublime moment
has passed. As he writes to Julie, just after returning from a night of
love,

Oh let us die, my sweet friend! Let us die, beloved of my heart!

What shall we do henceforward with an insipid youth, now that
we have exhausted all its delights? (Part One, Letter LV)

Such melancholy, however, is not unbearable, for the “sensitive

souls” are never drawn to the point of actual suicide.1* Moreover,
they obviously derive a certain exquisite delight from their suffer-
ing. This somewhat masochistic pleasure is made explicit by Saint-
Preux in a letter to Julie during one of their separations:

But nevertheless, do you not feel that our excessive misery is

not without compensation, and that if they [Claire and Mon-
sieur d’Orbe] have pleasures which we are deprived of, we have
some also which they cannot know? Yes, my sweet friend, in
spite of absence, privations, alarms, in spite of despair itself,
the powerful exertion of two hearts toward each other is always
attended by a secret pleasure unknown to tranquil souls. It
is one of the miracles of love to make us find pleasure in suf-
fering, and we should regard as the worst of misfortunes a
state of indifference and oblivion which would take all the feel-
ing of our misery from us. Let us lament our fate, oh Julie! But
let us not envy anyone. (Part Two, Letter XVI)

And so, though melancholy is characterized by despair and despond-

ency, it is not without its recompenses, for the “sensitive soul” in
a melancholic mood can have feelings of pleasure somewhat akin
to (though not, of course, so intense as) those which are produced
by moments of sublimity.

44 However, after Goethe’s Werther (1774) they went to such lengths.

16 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Rousseau’s treatment of the sentiments, then, is distinct from that

of his predecessors in sentimental fiction, though, to be sure, both
had certain general features in common. His is not the simple analy-
sis, relatively speaking, of the sentiments that we find in Marivaux,
for example. Nor does Rousseau make an appeal to the reader’s
pity, as Prévost does, for the plight of the sentimental hero trapped
in a web created by his feelings. Nor is Rousseau’s tone so somber
or moralistic as that of Richardson. Rather, in La Nouvelle Héloise
we find a glorification of the sentiments, an assertion of the superi-
ority and importance of individual feelings. The intense delight in
subjective emotional states is further enhanced because of this glori-
fication and because, as Rousseau emphasizes throughout the novel,
such states are revelatory of new truths, always vague but significant.
That Rousseau thus made of the sentiments a singular source
of intense and glorified pleasure is an important reason, no doubt,
for the immense success of his novel and for its influence. To Rous-
seau’s generation, witnessing the wearisome decadence of the neo-
classical tradition, with all its artificial restraint and decorum, this
doctrine of the emancipation of the emotions had a great and
wide appeal. And in the subsequent romantic period, it had far-
reaching and well-known consequences.
4 A NOTE ON THIS TRANSLATION *&

IN MY TRANSLATION of La Nouvelle Héloise I have been concerned

not solely with literal exactness but also, and perhaps more impor-
tantly, with conveying to the reader the distinctive flavor of Rous-
seau’s prose, with capturing not only the novelist’s meaning but
the texture of his style as well. To illustrate more thoroughly what
I have attempted to do, I should first like to point out some of the
qualities of the French text.
In a dialogue written as a preface to La Nouvelle Héloise, Rous-
seau has the participants, himself and an unnamed critic, engage in
a discussion of the style of the letters which comprise the novel. At
one point, the author contends to his disbelieving critic that the
faultiness of one’s language gives evidence of the intensity of one’s
feelings. He argues:

Read a love letter written by someone in his study, by a wit who

wants to appear brilliant; in spite of the paucity of fire he may
have in his head, his pen will burn up the paper, as they say, but
the warmth he inspires will not go any further. You will be
charmed, even perhaps stirred, but it will be merely a short-
lived, sterile emotion which will leave you only words to re-
member it by. On the other hand, a letter that love has truly
dictated, a letter from an honestly impassioned lover will be
loosely written, verbose, drawn out to great lengths, disorderly,
repetitious. The lover’s heart, full of overflowing emotion, keeps
saying the same thing over and over and never finishes saying
it, like a living spring which endlessly gushes forth and is
never exhausted. There is no wit, nothing remarkable in it;
you don’t remember any words or turns of phrase. You admire
nothing; you are struck by nothing. However, you feel your
soul touched; you feel moved without understanding why.
18 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

The effusive style of the impassioned love letter described above is,
for the most part, Rousseau’s own. With little reticence, Jean-
Jacques writes as the whim seizes him, as he admits in Book IX of
the Confessions. However, it must be remembered that Rousseau
was a musician. The disorder, the repetition, and the gushing qual-
ity of his prose do not keep it from having a certain rhythm and bal-
ance.
I should like to illustrate Rousseau’s style by analyzing a repre-
sentative passage from La Nouvelle Héloise. ‘The following is the
beginning of Letter XXVI of Part One, written by Saint-Preux to
Julie during their first separation as he keeps watch on her house
from the crags of Meillerie:

[1] Que mon état est changé dans peu de jours! [2] Que d’amer-
tumes se mélent a la douceur de me rapprocher de vous! [3]
Que de tristes réflexions m’assiégent! [4] Que de traverses mes
craintes me font prévoir! [5] O Julie, que c’est un fatal présent
du ciel qu’une ame sensible! [6] Celui qui l’a recu s’attendre a
n’avoir que peine et douleur sur la terre. [7] Vil jouet de l’air
et des saisons, le soleil ou les brouillards, l’air couvert ou serein
régleront sa destinée, et il sera content ou triste au gré des vents.
[8] Victime des préjugés, il trouvera dans d’absurdes maximes
un obstacle invincible aux justes voeux de son coeur. [9] Les
hommes le puniront d’avoir des sentiments droits de chaque
chose, et d’en juger par ce qui est véritable plut6t que par ce
qui est de convention. [10] Seul il suffiroit pour faire sa propre
misére, en se livrant indiscrétement aux attraits divins de
Vhonnéte et du beau, tandis que les pesantes chaines de la
nécessité l’attachent a lignominie. [11] I] cherchera la félicité
supréme sans se souvenir qu'il est homme: son coeur et sa raison
seront incessamment en guerre, et des désirs sans bornes lui pré-
pareront d’éternelles privations.
[12] Telle est la situation cruelle o me plongent, le sort qui
m/accable, et mes sentiments qui m’élévent, et ton pére qui me
méprise, et toi qui fais le charme et le tourment de ma vie. [13]
Sans toi, Beauté fatale! je n’aurois jamais senti ce contraste
insupportable de grandeur au fond de mon Ame et de bassesse
dans ma fortune. [14] J’aurois vécu tranquille et serois mort
content, sans daigner remarquer quel rang j’avois occupé sur
la terre. [15] Mais t’avoir vue et ne pouvoir te posséder, t’adorer
et n’étre qu’un homme! étre aimé et ne pouvoir étre heureux!
habiter les mémes lieux et ne pouvoir vivre ensemble! [16] O
Julie a qui je ne puis renoncer! [17] O destinée que je ne puis
vaincre! [18] Quels combats affreux vous excités en moi, sans
pouvoir jamais surmonter mes désirs ni mon impuissance!
A NOTE ON THIS TRANSLATION 19

A reader’s attention to this passage is captured immediately by

the rhetorical formulas of the sentimentalist—“O Julie . . . Beauté
fatale!” —and by the liberal use of the exclamation point to express
the generally disturbed state of affairs. But upon reading the pas-
sage more closely, the reader is impressed by the rhythmical pat-
terns which establish themselves. Observe the climactic arrange-
ment of the sentences of the first paragraph: the first four are very
short; [5] and [6] are somewhat longer; [7] and [8] are about the
length of an average sentence; and [9], [10], and [11] are rather
long. This short-long-longer sentence pattern, with its correspond-
ing lengthening of cadence, and the converse of this pattern, with
its shortening, can be found in many of Rousseau’s paragraphs
throughout the novel. Just as in his musical compositions, in his’
prose Jean-Jacques knew how to quicken and retard tempo for the
sake of emphasis and variety.
Another striking feature of the quoted passage is the balance
of the elements. After the emphatic parallelism of the opening four
sentences, Rousseau begins pairing terms: in [6], the nouns “peine
et douleur’”; in [7], the prepositional phrases ‘de l’air et des sai-
sons,” the nouns “le soleil ou les brouillards,’’ and the adjectives
“couvert ou serein” and “content ou triste’; in [9], the infinitives
“d’avoir . ... et d’en juger” and the clauses “ce qui est véritable
. ce qui est de convention”; in [10], the prepositional phrases
“de Vhonnéte et du beau”; and in [11], the two independent
clauses of the compound sentence. In sentence [12], the pattern is
doubled, with the paralleling of four nouns and their modifying
clauses. In [13] and [14], we again find the pairing of prepositional
phrases, “de grandeur au fond de mon 4me et de bassesse dans ma
fortune,” and of predicates “aurois vécu tranquille et serois mort
content”; and in [15] we again see the double pattern in the series
of infinitive phrases. Sentences [16] and [17] are pairs themselves,
and [18] ends with the balanced nouns “mes désirs” and “mon im-
puissance.” Thus, although the passage is in some ways “loosely
written, verbose, drawn out to great lengths, disorderly, repetitious,”
it nevertheless has a formal balanced structure, with repeated rhyth-
mical patterns to tie the whole subtly together.
My chief problem as a translator has been to convey this sense of
rhythm and balance in Rousseau’s prose. In general, I have solved
it by translating as simply and as literally as possible, but attempt-
ing as much as I could to capture the rhythmic patterns of Rous-
seau’s sentences without creating an awkward word order in Eng-
lish, However, sometimes a literal translation was impossible, as in
20 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

several instances where Rousseau’s narrative shifts suddenly and

sporadically from the past tense to the historical present. The au-
thor’s obvious intention was to convey a sense of excitement, but
such an abrupt shift of tense in English is merely awkward, and
therefore I have kept the past tense throughout these narrative
portions, allowing the short, breathless sentences to provide the
sense of excitement. Another change I have often made in the text is
in the matter of punctuation. By English standards, even modern
French punctuation is somewhat chaotic, and Rousseau seemed to
have little logic behind his use of commas, colons, semicolons, or
periods. I have therefore taken considerable liberties for the sake
of clarity, and the novel has been punctuated in accordance with
formal English rules. However, I have almost always left in the ubi-
quitous exclamation point, as well as the ellipses, wherever I found
them. Finally, I have made no distinction between tu and vous in
my translation. My reason was not simply that thee, thou, and thy
seem overly archaic these days, but also that Rousseau himself often
uses vous where one might reasonably expect to find the familiar
form.15 Consequently, since there is a conspicuous lack of consist-
ency in this matter, I have resolved it by translating both the
French forms as you.
In no way have I attempted to use the conventional style of the
eighteenth century English novel of sentiment to approximate the
prose of La Nouvelle Héloise, for such would obviously give a thor-
oughly inaccurate impression of Rousseau’s intentions. The first
translator, William Kenrick, committed this fault, for he failed to
see that Rousseau’s eighteenth century sensibilities are conveyed
less by the convolutions of style and formality of vocabulary, as is
the case with many English novels, than by the content of the book.
For example, Kenrick substitutes for Saint-Preux’s complaint to
Julie, “Mon coeur a plus qu'il n’esperoit, et n’est pas content,” the
following stilted sentence: “My present felicity seems far to exceed
my most sanguine expectations, and yet I am discontented.” 16 Such
palpable absurdities are typical of Kenrick’s version.17 Although

* Mornet noted that in Rousseau’s day the vous was frequently used even be-
tween lovers. (J.-J. Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloise, ed. Daniel
Mornet. Les Grands
Ecrivains de la France, 2nd Ser. Vol. II, p. 16, nl. Paris, 1925.)
* My translation: “My heart has more than it hoped for, and yet is not
content.”
” James H. Warner examined the whole of Kenrick’s translatio
n, comparing it
to the original in an attempt to discover in exactly what
form Rousseau was
presented to the eighteenth century English readers. He
came to the following
conclusion about Kenrick’s work:
A NOTE ON THIS TRANSLATION 21

for many years the critics applauded it, it is clearly a gross misrep-
resentation of the original.
To remain faithful to Rousseau and at the same time to bring
La Nouvelle Héloise within the interest range of the twentieth
century reader—this has been my aim both in the translation and
in the abridgment of the novel. Although not long by the standards
of an eighteenth century reading public conditioned by the virtu-
ally interminable tribulations of Clarissa Harlowe, Rousseau’s book
seems unnecessarily protracted to modern taste. Rousseau is often
repetitious, describing an event sometimes from three or four points
of view, breaking into his narrative to recapitulate the plot, and re-
stating an opinion or a moral dictum several times. These repeti-
tious elements can be deleted without serious harm to the plot or
to the characterizations of the novel. Moreover, like many eight-
eenth century novelists, Rousseau delighted in digressions on moral,
social, and political topics. A great many of these digressions are
to be found in essence, sometimes in almost the same form, in such
works as Emile, the Discourses, and the Social Contract (all avail-
able in good, modern translations) , and I have felt justified in de-
leting them when they serve to impede the progress of the book. By
far the greatest number of my deletions has come in the last three
parts, where the moralistic tone becomes heavier and the digressions
lengthier. Conversely, I have translated the first two parts almost
in their entirety, for these opening sections contain the greater part
of the book’s action and fewer digressions to weaken a reader’s in-
terest. Only in few cases have I removed merely a single sentence or
a short paragraph. Almost all the deletions have consisted at least
of a lengthy paragraph, and most frequently I have cut out substan-

“As one would anticipate from these alterations, the translation is inaccurate
and inferior to the original in almost every respect. The transfer into an English
idiom resulted almost invariably in longer word-groups, and hence in more in-
frequent, though not less numerous, pauses. The translator lengthened many
phrases, apparently to provide greater smoothness. . . . Weakness also resulted
from the omission and alteration of vigorous, realistic figures, and from the loss
of occasional assonance. In other words, the English version exemplifies a rela-
tively smooth and restrained type of prose which is particularly unsuited to the
prevailingly impassioned tone of the original.
“Consequently Kenrick failed to accomplish his expressed desires. In no sense
was his translation less diffuse than the original; it was more so. His substitutions
of general for concrete expressions certainly did not improve any alleged vague-
ness or lack of accuracy. The changes which, according to the translator, were
to atone for certain deficiencies in ‘propriety’ may also be questioned. In short,
Kenrick succeeded only in his resolution not to be literal or ‘servile,’ and in
his determination to confine himself to the English idiom.” (“Eighteenth Cen-
tury English Reaction to La Nouvelle Héloise,’ PMLA (Sept., 1937), p. 808.)
22 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

tial portions of the text, sometimes even an entire letter. The length
of the complete novel is about 315,000 words; I have cut it to ap-
proximately 180,000. I have marked each cut by an arabic numeral
—[1], [2], and so on—and summarized the deleted portion in an
appendix, citing wherever applicable other works by Rousseau
which contain similar or relevant material.
The text I have used as a basis for this translation, as I have pre-
viously noted, is the definitive critical edition of La Nouvelle He-
lotse done by the French scholar, Daniel Mornet. One of the many
ways in which this excellent and copiously footnoted edition has
facilitated my task as translator is by providing, wherever possible,
modern French equivalents of eighteenth century terms now out of
memory’s reach and of the Swiss provincial terms which Rousseau
occasionally used. I am also indebted to Mornet’s edition for most
of the translator’s notes which I have from time to time felt neces-
sary to include for the sake of perfect clarity. I am further indebted
to Dr. Harold M. Priest, Professor of English at the University of
Denver, for reading the manuscript and for obligingly supplying
the translations of the Italian passages. Finally, I wish to acknowl-
edge the invaluable assistance of my husband, Dr. Robert E. Mc-
Dowell, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Texas at
Arlington.

Summer, 1967 J.H.M.

 ale
PART I

ule
 | —

Ah Ses
=
-

el racale
 dt LETTER I *&

To Julie

I MusT FLY from you, Mademoiselle, I know I must. I should not

have waited so long, or rather, I should never have seen you. But
what can I do now? How shall I begin? You have promised me your
friendship; consider my difficulties and advise me.
You know that I entered your home only at the invitation of your
mother. Knowing that I had cultivated some acceptable talents, she
thought that, here in a place where teachers are not available, I
would be of some use in the education of a daughter whom she
adores. In turn, proud to be instrumental in adding any embellish-
ment to such a beautiful character, I dared to take this dangerous
task upon myself without foreseeing the peril of it, or at least with-
out dreading it. I shall not tell you that I am beginning to pay for
my presumption. I hope that I shall never forget myself to the point
of saying things to you which are not proper for you to hear, or of
failing in the respect I owe to your virtue even more than to your
noble birth and to your personal charms. If I must suffer, at least
I have the consolation of suffering alone, and I would not wish
for a happiness which might cost you yours.
However, I see you every day, and I notice that without knowing
it you are innocently aggravating torments with which you cannot
sympathize and of which you must be ignorant. Indeed, I know the
course prudence, for want of hope, prescribes in cases like this, and
I would endeavor to follow it, if I could in this case reconcile pru-
dence with courtesy; but how can I decently leave a house whose
mistress has herself bidden me enter, in which she overwhelms me
with kindnesses, in which she believes me to be of some use to her
whom she holds most dear in the world? How can I deprive this af-
 26 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

fectionate mother of the pleasure of one day surprising her husband

with your progress in the studies which she keeps hidden from him
for this very purpose? Must I leave impolitely, without saying any-
thing? Must I declare to her the reason for my leaving? And will
not
even this declaration be offensive to her, coming from a man whose
birth and fortune cannot permit him to hope for your hand?
I see, Mademoiselle, only one way of getting out of the predica
-
ment in which I find myself. It is if the hand that plunged
me into
it extricates me, if my punishment as well as my fault
comes from
you, and if at least through pity for me you deign to refuse
me your
presence. Show my letter to your parents; have your
door denied to
me; spurn me in whatever manner you please. I can
endure every-
thing from you, but I cannot fly from you of my own accord.
You, to spurn mel! I, to fly from you! And why? Why
then is it a
crime to be sensible of merit, and to love one
whom I must neces-
sarily honor? No, lovely Julie, your physical charms
might have
dazzled my eyes, but they might never have led
my heart astray
without the more powerful attraction that animat
es them. It is that
touching combination of a lively sensibility and
an invariably sweet
disposition, it is that tender pity for all
the misfortunes of others,
it is that justness of spirit and that exquisite taste
which derive their
excellence from the purity of your soul—these
are, in short, the
charms of your sentiments which, much more
than those of your
person, I adore. I confess that you may be imagin
ed still more beau-
tiful, but more lovable and more worthy
of the heart of an honor-
able man—no Julie, it is not possible.
Sometimes I dare to flatter myself that heave
n has brought about
a secret sympathy in our affections, as well
as in our tastes and our
ages. Being still so young, we are impaired by
nothing in our natural
tendencies, and all our inclinations seem to agree. Before having
acquired the standard prejudices of the
world, we have some similar
ways of feeling and seeing, and why shoul
d I not dare to imagine in
our hearts the same agreement that I
perceive in our judgments?
Sometimes our eyes meet; a few sighs
escape us at the same time; a
few furtive tears . . . oh Julie! If this
accord came from far . . . if
heaven had destined . . . all human
power ... ah, pardon me!
I am mistaken. I dare to take my wishe
s for hope; the ardor of my
desires lends to their realization the possib
ility which it lacks,
With dread I see what torment my
heart prepares for itself, I am
not seeking to indulge my weakness;
I should like to hate it, if that
were possible. Judge for yourself whet
her my sentiments are pure
by the kind of favor I have just aske
d of you. Destroy, if it can be
LETTER I + TO JULIE ra|

done, the source of the poison which both nourishes and kills me.
I wish only to be cured or to die, and I beg for your severity as a
lover would beg for your kindness.
Yes, I promise, I swear on my part to do all I can to recover my
reason, or to hide in the bottom of my soul the anxiety which I feel
taking form there; but for pity’s sake, turn away from me those soft
eyes which deal death to me; conceal from my sight your features,
your expression, your arms, your hands, your blond hair, your ges-
tures; avoid the eager imprudence of my glances; hold back that
touching voice which I never hear without emotion. Be, alas, other
than yourself, in order that my heart may be able to return to itself.
Shall I speak to you straightforwardly? In these games that the
idleness of the evening gives rise to, you allow yourself some cruel
liberties in front of everyone. You have no more reserve with me
than with anyone else. Even yesterday, when as a forfeit you almost
had to let me take a kiss, you resisted only feebly. Fortunately, I
took care not to persist. I felt in my increasing turmoil that I was
going to lose control, and I checked myself. Ah! If at least I had
been able to enjoy that kiss to my liking, it would have been accom-
panied by my last breath, and I should have died the happiest of
men.
For mercy’s sake, let us leave off these games which can have dis-
tressing consequences. No, there is not one of them which may not
be dangerous, not even the most childish one of all. I always trem-
ble as I take your hand when we play them, and I don’t know how it
happens that I always must take it. Scarcely is it in mine when a
thrill seizes me. The game gives me a fever, or rather, a delirium. I
no longer see, I no longer feel anything; and in this moment of
mental derangement, what shall I say, what do, where conceal my-
self, how account for myself?
During our lessons, there is another dangerous consequence. If
I see you for one instant without your mother or without your
cousin present, you suddenly change your demeanor. You take on
such a serious expression, so cold, so chilling, that my respect and
fear of displeasing you destroy my presence of mind and my judg-
ment, and for trembling I can hardly stammer out a few words of a
lesson that even with all your talents you can follow only with dif-
ficulty. Thus, your affected change at once becomes a disadvantage
for us both; you grieve me and learn nothing at all, while I am at a
loss to imagine what motive can thus change the temperament of so
reasonable a person. I venture to ask how you can be so gay in pub-
lic and so reserved when we are by ourselves. I thought that it
28 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

should be just the contrary and that it was necessary to restrain one’s
conduct in proportion to the number of spectators. Instead of that,
I observe in you, always with the same perplexity on my part, the
ceremonious tone in private, the intimate tone in front of everyone.
Deign to be more consistent, and perhaps I shall be less tormented.
If compassion, natural in well-born souls, can cause you to be
moved by the pains of an unfortunate man for whom you have
shown some esteem, some slight changes in your conduct will make
his situation less troublesome and will make him able to bear both
his silence and his misfortunes more peacefully. If his condition
does not move you, and if you wish to use your power to get rid of
him, you can do it without a murmur from him; he still prefers to
be destroyed by your order rather than by an indiscreet, vehement
emotion which might make him guilty in your eyes. Finally, what-
ever you may prescribe as my lot, at least I shall not have to re-
proach myself for having indulged in a rash hope; and if you have
read this letter, you have done all that I would dare ask of you,
even had I no refusal to fear.

4 LETTER II *&

To Julie

HOW MISTAKEN I was, Mademoiselle, in my first letter! Instead of al-

leviating my pains, I have only increased them by exposing myself
to your displeasure, for I feel that the worst thing of all is to dis-
please you. Your silence, your cold and reserved attitude declares
my doom only too well. You have granted my request in part but
thus only punish me more for it.

E poi ch’ amor di me vi fece accorta

Fur i biondi capelli allor velati,
E l’'amoroso sguardo in se raccolto.
PETRARCH

Since love made you aware of me

The blond tresses have been covered
And the amorous glance withheld.
LETTER II - TO JULIE 29

You suppress the innocent familiarity in public about which I was

so foolish to complain; but you are only more severe in private,
and thus your ingenious cruelty exerts itself both in your obliging-
ness and in your refusals.
How can you not realize how cruel this coldness is to me! You
should find me punished too much. With what earnestness would I
alter the past so that you might not have seen that fatal letter! No,
for fear of offending you again, I would not even write this one, if
I had not written the first. I do not wish to increase my error but to
atone for it. To appease you, must I say that I was mistaken? Must
I protest that it was not love which I felt for you? . . . I, J should
pronounce that odious perjury! Is this vile lie worthy of a heart in
which you reign supreme? Ah! How unhappy I am doomed to be,
for though I have been rash, I shall not be a liar nor a coward, and
the crime that my heart committed my pen cannot disown.
I feel in advance the weight of your indignation, and I await its
final consequence, as a favor you owe me for want of any other, for
the passion which consumes me deserves to be punished but not
scorned. For pity’s sake, do not leave me to myself; condescend at
least to settle my fate; tell me your pleasure. Whatever you com-
mand, I shall obey implicitly. Will you impose an eternal silence
upon me? I shall restrain myself and keep it. Will you banish me
from your presence? I swear that you will see me no more. Will you
command me to die? Ah! That will not be the most difficult to obey.
There is no command to which I do not consent, except the one to
love you no longer. Yet I would even obey that one, if it were pos-
sible.
A hundred times a day I am tempted to throw myself at your feet,
to bathe them with my tears, to obtain there my death or my par-
don. But always a deadly fear strikes a chill into my courage, my
knees tremble and dare not bend, words expire on my lips, and my
soul finds no assurance against the dread of angering you. Is there
in the world a condition more horrible than mine? My heart knows
too well how guilty it is and yet could not cease being so. My crime
and my remorse trouble it simultaneously, and without knowing
what my fate shall be, I waver in an unbearable doubt between the
hope for compassion and the fear of punishment.
But no, I hope for nothing. I do not have the right to hope.
The only favor that I may expect from you is to hasten my punish-
ment. Let your just revenge be satisfied. Am I not miserable enough
to be reduced to begging for it myself? Punish me, you must. But
if you are not pitiless, abandon this cold and displeased attitude
30 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

which drives me to despair. When a guilty man is sent to his

death, one no longer shows resentment toward him.

t LETTER III *

To Julie

DO NoT lose your patience, Mademoiselle; this is the last importu-

nity you will receive from me.
When I began loving you, how far I was from seeing all the mis-
fortunes I was preparing for myself! At first I foresaw only the un-
happiness of a hopeless passion that reason might overcome in
time; next I became acquainted with a greater sorrow in the pain of
displeasing you; and now I am experiencing the most cruel anguish
of all in the discovery of your own misery. Oh Julie! With bitterness
I see it, my complaints are disturbing your tranquillity. You keep
an invincible silence, but everything reveals your hidden agitation
to my attentive heart. Your eyes become melancholy, pensive, fixed
upon the ground; a few distracted looks steal toward me; your
bloom fades; an unusual pallor covers your cheeks; your gaiety
leaves you; a mortal sadness overcomes you; and it is only the un-
alterable sweetness of your soul which preserves your good humor.
Be it sensibility, be it disdain, be it pity for my distress, you are
affected, I see. I fear I am adding to your unhappiness, and this
fear grieves me much more than the hope which could be con-
strued from it can please me, for if I know myself, your happiness
is dearer to me than my own.
As for me, however, I am now beginning to understand how
much I misjudged my own heart, and I see too late that what I first
took for a passing delirium shall constitute my future destiny. It is
your recent sadness which has made me feel my own despair. Never,
no, never might the luster of your eyes, the glow of your complex-
ion, the excellence of your intellect, and all the charm of your for-
mer gaiety have produced an effect like that of your despondency.
Do not doubt, divine Julie, that if you could see what an intolerable
flame this week of your languor has kindled in my soul, you your-
self would suffer from the pains you cause me. There is now no
LETTER II + TO JULIE 31

remedy for them, and with despair I feel that the fire which con-
sumes me will be extinguished only in the tomb.
Be it so. Whoever cannot make himself happy can at least de-
serve to be so, and I shall compel you to esteem a man to whom
you have not deigned to make the slightest response. I am young
and can one day merit the consideration of which I am not now
worthy. In the meantime, I must give you back the tranquillity
which I have lost forever and which I have taken from you in spite
of myself. It is fair that I alone bear the punishment for the crime
of which I alone am guilty. Adieu, too beautiful Julie, live tran-
quilly and recover your happiness; after tomorrow you shall see me
no longer. But rest assured that the ardent and pure love with
which I have burned for you will not be extinguished in my life-
time, that my heart full of so worthy an object would never debase
itself by loving another, that it shall divide all its future homage
between you and virtue, and that no other fires shall ever profane
the altar at which Julie was adored.

Note from Julie

Do not go away with the idea that your leaving has been made nec-
essary. A virtuous heart would subdue its feelings or keep silent, and
perhaps then become formidable in silence. But you . . . you may
stay.

Answer
I have kept silent a long time; your coldness has finally made me
speak. Even if one can conquer his passions for the sake of virtue,
he cannot bear the scorn of her whom he loves. I must leave.

Second Note from Julie

No, Monsieur, after what you have seemed to feel, after what you
have dared to tell me, a man such as you have pretended to be does
not leave; he does more.

Answer

I have pretended nothing except to have a moderate passion in a

heart which actually is in despair. Tomorrow you shall be content,
32 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

and whatever you may say then, I shall have done less than leaving
you.

Third Note from Julie

Madman! If my life is dear to you, be fearful of taking yours. I am
beset and can neither speak nor write to you until tomorrow. Wait.

4 LETTER IV *&

From Julie

MUST I THEN finally confess this fatal, too poorly concealed secret!
How many times have I sworn that it would not leave my heart ex-
cept with my life! But the danger to your life tears it from me. The
secret is out, and my honor also is lost. Alas! I have kept my word
too well. Is there a death more cruel than to survive one’s honor?
What shall I say, how shall I break such a painful silence? Or ra-
ther, have I not already said everything, and have you not under-
stood me only too well? Ah! You have seen too much of it not to
guess the rest! Led imperceptibly into the snares of the vile seducer,
I see, without being able to stop myself, the horrible precipice to-
ward which J am running. Artful man, it is my love much more than
yours which causes your boldness. You see the disorder in my heart;
you take advantage of it in order to ruin me. And now that you
have made me despicable, the worst of my misfortune is to be
forced to despise you. Ah, wretch! I esteem you, and you bring me
to shame! Believe me, if your heart was capable of enjoying this
triumph peacefully, it would never have obtained it.
You know that your remorse will increase, because my soul had
no inclinations toward vice. Modesty and virtue were dear to me:
I hoped to cherish them in a life of simplicity and industry. But to
what purpose were my efforts which Heaven rejected? Since the first
day that I had the misfortune to see you, I have felt the poison
which destroys my sense and my reason; I felt it from the first in-
stant. Your eyes, your sentiments, your speech, and your criminal
pen make it each day more deadly.
LETTER IV + FROM JULIE 33

I have neglected nothing in the attempt to arrest the progress of

this fatal passion. Powerless to resist it, Iwould have liked to defend
myself from being overcome, but your eagerness has outwitted my
vain precaution. A hundred times I have wanted to throw myself
at my parents’ feet; a hundred times I have wanted to open my
guilty heart to them. But they cannot know what is taking place
there; they would apply common remedies to a desperate disease.
My mother is weak and without authority, I know the inflexible
severity of my father, and if I told them I would only ruin and dis-
honor myself, my family, and you. My friend Claire is absent; my
brother is dead. I can find no one in the world to protect me
against the enemy which haunts me. I beg Heaven in vain; Heaven
is deaf to the prayers of irresolute souls. Everything feeds the ardor
with which I am devoured; everything gives me up to myself, or
rather, everything gives me up to you. The whole of nature seems
to be your accomplice. All my efforts are vain; I adore you in spite
of myself. How could my heart, which has not been able to resist
with its full force, now surrender only halfway? How could this
heart, which knows nothing about dissimulation, hide from you the
rest of its weakness? Ah! The first step, which costs the most, was
the one which should not have been taken; how shall I stop myself
from taking the rest? No, since this first step I feel myself drawn
into the abyss, and you can now make me as unhappy as you shall
wish.
Such is the frightful situation in which I see myself, in which I
can no longer get help from anyone but him who has reduced me to
seeking it, and in which in order to defend me from ruin you must
be my only protector against yourself. I could, I know, postpone this
confession of my despair. I could for some time have disguised my
shameful weakness and by yielding to it gradually have thus de-
ceived even myself—a vain dissimulation which could flatter my
pride and not save my virtue. Ah, I see too well, I feel too well
where the first misstep is leading, and I was not seeking to make
way for my ruin but to avoid it.
Yet, if you are not the lowest of men, if some spark of virtue
shines in your soul, if there still remains some trace of the senti-
ments of honor with which you seemed to be imbued, can I believe
you vile enough to abuse the fatal confession which my delirium
tears from me? No, I know you well: you will sustain me in my
weakness, you will become my defender, you will protect me against
my own heart. Your virtues are the last refuge of my innocence;
my honor dares to confide itself in yours; you cannot preserve the
34 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

one without the other. Generous soul, ah! preserve them both,
and, for your own sake at least, take pity on me.
Oh God! Have I been sufficiently humiliated? I am on my knees
writing to you; I bathe my paper with my tears; I raise to you my
timid supplications. And yet do not think that I am ignorant of the
fact that it was for me to receive them from you, and that in order
to be obeyed, I had only with artifice to be scornful. Dear friend,
disregard that frivolous convention but leave me my innocence. I
prefer to be your slave and live virtuously than to buy your obedi-
ence at the price of my honor. If you deign to hear me, what love,
what gratitude are you to expect from her who shall owe you her
return to sanity! How charming is the sweet union of two pure
souls! Your conquered desires will be the source of your happi-
ness, and the pleasures which you shall enjoy will be worthy of
Heaven itself.
I believe, I hope that a heart which has seemed to me to deserve
all the affection of mine will not belie the generosity which I ex-
pect from it. I hope, moreover, that if it were cowardly enough to
take advantage of my bewilderment and the confessions it: tears
from me, scorn and indignation would return to me the power of
reason which J have lost; and I hope also that I should not be
so
cowardly myself as to fear a lover of whom I should have to be
ashamed. You will be virtuous or be scorned; I shall be respected or
cured of my passion. This is the only hope, besides that of dying,
which is left for me.

& LETTER V &

To Julie

HEAVENLY POWERS! I had one soul for sorrow, give me another for
happiness. Love, spirit of my existence, come sustain
me as I grow
faint. How inexpressible is the charm of virtue,
how invincible the
power of the loved one’s voice! Happiness,
pleasures, ecstasies, how
polgnant your impressions are! Who can withst
and them? Oh, how
shall I be equal to the torrent of delights which
has just flooded my
heart! How shall I dispel the apprehension of
a fearful girl? Julie
LETTER V - TO JULIE
35
- no, not my Julie on her knees! My Julie shedding tears!
.. .
She, to whom the universe should pay its respects, begging a man
who adores her not to insult her, not to dishonor himself!
If I could
become indignant with you, I would, because of your fears
which
debase us. Pure and celestial beauty, be a better judge of the
na-
ture of your conquest! Oh! If I adore your physical charms, is
it not
above all for the imprint of that spotless soul which animates
them,
the divine mark of which is evident in all your features?
Do you
fear succumbing to my designs? But what designs can she dread
who
stamps all the feelings she inspires with respect and with honor?
Is
there in the world a man vile enough to dare be bold with you?
Permit, permit me to savor the unexpected happiness of being
loved . . . loved by her . . . kings of the world, how I now look
down upon you! Let me read a thousand times that enchanting let-
ter, in which your love and your feelings are written in glowing
colors, in which, in spite of all the violent agitation of your soul,
I
see with ecstasy how the most lively passions retain in a chaste soul
the holy character of virtue. What monster, after having read that
touching letter, could take advantage of your condition and show
by that most criminal act his profound contempt for himself?
No,
dear love, have confidence in a faithful friend who is wholly in-
capable of deceiving you. Although my reason may be forever lost,
although the agitation of my senses increases each instant, your
person is henceforward for me not only the most attractive but the
most sacred treasure with which a mortal was ever entrusted. My
ardor and its object will together preserve an inalterable purity. I
should shudder more to lay a hand upon your chaste form than to
commit the most vile incest, and you are not more inviolably safe
with your father than with your lover. Oh, if ever that happy
lover forgets himself for one moment in your presence . . . but
could Julie’s lover be a base soul! No, when I shall cease to love
virtue, I shall no longer love you; at my first base action, I wish no
longer for you to love me.
Be reassured then, I implore you in the name of the tender and
pure love which unites us. This love is to be for you the guarantee
of my self-control and my respect; this love is to answer to you for
itself. And why should your fears exceed my desires? To what
other happiness would wish to aspire, if my whole heart can
scarcely be adequate to that which it now enjoys? We are both
young, it is true, we are in love for the first and only time in our
lives, and we have no experience with passion. But is the honor
which conducts us a deceitful guide? Is there ever need for experi-
 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE
36

if
ence which is acquired only through vice? I am deceiving myself
of my heart. J am not a
the right feelings are not all in the bottom
vile seducer, as you called me in your despair, but a simple and sen-
sitive man who readily shows what he feels and feels nothing for
I abhor a
which he must be ashamed. To say it all ina few words,
criminal act more than I love Julie. I don’t know, no, I doubt if the
nature of the love which you inspire is even compatible with vice
and if anyone besides a chaste soul could be sufficiently sensible of
all your charms. As for me, the more I am affected by them, the
more elevated are my sentiments. What good act that I should not
have done for itself would I not do now to make myself worthy of
you? Ah! Trust in the fires that you inspire in me and that you
know so well how to purify. Believe that it is enough that I adore
you in order to respect forever the precious treasure with which
you have entrusted me. Oh what a heart I will possess! ‘True
happiness, the homage of the loved one, the victory of an honorable
love—how much more valuable are these than all its pleasures!

+ LETTER VI *#

From Julie to Claire

ARE YOU RESOLVED, my cousin, to spend your life mourning poor

Chaillot, and must the dead make you forget the living? Your grief
is just, and I share it with you, but is it to be eternal? Since the
death of your mother, Chaillot had reared you with the greatest
care; she had been your friend rather than your governess. She
loved you tenderly and loved me because you love me; her memory
will ever inspire us only with principles of wisdom and honor. I
know all this, my dear, and I acknowledge it gratefully. But you
must acknowledge also that the good woman was scarcely prudent
with us; that she told us, unnecessarily, the most indiscreet secrets;
that she entertained us endlessly with the maxims of gallantry, with
the adventures of her youth, with the intrigues of lovers; and that
in order to secure us against the snares of men, though she did not
teach us to set them ourselves, she at least instructed us in a thou-
sand things that young girls would well do without. Console your-
LETTER VI - FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE 37

self, then, for her death as for a misfortune which is not without
some compensations. At our age, her lessons were beginning to be-
come dangerous, and Heaven has perhaps withdrawn her from us
at the moment when it was not good for her to stay with us any
longer. Do you remember all you said to me when I lost the best
of brothers? Was Chaillot more dear to you? Have you more cause
to grieve for her?
Return, my dear, she has need of you no longer. Alas! While you
waste your time in superfluous grief, do you not fear that your ab-
sence may be causing another misfortune? How can you not fear,
you who know the state of my heart, to abandon your friend to the
dangers which your presence would have prevented? Oh, what
things have happened since your departure! You will shudder in
learning what risks I have run through my imprudence. I hope
I have been rescued from them, but I am as it were at the mercy of
another. It is for you to restore me to myself; hurry then to return.
I have said nothing so much as that your attentions were useful to
your poor governess; I should have been the first to exhort you to
give them to her. But since she is dead, it is to her family that you
are obligated. We shall fulfill those obligations better here to-
gether than you could alone in the country; and you will perform
the duties of gratitude without neglecting those of friendship.
Since my father left, we have resumed our former manner of
living, and my mother leaves me alone less frequently. But that is
through habit more than through mistrust. Her visits take up less
time than we need for my little lessons, and Babi fills her place ra-
ther negligently. Although I do not find my good mother suffi-
ciently watchful, I cannot resolve to tell her so. I would willingly
provide for my own security without losing her esteem, and it is you
alone who can bring about all that. Return, my Claire, return with-
out delay. I regret the lessons I am taking without you, and I am
afraid of becoming too learned. Our tutor is not only a man of
merit; he is virtuous and therefore more dangerous. I am too
pleased with him to be so with myself. At our ages, with a charming
man, be he ever so virtuous, two young girls are preferable to one.
38 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4% LETTER VII *

Answer

I UNDERSTAND, and I tremble for you. Not that I believe the danger
as pressing as you imagine it. Your fear makes me less apprehen-
sive for the present, but the future frightens me, and if you cannot
conquer your passions, I foresee nothing but misfortune. Alas! How
many times has poor Chaillot predicted to me that the first sigh
from your heart would determine your future! Ah cousin, you are
still so young, and already your destiny is fulfilled! How we are go-
ing to miss her, that knowing woman whom you think it was ad-
vantageous for us to lose! Perhaps we ought to have first fallen into
safer hands, but we are too educated in leaving hers to allow our-
selves to be governed by others and not educated enough to govern
ourselves. She alone could shield us against the dangers to which
she had exposed us. She taught us a great deal, and, it seems to me,
we have ourselves thought a great deal for our age. The lively and
tender friendship which has united us almost since the cradle has
informed our hearts prematurely, so to speak, about all the pas-
sions. We know their signs and their effects well enough; we lack
only the art of repressing them. God grant that your young phi-
losopher may be acquainted with this art better than we!
When I say we, you understand me; it is you above all of whom I
speak. As for me, the governess always told me that my giddiness in-
stead of my reason would be my security, that I should never have
the wit to be in love, and that I was too foolish ever to be guilty of
follies. My Julie, take care; the better she thought your reason, the
more she feared for your heart. Be of good courage, however; I
know that your soul will do ail that wisdom and honor can, and in
its turn mine will do, doubt not, all that friendship can. If we know
too much for our age, at least this study has cost our morals noth-
ing. Believe me, my dear, there are many girls more ignorant than
we who are less virtuous. We are so because we wish to be, and
whatever one may say of it, that is the way of being so most surely.
Nevertheless, from what you tell me, I shall not have a moment’s
rest until I am near you, for if you are afraid of danger, it is not
LETTER VII - ANSWER 39

completely imaginary. It is true that the preventive measure is easy;

a word to your mother and everything is finished. But I understand
you: you do not want a conclusive expedient; you would willingly
remove the possibility of succumbing but not the honor of resisting.
Oh poor cousin! ... yet if the slightest glimmer .. . if Baron
d’Etange might consent to give his daughter, his only child, to the
son of an inconsiderable bourgeois without fortune! Do you hope
he will? Or what, then, are you hoping for? What do you want?
. . . Poor, poor cousin! . . . Yet fear nothing from me. Your friend
will keep your secret. Many people would find it more honest to
reveal it; perhaps they are right. As for me, I, who am not a great
rationalizer, I want no honesty which betrays friendship, faith, or
confidence. I suppose that each relationship, each age has its max-
ims, its duties, its virtues; that what would be prudence to others
would be perfidy to me; and that to confuse these things would
make us wicked instead of wise and happy. If your love is weak, we
shall conquer it; if it is extreme, it would be to expose it to tragedy
to attack it with violent measures, and friendship will not attempt
those for which it cannot be answerable. But in return you have
to conduct yourself properly when you are under my protection.
You will see, you will see what it is to have an eighteen year old
duenna!
I am not absent, as you know, for my own pleasure, and spring
is not so agreeable in the country as you think. We suffer here from
the cold and the heat at the same time; there is no shade at all for
walks, and we need a fire in the house. My father, for his part, be-
gins to notice, in the midst of his projects, that the newspapers are
later arriving here than in town. Thus everyone asks for nothing
better than to return, and you will embrace me, I hope, in four or
five days. But what disturbs me is that four or five days make I don’t
know how many hours, several of which are destined for the philos-
opher. For the philosopher, do you hear, cousin? Remember that
the clock strikes those hours only for him.
Do not blush here and lower your eyes. To take on a serious air
is impossible for you; your features will not agree to it. You well
know that I could not cry without laughing, and yet I have no less
sensibility than others; I do not feel our separation less severely, nor
do I grieve less for good Chaillot. I am infinitely grateful to you for
wishing to share with me the care of her family. I shall never aban-
don them, but you would no longer be yourself if you neglected any
opportunity to do good. I agree that poor Chaillot was talkative,
rather free in her ordinary conversation, hardly discreet with
40 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

young girls, and fond of speaking of her former life. Also, it is not
so much the qualities of her mind which I regret losing, although
she had excellent ones among the bad. The loss I mourn is of her
good heart, of her perfect affection which gave her the tenderness
of a mother together with the confidence of a sister. She took the
place of all my family for me. I scarcely knew my mother, my father
loves me only as much as he is capable of loving, we lost your ami-
able brother, and I see mine almost never. Here I am, like a for-
saken orphan. My child, you alone are left for me, for you are like
a kind mother. Still, you are right. You are left for me. I was mourn-
ing! I was foolish then; what had I to mourn?

P.S. For fear of an accident, I am addressing this letter to our

teacher in order that it may reach you more safely.

* LETTER VIII* *

To Julie

HOW CURIOUS are the caprices of love, beautiful Julie! My heart has
more than it hoped for and yet is not content. You love me, you
tell me so, and still I sigh. ‘This unjust heart dares to keep desiring
when there is no longer anything to desire; it punishes me with its
fancies and makes me uneasy in the very midst of happiness. Do not
think that I have forgotten the rules imposed upon me nor lost the
will to observe them. No, but a secret resentment disturbs me in
seeing that these laws are painful only to me, that you who once
pretended to be so weak are so strong at present, and that I have so
few struggles to make against myself, so careful are you to prevent
them.
How changed you are since two months ago, and you alone have
changed! Your languor has disappeared; there is no more mortifi-
cation or despondency; all your graces have returned to their posts;

* A gap is apparent here and often will be found in the rest of this correspond-
ence. Several letters have been lost; others have been suppressed; still others
have undergone abridgment. But nothing essential is missing which may not be
easily filled in with the help of what remains. [Rousseau]
LETTER VIII + TO JULIE 41

all your charms are reanimated; the newly opened rose is not more
fresh than you; the flashes of sprightliness have begun again; you
are witty with everyone; you are playful, even with me, just as be-
fore; and, what unsettles me more than all the rest, you swear an
eternal love for me with an air as gay as if you were saying the most
amusing thing in the world.
Tell me, tell me, you inconstant creature, is this the character
of a violent, ungovernable passion? And if you had the slightest
desire to conquer it, would not the constraint at least stifle your
playfulness? Oh, how much more amiable you were when you were
less beautiful! How I miss that touching pallor, the precious as-
surance of the lover’s happiness, and how I hate the indiscreet
health you have recovered at the expense of my tranquillity! Yes,
I should prefer to see you still ill rather than see this contented air,
these brilliant eyes, this blooming complexion which outrages me.
Have you so soon forgotten that you were not like this when you
were begging for my mercy? Julie, Julie, in such a short time how
tranquil this violent love has become!
But what offends me even more is that, after having committed
yourself to my honor, you seem to be mistrustful of it and that you
flee from dangers as if there remained any for you to fear. Is it thus
that you give credit to my discretion, and did my inviolable respect
deserve this affront from you? The absence of your father is far
from leaving us more freedom; one can scarcely see you alone. Your
inseparable cousin no longer leaves your side. Insensibly, we are
resuming our former way of living and our former circumspection,
with this difference only: that then it was irksome to you and now
it pleases you.
What then shall be the reward of such pure veneration, my ihe, aie
not your esteem? And of what avail to me is this eternal and volun-
tary abstinence from the sweetest thing in the world, if she who
demands it is not at all grateful? Indeed, I am tired of suffering
uselessly and of condemning myself to the hardest privations with-
out being given credit for them. What! Must you grow more beau-
tiful with impunity while you are treating me contemptuously!
Must my eyes ceaselessly devour the delights which my lips never
dare approach! Must I finally relinquish all hope, without at least
being able to acquire honor from so rigorous a sacrifice! No, since
you do not put your trust in my faithfulness, I no longer wish to
leave it vainly pledged. It is an unfair security which you extract
from my word and from your own precaution at the same time. You
are too ungrateful, or I am too scrupulous, and I am resolved not
49 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

to refuse the opportunities which fortune, in spite of you, may

throw my way. Finally, whatever may happen to me, I feel that
I have undertaken a charge above my powers. Julie, be on your
guard again; I am returning to you a treasure too dangerous for
the faith of the guardian, and its defense will cost your heart less
than you have pretended to fear.
I am speaking seriously. Rely upon yourself, or drive me away,
that is to say, deprive me of my life. I have given a rash pledge. I
am amazed that I have kept it so long; I know that I ought to keep
it always, but I feel that is impossible. One deserves to fail when he
imposes upon himself such perilous trials. Have faith in me, dear
and tender Julie; believe in this sensitive heart which lives only for
you. You will always be respected, but I may lose my reason for one
moment, and the intoxication of the senses may inspire a crime
which would be horrible in a state of composure. Happy for not
having deceived your expectation, I have conquered my passions
for two months, and you owe me the reward for two centuries of
suffering.

t% LETTER IX &

From Julie

I UNDERSTAND: the pleasures of vice and the honor of virtue consti-

tute a combination you would find enjoyable. Is that your morality?
. . . Ah! My good friend, you grow tired of being honorable quite
quickly! Is your honor, then, only a ruse? A curious sign of affec-
tion it is to complain of my health! Could it be that you were hop-
ing to see it destroyed by my foolish love and that you were expect-
ing me at that moment to beg you for my life? Or else were you
counting on respecting me as long as I should be formidable and
recanting when I should become lenient? I see no assertable merit
in such sacrifices.
With equal justice you reproach me for the care I take in sparing
you from painful combats with yourself, as if you should not
rather thank me for it. Then you withdraw yourself from the pledge
you have taken, as from a duty too burdensome, so that in the same
LETTER IX + FROM JULIE 43

letter you complain that you have too much misery and that you
do not have enough. Consider the matter better and try to be con-
sistent, in order to give your pretended griefs a less frivolous ap-
pearance. Or rather, abandon altogether this dissimulation which
is inconsistent with your character. Whatever you might say, your
heart is more content with mine than it pretends to be. Ungrateful
man, you know too well that it will never do you harm! Your let-
ter contradicts you by its sprightly style, for you would not be so
witty if you were less tranquil. But so much for the vain reproaches
which regard you; let us turn to those which concern me and which
seem at first to be better founded.
I know very well that the serene and gentle life which we have
been leading for the past two months is not in accord with my
earlier declaration, and I confess that you have cause to be sur-
prised by this contrast. You first saw me in despair, and you find me
at present too peaceful; thus you accuse my feelings of inconstancy
and my heart of capriciousness. Ah, my friend! Are you not judging
my heart too severely? You need more than a day to know it. Wait,
and you shall find, perhaps, that this heart which loves you is
not unworthy of yours.
If you could understand with what fright I experienced the first
touches of the sentiment which unites us, you could form an idea
of the suffering that it was to cause me. I had been reared under
such strict rules that even the most pure love seemed to me the
height of dishonor. Everyone taught me or made me believe that a
sensible girl was ruined at the first tender word which escaped her
lips. My disordered imagination confounded the crime with the
declaration of passion, and I had conceived such a frightful idea of
this first step that I scarcely saw any interval between it and the last.
An excessive self-distrust augmented my alarm. The battles of
modesty seemed to me those of chastity; I mistook the torture of
silence for the transport of desire. I believed that I should be lost
as soon as I had spoken, and yet it was necessary to speak or else lose
you. Thus, no longer able to disguise my feelings, I tried to call
forth the nobility of yours, and entrusting myself more to you than
to myself, I wanted, by engaging your honor in my defense, to rely
upon the resources of which I believed myself already deprived.
I have discovered that I was mistaken. I had no sooner spoken
when I was relieved, you had no sooner answered when I felt com-
pletely calm, and two months of experience have taught me that
my excessively tender heart needs love but that my senses have no
need of a lover. Judge, you who love virtue, with what joy I made
44 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

this happy discovery. Having emerged from that profound shame

into which my fears had plunged me, I am now enjoying the deli-
cious pleasure of a guiltless passion. This constitutes the happiness
of my life; my disposition and my health feel the effects of it; I can
scarcely conceive of anything more sweet; and the union of love
and innocence seems to me to be paradise on earth.
Since then I have feared you no longer, and when I took care to
avoid being alone with you, it was as much for your sake as for mine,
for your eyes and your sighs revealed more passion than wisdom,
and if you had forgotten the bounds you yourself have prescribed,
I should not have forgotten them.
Ah! My friend, I wish I might communicate to your soul the feel-
ing of happiness and peace which reigns in the depths of mine!
Would that I could teach you to enjoy tranquilly the most delicious
state in life! The charms of the union of hearts join with those of
innocence; no fear, no shame disturbs our felicity. In the midst of
the true pleasures of love, we can speak of virtue without blushing:

E v’é il piacer con l’onesta de accanto.

METASTASIO

And pleasure is there side by side with honor.

Yet, an indefinable, sad presentiment arises in my breast and cries

out that we are now enjoying the only happy time that heaven has
allotted us. I foresee only absence, anxiety, troubles, obstacles. The
slightest change in our present condition could only seem to me an
evil one. No, even were we united forever by a sweeter bond, I
doubt whether our happiness would not soon be destroyed by its
excess. The moment of possession is a crisis in love, and all change
is dangerous to ours. We can do nothing worse than to destroy it.
I implore you, my tender and only friend, try to calm the turbu-
lence of those vain desires which are always followed by regret, re-
pentance, and sorrow. Let us peacefully enjoy our present situation.
You take pleasure in giving me lessons, and you know only too well
how I take pleasure in receiving them. Let the lessons be still more
frequent; let us part only as much as it is necessary for propriety’s
sake. Let us use the moments which we cannot spend together in
writing each other, and let us profit by this precious time, after
which we shall long one day, perhaps. Ah! May our present happi-
ness last as long as our lives! The mind is adorned, the reason be-
LETTER X - TO JULIE 45

comes enlightened, the soul is strengthened, and the heart joys.

What does our happiness lack?

4 LETTER X &

To Julie

HOW RIGHT you are, my Julie, to say that I do not yet know you! I al-
ways think I know all the treasures of your beautiful soul, and al-
ways I discover new ones. What woman ever joined tenderness to
virtue as you do, and tempering one with the other, made both
more charming? I find something indescribably lovable and charm-
ing in your wisdom, which also makes me desolate, and you gild
with so much grace the privations you impose upon me that you
nearly make them dear to me.
I feel more every day that the greatest good is to be loved by you.
There is no other, there can be no other which equals it, and if it
were necessary to choose between your heart and the possession of
your person, no, charming Julie, I would not hesitate for an instant.
But why this bitter alternative? And why make incompatible what
nature has united? Our time is precious, you say; let us be wise
enough to enjoy it as it is, and let us keep from disturbing its peace-
ful course by our impatience. Ah! May it be so and may it be happy!
But to profit from a pleasant condition, should one neglect a better
one, and prefer moderate happiness to a supreme felicity? Is not all
that time lost which might have been better employed? Ah! If it
were possible for us to live a thousand years in a quarter of an
hour, what good would it be for us sadly to tell over the days as we
will have lived them?
All that you say of the happiness of our present situation is incon-
testable. I feel that we ought to be happy, and yet I am not. Your
lips speak wisdom beautifully, but the voice of nature is stronger.
What means of resisting it are there when it agrees with the voice
of the heart! Besides you alone, I see nothing under the sun which
is worthy of taking possession of my soul and my senses. No, with-
out you, even nature no longer means anything to me; but its realm
is in your eyes, and there it is invincible.
46 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

You feel nothing of this, heavenly Julie. You are content in rav-
ishing my senses and are not at war with your own. It seems that
human passions are beneath such a sublime soul, and just as you
have the beauty of angels, so also do you have their purity. Oh,
the purity which I respect in murmuring that I might either draw
you down or else elevate myself to your level! But no, I shall always
creep on the ground and shall see you always shining in the heavy-
ens. Ah! Be happy at the expense of my tranquillity, enjoy all
your virtues, and may the wicked mortal perish who shall ever try
to defile one of them. Be happy, I shall try to forget how much I am
to be pitied, and I shall draw from your happiness even the consola-
tion for my misery. Yes, dear heart, it seems to me that my love is as
pure as its adorable object; all the desires inflamed by your charms
are extinguished in the perfections of your soul. I see that soul so
peaceful that I do not dare disturb it. Each time I am tempted to
steal the least caress from you, even if the danger of offending you
prevents me, my heart prevents me still more by the fear of altering
so pure a felicity. In the price of the happiness to which I aspire, I
no longer see anything but what it can cost you; and finding my
happiness incompatible with yours—judge now how much I love
you!—it is mine that I renounce.
What inexplicable contradictions are in the sentiments you in-
spire in me. I am at the same time submissive and bold, impetuous
and restrained. I cannot look at you without experiencing struggles
inside. Your glances, your voice lovingly reveal to the heart the
touching charm of innocence; it is a divine charm that one would
regret to destroy. If I now dare indulge a wishful idea, it is only in
your absence. My desires dare only go as far as addressing you in
my imagination, and it is there that I avenge myself for the respect
I am constrained to have for you.
Yet, I languish and waste away. The fire runs in my veins, noth-
ing could extinguish nor calm it, and I only aggravate it by wishing
to restrain it. I ought to be happy, and I am, I agree; I
do not com-
plain of my lot. Such as it is, I would not exchange it with that
of
the kings of the earth. Yet a real pain tortures me, which
I seek
vainly to avoid. I should not wish to die, and yet I am dying;
I wish
to live for you, and it is you who are depriving me of my life.
LETTER XI + FROM JULIE 47

%’ LETTER XI &

From Julie

MY FRIEND, I feel that each day I am becoming more attached to

you. I can no longer be parted from you, the least absence is un-
bearable, and I must see you or write you, to occupy myself cease-
lessly with thoughts of you.
Thus my love keeps pace with yours. For now I know how much
you love me, by the real fear you have of displeasing me, whereas
your first fears were merely assumed in order to advance your cause
better. I know very well how to distinguish the dictates of your heart
from the delirium of your heated imagination, and I see a hundred
times more affection in your present restraint than in your first
ecstasies. I also know that your situation, troublesome as it is, is
not without pleasures. It is sweet for a true lover to make sacri-
fices, all of which are credited to him and none of which is forgotten
in the heart of her whom he loves. Who knows even if, knowing my
sensibility, you are not using a deeper plot to seduce me? But no,
I am unfair, and you are incapable of deceiving me. Yet, if I am
wise, I shall distrust compassion even more than love. I feel myself
a thousand times more touched by your respects than by your ec-
stasies, and I indeed fear that in taking the most honest course you
may have in the long run taken the most dangerous.
In the overflowing of my heart, I must tell you a truth which it
feels strongly and of which your own heart cannot fail to convince
you. It is that in spite of fortune, of parents, and of ourselves, our
destinies are forever united, and that we can no longer be happy
or unhappy except together. Our souls touch, so to speak, at all
points, and we feel an entire coherence. (Correct me, my friend,
if I am poorly applying your lessons in physics.) Fate may indeed
separate us, but not disunite us. We shall henceforward have only
mutual pleasures and mutual pains; and like those magnets of
which you were telling me that have, it is said, the same movements
in different places, we should have the same sensations though
we were at the two poles of the earth.
Rid yourself then of the hope, if you ever had it, of having an
48 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

exclusive happiness for yourself and of buying it at the expense of

mine. Do not hope to be happy if I were dishonored or to contem-
plate my shame and my tears with a satisfied eye. Believe me, my
friend, I know your heart better than you know it. A love so ten-
der and so true must be capable of mastering desires; you have too
many of them to consummate without destroying yourself, and you
can no longer complete my ruin without bringing on your own.
I would like you to feel how important it is to both of us for you
to entrust me with the care of our common destiny. Do you doubt
that you are as dear to me as myself, and do you think that any hap-
piness could exist for me which you would not share? No, my friend,
I have the same interests as you have and a little more reason with
which to manage them. I confess that I am the younger, but have
you never noticed that if reason ordinarily is weaker and more
quickly extinguished in women, it is also formed earlier, just as a
frail sunflower grows and dies sooner than an oak? From an early
age, we find ourselves charged with such a dangerous treasure that
the care of preserving it soon awakens the judgment, and an ex-
cellent way of foreseeing the consequences of things is to sense
keenly all the risks they make us run. As for me, the more I think
about our situation, the more I find that reason demands of you
exactly what I demand in the name of love. Be submissive, then,
to its sweet voice, and let yourself be led by one, alas, who is also
blind but who at least has some support.
I do not know, my friend, if our hearts will be fortunate enough
to understand each other, or if in reading this letter you will share
the tender emotion which dictated it. Nor do I know if in certain
things we will ever be able to reach the same agreement in opinion
as we have in sentiment. But I am certain that the judgment of the
one who least separates his happiness from that of the other is the
judgment we must follow.

“% LETTER XII &

To Julie

MY JULIE, how touching is the simplicity of your letter! How

clearly I see in it the serenity of an innocent soul and the tender
LETTER XII - TO JULIE 49

solicitude of love! Your thoughts are expressed artlessly and with-

out difficulty; they make a delicate impression on my heart which
an affected style does not produce at all. You urge invincible rea-
sons with so simple an air that it is necessary to reflect on them to
feel their force, and sublime sentiments are so natural to you that
one is tempted to take them for common thoughts. Ah yes, with-
out a doubt, it is for you to control our destiny. It is not a right
which I allow you, it is a duty which I require of you and a justice
which I ask of you, for your reason must make amends for the harm
you have done mine. From this instant I give you lifelong control of
my will; dispose of me as of a man who has no interest of his own
and whose whole being has no connection except with you. Do not
doubt that I shall keep the pledge I am taking, no matter what you
command. I shall be more worthy, you will be happier, and I see
above all the certain reward for my obedience. Therefore, I re-
linquish to you, without reservation, the care of our common hap-
piness; secure your own, and all is done. As for me, who can neither
forget you for an instant nor think of you without the ecstasies
which I must overcome, I intend to busy myself solely with the
duties you have imposed upon me.
In the year that we have been studying together, we have scarcely
done any but disordered and almost random reading, the more to
consult your taste than to improve it. Besides, so much disturbance
in our souls hardly left our minds free. Our eyes were poorly fixed
on the book, our mouths pronounced only the words, and our at-
tention was always deficient. Your little cousin, who was not so pre-
occupied, reproached us for our infrequent comprehension and
did herself an easy honor by outstripping us. Insensibly, she has be-
come more learned than the teacher, and however we might have
sometimes laughed at her pretentions, she is, really, the only one of
the three who remembers anything from all that we have studied.
In order, then, to regain the lost time (Ah, Julie, was it ever bet-
ter spent?), I have formed a kind of plan which may be able to re-
pair methodically the harm that our distractions have done to our
learning. I am sending it; we shall read it together presently. [1]
Out of regard for your inseparable cousin, I have allowed a few
books of light literature that I should not have allowed for you.
Outside of Petrarch, Tasso, Metastasio, and the masters of the
French drama, I have included neither poetry nor books about love,
contrary to the usual reading designed for your sex. What should
we learn of love in these books? Ah Julie, our hearts tell us more
about it than they, and language borrowed from books is indeed
50 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

cold for anyone who is himself impassioned! Besides, these studies

enervate the soul, throw it into indolence, and take from it all its
strength. On the contrary, real love is a devouring fire which in-
stills its ardor in all other sentiments and enlivens them with new
vigor. Thus it is said that love created heroes. How fortunate is he
whom fate has disposed to become one and who has Julie to lovel

+ LETTER XIII *

From Julie

INDEED, I told you we were happy; nothing proves it better than

the uneasiness I experience at the slightest change in our situation.
If we had had truly violent anguish before, could an absence of
two days create so much for us? I say us, for I know that my friend
shares my impatience; he shares it because I feel it, and he feels it
also on his own account. I no longer need for him to tell me these
things.
We have been in the country only since last night, it is not yet
the hour at which I should see you if I were in town, and yet the
distance between us already makes your absence more unbearable.
If you had not forbidden me geometry, I should tell you that my
uneasiness increases in a compound ratio of the intervals of time
and space, so much do I find that distance adds to the pain of ab-
sence.
I have brought along your letter and your study plan, to reflect
on both, and I have read the first twice already. The conclusion
touches me extremely. I see, my friend, that you feel real love, since
you have preserved your sense of honor and since you still know in
the tenderest part of your heart how to make sacrifices to virtue.
Surely, to make use of the means of education to corrupt a woman
is of all seductions the most damnable, and to wish to soften a mis-
tress with the aid of novels is indeed to have few resources of one’s
own. If you had used philosophy to forward your designs, if you had
tried to establish maxims favorable to your interest, those very
methods of deceit would soon have undeceived me, but the most
dangerous of your seductions is not to use these methods at all. At
LETTER XIII + FROM JULIE 5h

the moment when the desire to love took hold of my heart and
when I felt the need for an eternal attachment, I did not ask Heaven
to unite me to a charming man but to a man who had a beautiful
soul; for I felt that such a soul was, of all the attributes one can
have, least subject to future aversion, and that integrity and honor
adorn all the sentiments that accompany them. For having chosen
properly, like Solomon, I have obtained not only what I asked for
but also what I did not ask. I look upon this as a good omen for my
other plans, and I do not despair, my friend, of one day being able
to make you as happy as you deserve to be. The means are slow,
difficult, and uncertain; the obstacles are terrible. I dare promise
nothing, but be assured that nothing that patience and love can do
will be forgotten. Meanwhile, continue to humor my mother in
everything, and prepare yourself at the return of my father, who is
finally retiring completely after thirty years of service, to endure
the haughtiness of a blunt but very honorable old gentleman, who
will love you without showing it and esteem you without saying
so.
I interrupted my letter to take a walk in the grove which is near
our house. Oh, my sweet friend! I took you there with me, or ra-
ther, I carried you there in my heart. I sought those places where
I thought we should have wandered together; I marked the re-
treats which seem worthy to shelter us. Our hearts overflowed in
advance in these delightful arbors, which added to the pleasure
we enjoyed in being together; they received in their turn a new
value as the shelter of two true lovers, and I was astonished that
alone I had not noticed the beauties I found there with you.
Among the natural arbors which make up this charming place,
there is one more charming than the rest, with which I am most
delighted and in which, for that reason, I am reserving a little sur-
prise for my friend. It shall not be said that he will always be re-
spectful but I never generous. It is there that I wish to make him
feel, in spite of common opinions, how much more valuable is that
which the heart gives than that which importunity snatches. Yet,
for fear that your vivid imagination may lead you too far, I must
warn you that we shall not go together into the arbor without the
inseparable cousin.
With respect to her, it is decided that, if it does not displease you
too much, you will come with her to see us on Monday. My mother
will send her carriage to my cousin, you will appear at her house at
ten o’clock, she will bring you here, you will spend the day with us,
and we shall all return together the next day after dinner.
52 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I was at this point in my letter when I reflected that I did not have
the same opportunities for sending it to you as in town. I had first
thought of sending you one of your books through Gustin, the gar-
dener’s son, and of putting on it a paper cover in which I should
have inserted my letter. But besides the fact that it is not certain you
might think of looking for it, it would be impardonably imprudent
to expose our destiny to such hazards. I must be satisfied, then,
with simply telling you of the Monday rendez-vous by a note, and I
shall keep this letter to give you personally. Besides, I was a little
apprehensive that you might comment too freely on the mystery of
the arbor.

4 LETTER XIV &

To Julie

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, ah! what have you done, my Julie? You
wanted to reward me and you have destroyed me. I am drunk, or
rather, I am insane. My senses are disordered; all my faculties are
disturbed by that fatal kiss. You wished to ease my pain? Cruel one,
you sharpened it. It was poison that I gathered from your lips. It is
seething within me, it inflames my blood, it is killing me, and thus
your compassion has caused my death.
Oh, never will the immortal memory of that moment of illusion,
of delirium, and of enchantment be effaced from my soul. As long
as Julie’s charms are impressed there, as long as my agitated heart
feels and sighs, this memory will constitute the torment and the hap-
piness of my life!
Alas! I enjoyed only an apparent tranquillity. Having submitted
to your supreme will, I was no longer complaining of a fate over
which you condescended to preside. I had subdued the passionate
fits of a rash imagination, I had veiled my eyes and fettered my
heart, I but half expressed my desires, and I was as happy as possi-
ble. Then I received your letter. I flew to your cousin. We went
to Clarens, I caught sight of you, and my heart beat quickly. The
sweet sound of your voice disturbed it anew, I approached you as if
transported, and I had great need of the diversion your cousin pro-
LETTER XIV + TO JULIE 53

vided to hide my disturbance from your mother. We walked through

the garden, we dined calmly, and you secretly gave me your letter
which I did not dare read before that formidable witness. The sun
began to set, all three of us eluded the last of its rays in the woods,
and my peaceful simplicity did not even imagine a sweeter state.
Approaching the arbor, I perceived, not without a secret emotion,
your significant signs, your mutual smiles, and the increasing glow
in your cheeks. As soon as we entered, I was surprised to see your
cousin approach me and, with an amused, beseeching air, ask me for
a kiss. Without understanding anything of this mystery, I kissed our
charming friend, and as completely amiable, completely delightful
as she is, I never had better proof that sensations are nothing but
what the heart makes them. But when I guessed a moment later,
when I felt . . . my hand trembled . . . a gentle quiver . . . your
rosy lips . . . Julie’s lips . . . placed on, pressed against mine, and
my body clasped in your arms! No, lightning is no more fiery nor
quick than the fire which instantly inflamed me. I was sensible
all over of that delicious touch. From our burning lips, fire breathed
forth with our sighs, and my heart was at the point of death under
the weight of sensual pleasure, when suddenly I saw you grow pale,
close your beautiful eyes, lean upon your cousin, and fall into a faint.
Thus my fright extinguished my pleasure, and my happiness was
soon gone like a flash of lightning.
I have scarcely known what has happened to me since that fatal
moment. The deep impression that it made cannot be effaced. A
favor? . . It is a horrible torment . . . No, keep your kisses, I
cannot bear them . . . They are too painful, too penetrating; they
pierce, they burn to the quick . . . They would drive me insane.
One, one only has thrown me into a frenzy from which I cannot re-
cover. I am no longer myself, and you are no longer the same to me.
I do not see you restrained and severe as you were formerly, but I
see and feel you forever pressed to my breast as you were for an in-
stant. Oh Julie! Whatever the consequence of my ungovernable pas-
sion may be, whatever treatment your severity may determine for
me, I can no longer live in my present condition, and I feel that I
must at last die at your feet . . . or in your arms.
54 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER XV &

From Julie

IT IS IMPORTANT, my friend, that we part for a little while, and here

is the first test of the obedience you have promised me. If I demand
it on this occasion, be assured that I have a very forceful reason for
it. I must have one, as you well know, to be resolved to send you
away. As for you, you need no other than that I wish it.
For a long time you have talked of taking a trip to the Valais.
I should like you to go now, before winter comes. Although the au-
tumn is still pleasant here, you can see the peak of the Dent-de-
Jamant * already white with snow, and in six weeks I would not per-
mit you to take a trip in such rough country. Try, then, to leave to-
morrow. You can write me at the address I am sending you, and you
can send me yours when you have arrived at Sion.
You have never wished to speak to me of the state of your finances,
but you are not in your own part of the country, and I know that
even there your fortune is small and that you only diminish it here,
where you stay merely because of me. I therefore suppose that part
of your fortune is in my purse, and thus I am sending you a small
amount in this box, which you must not open before the porter.
I
do not intend to protest against objections, and J esteem you too
much to believe you capable of raising any.
I forbid you not only to return without my order, but also to come
to take leave of us. You can write to my mother or to me, simply to
inform us that you are forced to leave immediately on unexpected
business, and to give me, if you wish, some directions for my reading
until your return. All that must be done in a natural way and with-
out any appearance of mystery. Adieu, my friend, do not forget that
you take with you Julie’s heart and tranquillity both.

* High mountain in the Vaud region. [Rousseau]

LETTER XVII - REPLY 55

S% LETTER XVI &

Answer

I READ your terrible letter, and I shudder at each line. Yet I

will
obey; I have promised; I must, I will obey. But you do not know, no,
cruel one, you will never know what such a sacrifice costs my heart.
Ah, you did not need the test of the arbor to make me aware of it!
That was a merciless refinement of inhumanity, and I can at least
defy you to make me more unhappy.
You will receive your box in the same condition as you sent it.
To add ignominy to cruelty is too much. I have allowed you to be-
come mistress of my fate but not arbiter of my honor. That is a sa-
cred treasure (the only one, alas, which I have left!) with which no
one but myself will be charged as long as I live.

4 LETTER XVII &

Reply

YOUR LETTER is to be pitied. It is the only characterless thing you

have ever written.
So I offend your honor, for which I would give my life a thousand
times? I offend your honor, ungrateful one! you who have seen me
ready to abandon mine to you? But where is it, this honor that I
offend? Tell me, you servile heart, you indelicate soul. Ah! How
contemptible you are, if you only have an honor that Julie may not
know! To think that those who wish to share their destiny dare not
share also their goods, and he who professes to be mine considers
himself insulted by my gifts! And since when has it been vile to re-
ceive things from her whom one loves? Since when have the gifts of
the heart dishonored the heart who accepts them? But, you say, a
56 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

man who receives things from another is scorned; he whose needs

surpass his fortune is despised. But who despises him? The abject
souls who place honor in wealth and estimate their virtue by the
weight of their gold. Are these base precepts the honor of a good
man? And then is not even reason in favor of the poor?
Without a doubt, an honest man cannot accept vile gifts, but you
should learn that these do more dishonor to the hand which offers
them, and a gift honorably offered is always honorably received.
Now, surely my heart cannot reproach me for offering this one; it
glories in the motive of it.* I know nothing more contemptible
than a man whose heart and attentions are bought, except the
woman who purchases them. But between two united hearts, it is
just and obligatory that their fortunes should be held in common,
and if I find I have reserved more than my share, I keep without
scruple what I intended for myself, and I owe you what I did not first
give you. Ah! If love’s gifts are rejected, how can a heart ever be
grateful?
Do you suppose that I am inattentive to my own needs by provid-
ing for yours? I shall give you an indisputable proof to the contrary.
The purse I am sending back contains double what it did the first
time, and I could have doubled it again if I had wanted. My father
gives me an allowance for my needs, a moderate one, to be sure, but
I never need to touch it, so attentive is my mother in providing for
everything. Besides, my own embroidery and my lace are sufficient
for my personal use. It is true that I was not always so rich, but my
attention to a fatal passion has for a long time made me neglect
certain charitable duties which used to require my superfluous
money. That is one more reason to dispose of it as I am doing; you
must be humbled for the evil you have caused so that love may ex-
piate the crimes that it perpetrates.
But let us come to the point. You say that honor forbids you to
accept my gifts. If that is so, I have nothing more to say, and I agree
with you that you must not be careless in such a matter. If, there-
fore, you can prove this to be the case, do so clearly, incontestably,
and without evasion, for you know that I hate sophistry. Then you
may return the purse, I shall take it back without complaining, and
no more will be said.
But since I like neither punctiliously affected people nor false
points of honor, if you send the box back once again without jus-
* She is right. In the secret motive behind this voyage, the 1eader will see that
money was never more honestly employed. It is a great pity that it was not more
successful. [Rousseau]
 LETTER XVIII + TO JULIE 57

tification, or if your justification is unsatisfactory, we must see each

other no more. Adieu. Consider this well.

t LETTER XVIII &

To Julie

I HAVE taken your gifts, I have left without seeing you, and here I
am at a considerable distance from you. Is your tyranny satisfied,
and have I obeyed you well enough?
I cannot tell you of my trip, scarcely do I know how I made it. I
took three days to travel twenty leagues. Each step which put me
farther from you tore my body from my soul and gave me a fore-
taste of the feeling of death. I intended to describe to you what I
should see. Vain project! I saw nothing but you and can describe
for you only Julie. The powerful emotions which I have just experi-
enced one after another have thrown me into continual distraction.
I imagined myself constantly where I was not, I had scarcely enough
presence of mind to ask and follow my road, and I have arrived at
Sion without ever leaving Vevey.
Thus I have discovered the secret of eluding your strictness and
of seeing you without disobeying you. Yes, cruel one, whatever you
might do, you cannot keep me from you completely. I have dragged
into exile only the most inconsiderable part of myself; all that is
truly alive in me dwells forever near you. My soul roams with im-
punity over your eyes, over your lips, over your breast, over all your
_ charms. It penetrates everywhere like a subtle vapor, and I am hap-
pier despite you than I ever was with your permission.
I have some persons to see here, some business affairs to transact;
that is why I am desolate. I am not to be pitied in my solitude,
where I can occupy myself with thoughts of you and transport my-
self imaginatively to wherever you are. Only active employment
which calls me back to myself is unbearable. I am going to transact
my affairs badly and quickly, in order to be free soon and to be
able to wander at my leisure through the savage places which con-
stitute in my eyes the charms of this country. I must shun everyone
and live alone in the world, if I cannot live in it with you.
58 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

% LETTER XIX *

To Julie

NOTHING but your command detains me any longer. The five days I
have spent here have been more than sufficient for my concerns, if
things in which the heart has no interest may be so called. At last
you have no more pretexts and can keep me away from you only to
torture me.
I am beginning to be very uneasy over the fate of my first letter.
It was written and posted immediately upon my arrival, the address
on it was faithfully copied from the one you sent me, I sent you mine
with equal care, and if you had answered promptly, your letter
should have reached me by now. Yet, your answer does not come,
and there is no possible or disastrous reason for its delay that my
troubled mind has not imagined. Oh my Julie! In one week what
unforeseen catastrophes can forever break the sweetest bonds in the
world! I shudder to think that there is only one way to make me
happy and millions to make me miserable. Julie, could you have for-
gotten me? Ah! That is the most frightful of my fears! I can prepare
myself for other misfortunes, but all the strength of my soul fails at
the mere suspicion of that one.
I see the slight basis for my alarm, and yet I cannot allay it. Away
from you, the consciousness of my misfortunes increases endlessly,
and as if I did not have enough to dishearten me, I invent imaginary
ones to add weight to all the others. At first my uneasiness was more
tolerable. The confusion of a sudden departure, the difficulty of the
trip dissipated my grief. But it is sharpened in this tranquil solitude.
Alas! I was struggling, and a deadly sword pierced my heart, but I
did not feel the pain until a long time after the wound.
A hundred times, reading novels, I have laughed at the lovers’
cold complaints over absence. Ah! I did not know then how unbear-
able yours one day would be for me! Now I feel how improper it is
for a tranquil soul to pass judgment on passion, how senseless it is
to laugh at sentiments which have not been experienced. Yet, shall
I confess to you? An indefinably sweet and consoling idea eases my
suffering in being far from you, when I think that you have com-
LETTER XX * FROM JULIE 59

manded it. The pain you cause me is less cruel than if fortune had
sent it. If it serves to make you happy, I would be sorry not to have
felt it. It is the guarantee of its reward, for I know your soul too well
to believe you capable of cruelty for its own sake.
If you wish to test me, I will complain no more. It is fair that you
should know whether I am constant, patient, submissive—in a word,
deserving of the blessings you are reserving for me. Gods! If that
were your idea, I should complain of suffering too little. Ah, no!
In order to support such a sweet hope in my heart, invent if you
can some torment better proportioned to its reward.

4 LETTER XX *&

From Julie

I RECEIVED both your letters at once, and I see, by the uneasiness

which you indicate in the second over the fate of the first, that when
imagination takes the lead of reason, the latter does not hurry to
follow and often lets the former proceed alone. Did you think when
you reached Sion that the postman was all ready, waiting only for
your letter to leave, that this letter would be delivered to me on
the instant of its arrival, and that my answer would be treated with
equal dispatch? Things are not like that, my good friend. Your two
letters reached me together, because the postman, who comes but
once a week,* left only after you mailed the second. Some time is
required to distribute the letters, more is needed for my messenger
to give me mine in secret, and the postman does not leave here un-
til two days later. Thus, all things calculated, it takes us a week,
when we choose the proper day to post our letters, to receive an-
swers from one another. I explain this to you, in order to calm your
impatience once and for all. While you are exclaiming against for-
tune and my negligence, you see that I am skillfully obtaining in-
formation about everything that can assure our correspondence and
prevent our anxieties. I let you decide from what quarter comes the
most loving care.
Let us speak no more of pain, my good friend. Ah, rather respect

* At present he comes twice. [Rousseau]

60 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

and share the pleasure I feel in seeing the best of fathers again after
an eight months’ absence! He arrived Thursday evening, and I have
thought only of him since that happy moment.* Oh, you whom
next to my parents I love most in the world, why must your letters,
your scolding come to vex my soul and disturb the first joys of a re-
united family? You would prefer my heart to occupy itself continu-
ally with you, but tell me if yours could love an unnatural daughter
whose passions could make her forget the claims of her family and
whose lover’s complaints would make her insensible to her father’s
caresses? No, my worthy friend, do not with unfair reproaches poison
the innocent joy that such a sweet sentiment inspires in me. You
whose soul is so tender and so sensitive, can you not understand
what delight it is to feel the joyously throbbing bosom of a father
against that of his daughter in a pure and sacred embrace? Ah! Do
you think that at that moment the affections may be divided and
nothing stolen from nature?

Sol che son figlia io mi rammento adesso.

METASTASIO

Only that I am a daughter I bear in mind at present.

Yet do not think that I can forget you. Can we ever forget those
we have once loved? No, the most vivid impressions of a single mo-
ment certainly do not efface the others. With chagrin I saw you
leave, and with pleasure I shall see you return. But . . . be patient
like me, because you must, and ask no more. Be assured that I shall
call you back as soon as possible, and remember that often those who
complain quite loudly of absence do not suffer the most from it.

4% LETTER XXI &

To Julie

HOW I SUFFERED in receiving that letter I longed for so eagerly! I

waited for the postman at the post office. He had scarcely opened his
* The preceding paragraph proves that she is not telling the whole truth. [Rous-
seau].
LETTER XXI * TO JULIE ; 61

packet when I gave my name. I made myself importunate. I was told

that there was a letter for me, I felt a thrill, and I asked for it, dis-
turbed by a mortal impatience. Finally I received it. Julie, I saw the
lines written by your adored hand! Mine trembled as I went forward
to receive this precious treasure. I would have liked to kiss those
sacred letters a thousand times. Oh, the circumspection of a fear-
ful love! I dared not bring the letter to my lips nor open it before so
many witnesses. Immediately, I stole away. My knees were trem-
bling under me, and my growing emotion scarcely let me see my
road. I opened the letter at the first turn. I read through it, I de-
voured it, and hardly had I come to those lines in which you so well
described the pleasures of your heart in embracing your venerable
father when I burst into tears. People looked at me, and I went into
a passage-way to escape them. There I shared your tenderness, with
ecstasy I embraced that happy father whom I hardly know, and the
voice of nature reminding me of my own, I shed new tears to his
honored memory.
And what did you intend to learn, incomparable daughter, from
my vain and sorry knowledge? Ah, it is from you that one must learn
all the goodness, all the probity possible in a human soul, and, most
of all, that divine union of virtue, love, and nature, which never
existed except in you! No, there is no virtuous affection which does
not have its place in your heart, which is not distinguished there by
your particular sensibility. And for the better regulation of my own,
just as I have often deferred all my actions to your will, I am con-
vinced that all my sentiments must also be determined by yours.
Yet what a difference there is between your situation and mine,
condescend to notice it! I am not speaking of rank and fortune;
honor and love suffice for want of all that. But you are surrounded
by people whom you cherish and who adore you. The attentions
of a tender mother and of a father for whom you are the only hope,
the friendship of a cousin who seems to live only for your sake, a
whole family for whom you constitute the ornament, an entire town
proud of your having been born there—all these engage and di-
vide your affection, and what is left for love is only slight com-
pared to what the claims of family and friendship take from it. But
I, Julie, alas! Wandering, without a family and almost without a
country, I have no one on this earth but you. Love alone is all I
possess. Therefore, do not be surprised if, though your soul may be
the most sensitive, mine best knows how to love, and if, though I
yield to you in so many things, I win the prize of love at least in this
respect.
62 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Yet do not fear that I will trouble you any more with my indiscreet
complaints. No, I shall respect the pure joy you feel, both for its
own sake and for yours. I shall imagine the touching sight of your
pleasures, I shall share them from afar, and having no happiness of
my own, I shall enjoy yours. Whatever your reasons for keeping us
apart, I respect them. What use would it be to me to know them, if,
when I must disapprove of them, I should still have to obey your
will? Could it be more painful to keep silent than to leave you? Al-
ways remember, oh Julie, that your soul has two bodies to govern,
and that the one which it animates by choice will always be the
most faithful.

nodo pit forte:

Fabricato da noi, non dalla sorte.
METASTASIO

a stronger knot
Formed by us, not by fate.

I will keep silent, then, and until it pleases you to end my exile,
I will try to lessen the tedium of it by exploring the mountains of
the Valais while they are still practicable. I am discovering that this
unknown country deserves notice, and that to be admired it needs
only perceptive spectators. I shall try to make some observations
worthy of pleasing you. To amuse a fashionable woman, one must
describe a witty and gallant people. But you, my Julie, ah, I know
well that the picture of a happy and simple people is the one I must
paint for your heart.

&% LETTER XXII &

From Julie

AT LAST the first step is taken, and you have been mentioned to my
father. In spite of your scornful opinion of my learning, he has been
surprised by it, nor did he less admire my progress in music and in
LETTER XXII + FROM JULIE 63

drawing,* and, to the great astonishment of my mother, who is

prejudiced by your calumnies,+ he has been very content with my
skill in everything, except heraldry, which he thinks I have neg-
lected. But this skill was not acquired without a teacher. I was com-
pelled to name mine, and I did so with a pompous enumeration of
all the skills you proposed to teach me, except one. My father re-
membered having seen you several times during his last trip home,
and he seemed not to have kept an unfavorable impression of you.
Next he asked about your fortune—he was told that it was medio-
cre; about your birth—he was told that it was honest. This word
honest is very equivocal in the ear of nobility, and it aroused suspi-
cions which were confirmed in the explanation. As soon as he knew
your birth was not noble, he asked what you were paid each month.
My mother, having her turn to talk, said that such an arrangement
could not even be proposed and that, on the contrary, you had con-
stantly refused even the most inconsiderable presents of necessary
articles that she had tried to give you. But your pride only inflamed
his own, and how was he to bear the idea of being indebted to a
man who was meanly born? He has decided, therefore, that you
should be offered payment, and in case you refuse it, notwithstand-
ing your merit, which he admits, you will be dismissed. There, my
friend, is the résumé of a conversation concerning my most honored
teacher, during which his humble pupil was not very much at
ease. I thought I could not hurry too much to give you this informa-
tion, so as to leave you time to consider it. As soon as you have
made up your mind, do not fail to let me know it, for this is a mat-
ter entirely within your own jurisdiction, and my rights do not go
that far.
I learn of your trips in the mountains with uneasiness, not because
I think you will not find a pleasant diversion there or because your
detailed account of what you see will not give me pleasure, but I am
afraid that you are hardly in condition to endure the fatigue of such
journeys. Besides, the season is very advanced. From one day to the
next, everything can be covered with snow, and possibly you will
suffer even more from cold than from fatigue. If you fell sick in that
distant country, I should never be consoled. Therefore, come back,

* Here, it seems to me, is a twenty year old scholar who is prodigiously learned!
At thirty, it is true, Julie congratulates him for being no longer so erudite.
[Rousseau]
+ This has reference to a letter to the mother, written in a doubtful tone, which
has been suppressed. [Rousseau]
64 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

my good friend, closer to me. It is not yet time to return to Vevey,

but I wish that you were in a less savage place and that we could
correspond more easily. I leave the choice of the place to you. Try
only to keep it secret from anyone here, and be discreet without be-
ing mysterious. I shall advise you no further on this subject. I de-
pend upon you to be prudent for your own interest, and even more
for mine.
Adieu, my friend. I can no longer spend a long time with you.
You know what precautions I am obliged to take to write you. That
is not all: my father has brought with him a venerable stranger, his
old friend, who once saved his life in the war. Imagine the recep-
tion we are endeavoring to give him! He leaves tomorrow, and we
are impatient to procure him today every sort of entertainment that
can express our gratitude to such a benefactor. I am called. I must
conclude. Adieu once more.

% LETTER XXIII &

To Julie

I HAVE spent only a week in traveling through a country which

would require years of observation, but besides the fact that I was
driven back by the snow, I wanted to return to meet the postman,
who may bring, I hope, one of your letters. Waiting for it, I begin
this one, and I shall write another afterwards to answer yours, if it
is necessary.
I shall not give you here a detailed account of my trip and obser-
vations. I have written a report of it all which I intend to bring you.
Our correspondence must be reserved for things which touch us
more closely. I shall content myself with telling you of the state of
my soul, for it is only fair that I should render you an account of the
use being made of your property.
I left, dejected by my suffering but consoled by your joy, which
kept me in a certain languid state that is not without charm for a
sensitive heart. On foot, I slowly ascended the mountains along
rather rugged trails, led by a man I had employed as my guide but in
whom during the whole trip I found a friend rather than a hired as-
LETTER XXIII + TO JULIE 65
sistant. I wished to meditate but I was always distracted by some un-
expected sight. Sometimes immense rocks hung ruinous over my
head. Sometimes high and clamorous waterfalls deluged me with
their heavy mist. Sometimes a perpetual torrent at my side would
open an abyss which my eyes dared not fathom. Sometimes I was
lost in the obscurity of a luxurious forest. Sometimes as I emerged
from a gorge a pleasant meadow suddenly gladdened my eyes.[2]
During the first day, I attributed the serenity that I felt again in
my soul to pleasures of that sort. I wondered at the control that the
most inanimate creations have over our most lively passions, and I
scorned philosophy for having less power over the soul than a suc-
cession of lifeless objects. But finding that this peaceful state lasted
the night and increased the next day, I did not hesitate to decide
that there was still some other cause which I had not discovered.
That day I reached the lowest mountains, and passing over their
rugged tops, I arrived at the highest summit I could attain. After
walking in the clouds, I came to a more serene place, from which, in
the proper season, one may see the thunder and the storm gathering
below him—the too flattering picture of human wisdom, the original
of which never existed, or exists only in the places from which the
emblem has been taken.
It was there, in the purity of that air, that I plainly discerned the
true cause of my change of humor and of the return of this interior
peace which I had lost so long ago. In fact, this is a general impres-
sion that all men experience, although they all do not observe it, for
in the high mountains where the air is pure and thin, one breathes
more easily, his body is lighter and his mind more serene. Pleasures
are less ardent there, the passions more moderate. Meditations take
on an indescribably grand and sublime character, in proportion to
the grandeur of the surrounding objects, and an indefinable, tran-
quil voluptuousness which has nothing of the pungent and sensual.
It seems that in being lifted above human society, one leaves be-
low all base and terrestial sentiments, and that as he approaches the
ethereal regions, his soul acquires something of their eternal purity.
One is serious there but not melancholy, peaceful but not indolent,
content to exist and to think. All overly vivid desires become dulled.
They lose that sharpness which makes them painful, they leave only
a light and sweet emotion in the bottom of the heart, and it is thus
that a pleasing climate causes the passions, which elsewhere con-
stitute man’s torment, to contribute to his happiness. I doubt
whether any violent agitation or any vapor sickness could withstand
a prolonged stay in the mountains, and I am surprised that baths of
66 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

salutary and beneficial mountain air are not one of the great rem-
edies of medicine and morality.[3]
I would have spent my whole trip under the spell of the country-
side, if I had not found an even more enchanting one in meeting
the inhabitants. In my report you will find a short sketch of their
manners, their simplicity, their evenness of temper, and that peace-
ful tranquillity which makes them happy by an exemption from mis-
ery rather than by the enjoyment of pleasures. But what I have not
been able to describe for you, and what one can hardly imagine,
is their disinterested humanity and their hospitable zeal toward all
strangers that chance or curiosity leads among them.[4]
While I was delightedly traveling in these places, so little known
and so worthy of admiration, what were you doing in the mean-
time, my Julie? Did your friend forget you? Julie forgotten? Should I
not rather forget myself? And how could I be alone for a single mo-
ment, I who exist only for you? I never noticed more readily how I
instinctively find a place for our inseparable souls in various places
according to the state of my mind. When I am sad, my soul takes
refuge near yours and seeks consolation wherever you are. That
was the case when I left you. When I am happy, I cannot enjoy any-
thing alone, and then in order to share it I call you wherever I am.
That was the case during this whole trip, where, the variety of scenes
forever calling me back to my own situation, I led you everywhere
with me. I did not take a step without you. I did not admire a view
without hurrying to show it to you. All the trees that I encountered
lent you their shade; all the grassy banks served you as a bench.
Sometimes, seated at your side, I gazed with you at the scene before
us; sometimes, at your knee, I surveyed one more worthy of the con-
templation of a sensible man. Did I come to a difficult pass? I saw
you leap over it with the agility of a fawn bounding after its mother.
Was it necessary to cross a stream? I dared to press such a light bur-
den into my arms. I walked through the stream slowly, delightedly,
and was sorry to reach the opposite path. Everything in this peaceful
place reminded me of you. The striking natural beauty, the invari-
able purity of the air, the simple manners of the people, their con-
stant and sure wisdom, the amiable modesty of the women and
their innocent graces—in short, all that gave pleasure to my eye
and my heart reminded them only of her whom they constantly seek.
Oh my Julie! I kept saying tenderly, would that I could spend my
days with you in these unknown places, fortunate in our happiness
and unknown to the world! Would that I could here collect my
whole soul in you alone and become in turn the universe to
LETTER XXIV + TO JULIE 67

you! Then your adored charms would enjoy the homage they de-
serve! Then our hearts would forever savor the delights of love! A
long and sweet intoxication would let us forget the passage of time,
and when age at last had calmed our first passions, the habit of
thinking and feeling together would have begotten a friendship no
less tender to succeed their transports. All the honest sentiments,
nourished in our youth with those of love, would fill one day its va-
cant place. We would fulfill all the duties of humanity in the midst
of and by the example of this happy people. Ceaselessly we should
unite in acts of benevolence, and we should not die without having
lived.
The mail is arriving. I must finish my letter and run to receive
yours. How my heart will beat until that moment! Alas! I was happy
in my reverie. My happiness flies with it. What will I be in reality?

4 LETTER XXIV *&

To Julie

I CAN immediately answer the article in your letter which regards

payment, for I have no need, thank God, to reflect on it. These, my
Julie, are my sentiments on this point.
In what people call honor, I distinguish between that which is
founded on public opinion and that which is derived from self-es-
teem. The first consists in vain prejudices no more stable than a
ruffled wave, but the second has its basis in the eternal truths of
morality. The honor of public opinion can be advantageous with
regard to fortune, but it does not reach the soul and thus has no in-
fluence on real happiness. True honor, on the contrary, is the es-
sence of happiness, because it alone inspires that permanent feeling
of interior satisfaction which constitutes the happiness of a rational
being. Let us, my Julie, apply these principles to your question and
the answer will soon be decided.
To set myself up as a teacher of philosophy and, like the fool in
the fable,* take money for teaching wisdom will seem base in the
eyes of the world, and I confess that there is something ridiculous

* La Fontaine’s fable, “Le Fou Qui Vend La Sagesse.” [Translator’s note]

68 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

in it. However, since no man can subsist merely of himself, and since
he almost always can manage only by his work, we shall put this
scornful opinion in the class of the most dangerous prejudices. We
shall not be so foolish as to sacrifice our happiness to this senseless
idea. You will not esteem me less on this account, nor shall I deserve
any more pity for living by the talents I have cultivated.
But here, my Julie, we have other considerations. Let us leave the
multitude and look into ourselves. What would I really be to your
father by taking a salary from him for the lessons I give you and
thus selling him part of my time, that is to say, part of my person? A
mercenary, his hireling, a kind of servant. And as a guarantee of
his confidence and of the safety of his possessions, he will have my
tacit faith, the same as from the meanest of his domestics.
Now, what more precious possession can a father have than his
only daughter, even were it another than Julie? What then will
he do who sold that father his services? Will he stifle his feelings for
the daughter? Ah! You know that is impossible! Or else, unscrupu-
lously giving in to his heart’s inclination, will he wound in the most
tender place the man to whom he has pledged his faith? In this case
I see such a teacher only as a perfidious man who tramples under-
foot the most sacred trust,* a traitor, a seducer-servant whom the law
very justly condemns to death. I hope that she to whom I am speak-
ing understands me; it is not death that I fear, but the ignominy of
deserving it and my own self-contempt.
When the letters of Eloise and Abelard fell into your hands, you
remember what I said to you about reading them and about the con-
duct of that priest. I have always pitied Eloise. She had a heart
made for love, but Abelard has ever seemed to me only a miserable
creature who deserved his fate and who was a stranger as much to
love as to virtue. After having passed this judgment on him, ought
I to imitate him? What wretch dares preach a morality which he
will not practice! Whoever is blinded by his passion to that point is
soon punished and loses the power to enjoy the sensations to
which he has sacrificed his honor. Love is deprived of its greatest
charm when honesty abandons it. To feel its whole value, the heart

* Unfortunate young man! He does not see that in allowing himself to be paid
in gratitude what he refuses in money, he is violating a still more sacred trust.
Instead of teaching Julie he corrupts her; instead of nourishing he poisons her.
He is thanked by a deceived mother for the ruin of her child. One feels, how-
ever, that he has a sincere love of virtue, but his passion leads him astray; and
if his extreme youth did not excuse him, with all his fine speeches he would
be only a scoundrel. The two lovers are to be pitied; only the mother is in-
excusable. [Rousseau]
LETTER XXV - FROM JULIE 69

must delight in it, and it must ennoble us by ennobling the one we

love. Take away the idea of perfection, and you take away enthusi-
asm; take away esteem, and love is nothing. How could a woman
honor a man who dishonors himself? How could he adore a woman
who has no fear of abandoning herself to a vile seducer? This way,
mutual contempt soon results, love is nothing for them but a shame-
ful relationship, and they lose honor without finding happiness.
It is different, my Julie, with two lovers of the same age, both
seized with the same passion, united by a mutual attachment, un-
der no particular engagements, both enjoying their original liberty,
and forbidden by no law to pledge themselves to each other. The
most severe laws can impose upon them no other hardship than the
natural consequence of their love. Their only punishment for their
love is the obligation to love one another forever; and if there is
some unhappy region in the world where a cruel authority may
break these innocent bonds, it is punished, no doubt, by the crimes
that this coercion engenders.
These are my reasons, wise and virtuous Julie. This is only a
cold commentary on those which you urged with so much energy
and spirit in one of your letters, but it is enough to show you how
much I am of your opinion. You remember that I did not insist on
refusing your gifts, and that, in spite of my prejudiced aversion, I
accepted them in silence, indeed not finding in true honor any sub-
stantial reason for refusing them. But in this case, duty, reason, even
love, all speak too plainly to be disregarded. If I must choose be-
tween honor and you, my heart is prepared to lose you. It loves you
too much, oh Julie, to keep you at that price.

e+ LETTER XXV &

From Julie

THE ACCOUNT of your voyage is charming, my good friend. It would

make me love its author, even were he a stranger to me.[5] But I
am too busy with your second letter to answer the first in detail.
Thus, my friend, let us leave the Valais for another time, and let us
limit ourselves now to our private concerns. We shall be busy
enough with them.
70 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I knew the resolution you would take. We know each other too
well to be still uncertain of each other’s minds. If virtue ever for-
sakes us, be assured that it will never be in those occasions which
require courage and sacrifices.* The first move when the attack is
violent is to resist, and we shall be victorious, I hope, as long as we
are forewarned by our enemy to take up arms. It is in the middle of
a sleep, it is in the midst of a sweet repose that surprises must be
feared; but above all it is continual hardship that is an intolerable
burden, and the soul resists sharp pain much more easily than pro-
longed misery. That, my friend, is the harsh kind of struggle which
we shall henceforth have to undergo. Duty does not demand heroic
actions of us but an even more heroic resistance to relentless grief.
I foresaw too well that the time of happiness would pass like a
flash of lightning. The time of misfortune is beginning with no end
in sight. Everything alarms and discourages me, a mortal languor
has taken hold of my soul, and for no immediate reason, involuntary
tears steal from my eyes. I do not see inevitable hardships for us in
the future, but I had been cultivating a hope and now see it fading
every day. What use is there, alas, to water the leaves when the tree
is cut at the root?
I feel, my friend, that the weight of your absence is crushing me.
I cannot live without you, I know, and this frightens me most. A
hundred times a day, I walk through the places where we used to be
together, but I never find you there. I wait for you at your usual
hour, but the hour comes and goes and you do not appear. Every-
thing I see reminds me of you, only to inform me that I have lost you.
You do not have this frightful torment. Your heart says only that
you miss me. Ah, if you knew what a worse torture it is to remain at
home when we are parted, how you would prefer your state to mine!
Yet, if I dared to grieve! If I dared to speak of my sorrow, I should
be comforted for the misfortunes of which I complain. But except
for a few secret sighs breathed into my cousin’s bosom, I must
stifle all the rest. I must contain my tears. I must smile though I am
dying.

Sentirsi, oh Dei, morir;

E non poter mai dir:
Morir me sento!
METASTASIO

*It will soon be seen that this assertion cannot be further from the truth.
[Rousseau]
4
 LETTER XXVI + TO JULIE 71

To feel oneself, oh gods, dying;

And not to be able to say:
I feel myself dying!

The worst is that all these misfortunes endlessly aggravate my

greatest pain, and that the more desolate your memory makes me
the more I love to think of you. Tell me, my friend, my sweet
friend! Are you feeling how tender a languishing heart is and how
sadness increases love?
I have a thousand things to say to you, but besides the fact that it
is better to wait to know positively where you are, I cannot continue
this letter in my present state. Adieu, my friend. I forsake my pen,
but be assured that I shall never forsake you.

Note to Julie
I am sending this note to the usual address, through a boatman who
is a stranger to me, to inform you that I have taken refuge at Meil-
lerie, on the shore opposite from you, in order to enjoy at least the
sight of the place which I dare not come near.

4 LETTER XXVI *&

To Julie

_ HOW MY CONDITION has changed in so short a time! What bitterness

is mixed with the sweetness of coming close to you again! What sad
reflections beset me! What obstacles my fears make me foresee! Oh
Julie, what a fatal gift from Heaven is a sensitive soul! He who re-
ceives it must expect to have only pain and sorrow on this earth.
The plaything of the air and the seasons, his fate is determined by
sunlight or mists, cloudy or clear weather, and he will be content or
sad as the winds blow. A victim of prejudices, he will find in society’s
absurd precepts an invincible obstacle to the just desires of his
heart. Men will punish him for having sincere sentiments in every
affair and for passing judgment on it according to that which is
72 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

true rather than that which is conventional. But he alone is

enough to create his own misery by indiscreetly giving himself up to
the divine allure of the good and the beautiful while the heavy
chains of necessity attach him to ignominy. He seeks supreme hap-
piness without remembering that he is only mortal. His heart and
his reason are incessantly at war, and his limitless desires prepare
eternal privations for him.
Such is the cruel situation into which I am plunged by the fate
which crushes me, my sentiments which elevate me, your father who
scorns me, and you who constitute the delight and the torment of
my life. Without you, fatal beauty! I should never have felt this un-
bearable contrast between the grandeur of my soul and the mean-
ness of my fortune. I should have lived quietly and died content,
without condescending to notice what rank I held on earth. But to
have seen you and not be able to possess you, to adore you and be
only an obscure man! To be loved and not be able to be happy! To
live in the same places and not be able to live together! Oh Julie
whom I cannot renounce! Oh destiny which I cannot surmount!
What frightful struggles I undergo, and yet I can never overcome
my desires nor rise above my powerlessness!
What a bizarre and inconceivable consequence! Since I have come
back near you, my mind dwells only on distressing thoughts. Per-
haps the place where I am contributes to this melancholy. It is sad
and dreadful. But it is thus more suited to the state of my soul, and
so I stay more patiently here than I would in a more pleasant place.
A ridge of bleak rocks borders the coast and surrounds my lodging,
which is made still more dismal by the winter season. Ah! I feel, my
Julie, that if I had to give you up, I should have no other place, no
other season.
In the violent disturbance which distracts me, I cannot stay in one
place. I run, I climb eagerly, I leap over the crags. Taking
long strides, I walk through all the surrounding area, and I find in
everything the same horror which reigns inside me. One sees noth-
ing green any more, the grass is yellow and withered, the trees are
bare, the dry and cold north-east wind heaps up the snow and ice,
and all nature is dead in my eyes, like the hope in the bottom of my
heart.
Among the crags on this side, I have found a little ledge in a
lonely cleft from which I have a distinct view of the fortunate town
in which you live. Judge with what eagerness my eyes flew towards
that cherished place. The first day I made a thousand efforts to dis-
tinguish your house, but because of the extreme distance they were
 LETTER XXVI - TO JULIE (fe

useless, and I perceived that my imagination was deceiving my tired

eyes. I ran to the curate’s to borrow a telescope, with which I saw
or thought I saw your house, and since that time I have spent entire
days in that cleft contemplating the lucky walls which enclose the
source of my life. In spite of the season, I go there at daybreak and
do not return until night. I make a fire from leaves and some dry
wood, which with my running serves to protect me from the exces-
sive cold. I have taken such a liking to this wild place that I even
bring ink and paper here, and I am now writing this letter on a slab
of rock that the ice has detached from a nearby crag.
Here, my Julie, your unfortunate lover manages to enjoy the last
pleasures which perhaps will ever delight him in this world. From
this place he secretly dares to penetrate through open spaces and
walls into your very room. Your charming features dazzle him again;
your tender looks revive his dying heart. He hears the sound of your
sweet voice; he dares seek again in your arms that delirium which
he experienced in the arbor. But this is the idle phantom of a dis-
turbed soul which is lost among his desires! Soon forced to return to
reality, even then I contemplate you at least in the daily conduct of
your innocent life. From afar, I follow your various daily occupa-
tions, and I imagine them at the times when and in the places where
I once so fortunately witnessed them. I see you ever attentive to
duties which make you more estimable, and my heart grows tender
with delight over the inexhaustible goodness of yours. In the morn-
ing, I say to myself, she is now awaking from a peaceful sleep, her
complexion has the freshness of a rose, and her soul enjoys a sweet
calm. To her creator, she dedicates a day which will not be lost to
virtue. Now she goes to her mother. The tender affections of her
heart spill over when she is with her parents, and she helps them
with the domestic cares of the house. She perhaps calms an im-
prudent servant; she perhaps pleads with him in secret; she perhaps
asks a favor for another. At another time, she busies herself tire-
lessly with the duties of her sex. She embellishes her soul with use-
ful knowledge. She adds the refinements of the fine arts to her ex-
quisite manners and those of the dance to her natural agility. Some-
times I see her in an elegant but simple dress which needlessly sets
off her charms. I see her here consulting a venerable pastor about
the ignored misery of an indigent family, there aiding or consoling
a sad widow and helpless orphan. Sometimes she entertains an hon-
est group with her sensible and modest conversation; sometimes, in
laughing with her companions, she tempers her tone of wisdom and
discretion with a playful youthfulness. Sometimes, ah forgive me! I
74 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

dare even to see you busying yourself with me. I see your soft eyes
running over one of my letters. I read in their sweet languor that
you are writing to your lucky lover. I see you speaking to your cousin
of him with tender emotion. Oh Julie! Oh Julie! Shall we never be
united? Shall we never spend our days together? Could we be parted
forever? No, may that frightful idea be far from my mind! But be-
cause of it, my tenderness is suddenly changed into furor. Rage
makes me run from crag to crag. I utter involuntary moans and
cries. I roar like an incensed lion. I am capable of everything, except
giving you up, and there is nothing, no, nothing that I may not do
in order to possess you or to die.
I was at this point in my letter and was only waiting for a safe
opportunity to send it to you, when I received from Sion the last
one you wrote me there. How the sadness it expresses has allayed
mine! What a striking proof I see in it of what you once told me con-
cerning the sympathy between our souls even in distant places! Your
sorrow, I confess, is calmer. Mine is more unmanageable, but the
same sentiment must take its color from the natures which feel it,
and it is quite natural that the greatest losses cause the greatest sor-
rows. What am I saying, losses? Ah! Who could bear them? No, be
assured at last, my Julie, that an eternal decree from Heaven des-
tined us for each other; that is the first law we must obey. It is the
first duty in life to unite ourselves to the person who is to make it
sweet for us. I see and I regret that your projects are misleading and
vain. You want to break down insurmountable barriers, and you
neglect the only possible means. Enthusiasm for chastity takes away
your reason, and your virtue is no more than a delirium.
Ah! If you could remain always as young and brilliant as you are
now, I should ask Heaven only to know of your eternal happiness,
to see you once every year of my life, only once, and to spend the
rest of my time contemplating your home from afar, adoring you
from the midst of these crags. But alas! Behold the speed of that star
which never stops. It flies and time passes. Opportunity slips away.
Your beauty, even your beauty will have its end. It must fade and
one day die like a flower which falls before it is gathered, and mean-
while I sigh, I suffer, my youth is consumed in tears and withers in
sorrow. Think, think, Julie, that we are already counting years lost
for pleasure. Think that they will never return, that those left for us
will be the same if we let them escape again. Oh my blind love!
You are seeking an imaginary happiness for a future which we shall
never have. You are intent upon a distant time, and you do not see
that meanwhile we are continually wasting away, and that our souls,
 LETTER XXVII + FROM CLAIRE 75

overwhelmed by love and sorrow, are melting like the snow.

Awake, there is still time. Awake, my Julie, from this disastrous
de-
lusion. Abandon your projects, and be happy. Come, oh my soul, into
your lover’s arms to reunite the two halves of our single being.
Come before Heaven, the guide of our flight and witness to
our vows, and let us swear to live and die for each other. I need not
reassure you, I know, against the fear of poverty. Let us be happy,
and though poor, ah, what treasure we shall have acquired! But let
us not affront humanity by thinking that there is no refuge left in
the whole world for two unfortunate lovers. I have arms, I am
strong. The bread earned by my work will seem more delicious to
you than banquet dishes. Can a meal prepared with love ever be
tasteless? Ah, my tender and dear love, if our happiness were only
for a single day, could you wish to leave this short life without hav-
ing tasted it?
I have only one word more to say to you, oh Julie! You know the
ancient use of the rock of Leucadia, the last refuge of so many un-
happy lovers. This place resembles it in many respects. The cliff is
steep, the water is deep, and I am in despair.

4% LETTER XXVIII &

From Claire

MY SORROW scarcely leaves me the strength to write you. Your mis-

fortunes and mine are at their crisis. The lovely Julie is at the brink
of death and has not perhaps two days left. The effort she made in
parting from you began to affect her health. The first conversation
she had with her father about you brought on new attacks. Other
more recent griefs have increased her disorder, and your last letter
has done the rest. She was so acutely affected by it that after having
spent a night in frightful agony, she was seized yesterday with an
intense fever which has increased continually and has at last made
her delirious. In this condition, she calls your name at every mo-
ment, and speaks of you with a vehemence that shows her preoccu-
pation with you. Her father is kept away as much as possible; that
sufficiently proves that my aunt suspects the truth. She has even

TEXAS WOMAN'S UNIVER@ITY

76 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

anxiously asked me if you were on your way back, and I see that,
her daughter’s danger for the moment outweighing all other con-
siderations, she would not be sorry to see you here.
Come then without delay. I have hired the boat expressly to
bring you this letter. It is at your command, use it for your return,
and above all do not lose a moment, if you wish to see once again
the most tender and loving person that ever lived.

& LETTER XXVIII *&

From Julie to Claire

How BITTER the life you have restored to me is made by your ab-
sence! What a convalescence! A passion more terrible than fever and
delirium sweeps me away to my ruin. Cruel one! You leave me just
when I need you most. You have left me for a week; perhaps you
will never see me again. Oh, if you knew what the madman dares
to propose to me! . . . and in what manner! . . . to elope! to fol-
low him! to be carried off! . . . the wretch! . . . But of whom am
I complaining? My heart, my unworthy heart tells me a hundred
times more than he . . . great God! What would it be, if he knew
all? . . . He would become frenzied, I would be swept away, I
would be forced to leave . . . Ishudder ...
But then has my father sold me? He considers his daughter as
property, as a slave; he acquits himself at my expense! He purchases
his life with mine! . . . for I see too well that I shall never live
through it . . . cruel and unnatural father! Does he deserve . .
what! deserve? He is the best of fathers. He wants to marry his
daughter to his friend, that is his crime. But my mother, my tender
mother! What evil has she done me? ... Ah, a great deal! She
has loved me too much; she has ruined me.
Claire, what shall I do? What shall become of me? Hans has not
come. I do not know how to send you this letter. Before you receive
it... before you return... who knows... fleeing, wander-
ing, dishonored . . . it is all over, it is all over, the crisis has come.
One day, one hour, perhaps one moment . . . who may sidestep
his fate? . . . Oh, wherever I live and die, into whatever obscure
 LETTER XXIX + FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE a

retreat I drag my shame and my despair, Claire, remember your

friend . . . Alas! Misery and shame change one’s heart . . . Ah,
if ever mine forgets you, it shall have changed a great deal!

4 LETTER XXIX &

From Julie to Claire

STAY, AH STAY! Never return. You would only come too late. I must
never see you again. How should I bear to have you look upon me?
Where were you, my sweet friend, my protector, my guardian
angel? You abandoned me, and I was ruined. What, was this fatal
trip so necessary or so urgent? How could you have left me alone at
the most dangerous moment of my life? What remorse you have
caused yourself through this criminal negligence! It will be as eter-
nal as my tears. Your loss is as irretrievable as mine, for it is as dif-
ficult to gain another friend equal to you as it is impossible to re-
cover my innocence.
What have I said, wretch that I am? I can neither tell nor keep
my secret. What use is secrecy when remorse cries out? Does not the
whole universe reproach me for my error? Is not my disgrace writ-
ten on every object? If I do not pour out my heart to you, it will
burst. And you, do you not reproach yourself for anything, my com-
pliant and over-confident friend? Ah! Did you not betray me? It
is your trust, your blind friendship, it is your fatal indulgence
which has ruined me.
What demon inspired you to call him back, that cruel creature
who has caused my disgrace? Was his perfidious care to restore me
to life only for the purpose of making it insupportable? May he go
away forever, the barbarous one! May a vestige of pity touch him;
may he come no longer to redouble my torments by his presence;
may he deny himself the savage pleasure of witnessing my tears. But
what am I saying, alas? He is not guilty. Only I am. All my misfor-
tunes are of my own doing, and I have no one to reproach but my-
self. But vice has already corrupted my soul; its first effect is to make
us accuse others of our crimes.
No, no, he was never capable of being false to his vows. His vir-
78 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

tuous heart does not know the abject art of injuring the one he
loves. Ah! Without a doubt, he knows how to love better than I,
since he knows how to conquer his passions better. A hundred times
I witnessed his struggles and his victory. His eyes would sparkle with
the fire of his desires. He would rush toward me in the impetuous-
ness of a blind passion. But he would stop himself suddenly; an in-
surmountable barrier seemed to have surrounded me, never to be
overcome by his impetuous but chaste love. I dared watch this dan-
gerous spectacle too much. I myself was troubled by his fits of pas-
sion. His sighs oppressed my heart. I shared his torments when I
thought I was only pitying them. I saw him trembling with emotion,
ready to lose consciousness at my feet. Perhaps love alone would
have saved me; oh my cousin, it is pity that destroyed me.
My disastrous passion seems to have tried to disguise itself with
an all-virtuous mask in order to deceive me. That very day he
urged me even more ardently to elope with him. That would have
distressed the best of fathers; that would have plunged a dagger into
my mother’s heart. I resisted, I rejected the proposal with horror.
But the impossibility of ever realizing our hopes, the necessity for
concealing this impossibility from him, the regret I felt for deceiving
so submissive and so tender a lover after having flattered his expec-
tation—all these were battering down my courage, all were aug-
menting my weakness, all were disordering my reason. I had to de-
stroy my parents, my lover, or myself. Without knowing what I was
doing, I chose my own destruction. I forgot everything but love.
Thus, one unguarded moment has ruined me forever. I have fallen
into the abyss of shame from which a girl never returns, and if I
live, it is only to be more wretched.
Sighing, I search for some vestige of consolation on this earth. I
see only you, my loving friend. Do not deprive me of such an ap-
pealing resource, I implore you; do not take from me the sweetness
of your friendship. I have lost the right to claim it, but never have
I needed it so much. Let your pity replace your esteem. Come, my
dear, open your heart to my remorse. Come to receive your friend’s
tears. Shield me, if you can, from my self-contempt, and convince
me that I have not lost everything, since I still have your heart.
LETTER XXX + ANSWER 79

4 LETTER XXX &

Answer

WRETCHED GIRL! Alas, what have you done? My God! You so de-
served to remain virtuous! What shall I say to you in the horror of
your situation and in the despondency into which it plunges you?
Shall I finish crushing your poor heart, or shall I offer you consola-
tions which I myself need? Shall I point out to you things as they
are or as it is proper for you to see them? Holy and pure friendship!
Bring to my soul your sweet illusions, and in the tender pity which
you inspire, first deceive me about the wrongs which you can no
longer make right.
I feared, you know, the misfortune for which you are remorseful.
How many times have I predicted it and been disregarded! . . . It
is the result of my rash confidence, you say .. . Ah! There is no
question of that any more. I should have betrayed your secret, no
doubt, if I could have saved you that way. But I read your over-
sensitive heart better than you; I saw it consuming itself with a de-
vouring fire that nothing could extinguish. I perceived that this
heart palpitating with love had to be happy or it would die, and
when your fear of succumbing made you banish your lover so tear-
fully, I decided that soon either you would be dead or he would be
recalled. But how frightened I was when I saw you determined
against living and so close to death! Do not therefore accuse your
lover or yourself of a crime for which I am the most guilty, since I
foresaw it without preventing it.
It is true that I left against my will, but you saw that I had to
obey. Yet, if I had thought you so near your undoing, they should
have sooner torn me to pieces than made me leave you. I was mis-
taken about the moment of danger. Weak and still languishing,
you seemed to me secure against so short an absence. I did not for-
see the dangerous dilemma you were soon to face; I forgot that your
weakness left your dejected heart more defenceless against itself. I
ask pardon for mine, but I can hardly repent a mistake which saved
your life. I do not have that “unfeeling courage which made you
80 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

renounce me, I could not have lost you without a fatal despair, and
I still prefer you alive though remorseful.
But why so many tears, dear and sweet friend? Why this remorse
greater than your error and this undeserved self-contempt? Will one
moment of weakness efface so many sacrifices, and is not the very
illness you are recovering from a proof of your virtue? You think
only of your defeat and you forget all the painful victories which
have preceded it. Since you have been tried more than those who
resist, have you not done more for the sake of honor than they? If
nothing can justify you to yourself, think at least of that which ex-
cuses you. I scarcely know what it is that people call love. I shall al-
ways be able to resist the ecstasies it inspires, but I should have re-
sisted a love like yours much less than you did, and thus without
having surrendered, I am less chaste than you.
These words will shock you, but your greatest misfortune is hav-
ing made them necessary. I would give my life if they could not be
applied to you, for I hate evil precepts even more than evil ac-
tions.* If the mistake were still to be committed, if I were base
enough to speak to you this way, and if you were to listen to me, we
should both be the lowest of creatures. But now, my dear, I must
speak this way to you and you must listen to me or you are lost; for
you still possess a thousand charming qualities which only self-es-
teem can preserve, which excessive shame and the humiliation that
follows it would infallibly destroy, and this esteem is based more
on your opinion of yourself than on your real worth.
Do not give way, then, to a dangerous dejection which would
debase you more than your frailty. Is true love degrading to the
soul? Do not let one error committed through love take from you
that noble enthusiasm for the henest and the beautiful which al-
ways raised you above yourself. Is one spot visible in the sunlight?
How many virtues do you have left in place of the one which is im-
paired? Will you now be less sweet, less sincere, less modest, less
charitable? Will you be less deserving, in a word, of all our hom-
age? Will honor, humanity, friendship, or pure love be less dear to
your heart? Will you cherish any less even that virtue which you no
longer have? No, dear and good Julie, your Claire pities and adores
you; she knows, she feels that nothing but good can still come from
your soul. Ah! Believe me, you have much yet to lose before any
other woman, even one more chaste, could ever be as good as you!

* This sentiment is just and sound. Unruly passions inspire evil actions, but
evil precepts corrupt the reason itself and cut off the possibility of a return to
virtue. [Rousseau]
 LETTER XXXI + TO JULIE 81

After all, I still have you. I can be consoled for anything ex-
cept for losing you. Your first letter made me tremble. It might
have almost made me desire the second, if I had not received it at
the same time. To wish to forsake your friend! To plan to fly with-
out me! You do not speak at all of that, which is your greatest crime.
You should have been ashamed of that a hundred times more than
of the other. But you, ungrateful creature, thought only of your
love . . . Ishould have been wounded to the core.
With a mortal impatience I count the moments that I am forced
to spend far from you. They are cruelly prolonged. We are to stay
at Lausanne for six more days, after which I shall fly to my only
friend. I shall console her or grieve with her, wipe away or share her
tears. In your sorrow I shall speak more tender friendship than in-
flexible reason. Dear cousin, we must grieve, love each other, keep
silent, and if we can, efface by dint of future virtues one error that
cannot be blotted out with tears. Ah! My poor Chaillot!

4 LETTER XXXI &

To Julie

WHAT PrRopIGY of Heaven are you then, inconceivable Julie? And by

what art, known to you alone, can you assemble so many incom pat-
ible impulses in one heart? Drunk with love and sensual pleasure,
mine is overwhelmed by sadness. I suffer and languish in the midst
of the supreme happiness, and I reproach myself for my excessive
good fortune as if for a crime. God! What frightful torment it is
not to dare give oneself up completely to any sentiment but to have
them incessantly warring against each other and always to combine
bitterness with pleasure! It would be a hundred times more prefer-
able merely to be miserable.
What use is it to me, alas, to be happy? I no longer feel my own
anxiety, but yours instead, and it only torments me more sensibly.
Vainly you wish to hide your distress from me; I read it in spite of
you in your languor and the lowering of your eyes. Can those ex-
pressive eyes conceal any secret from love? I see, I see the hidden
chagrin which besets you under an apparent serenity, and your
82 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

melancholy, veiled by a sweet smile, only affects my heart more

bitterly.
This is not the time to hide anything from me. Yesterday I was
in your mother’s room, she left for a moment, and I heard sighs
which pierced my soul. With that, how could I fail to recognize
their source? I drew near the place from which they seemed to come.
I entered your rooms; I got as far as your dressing room. What did
I think when, opening the door a little, I perceived her who ought
to be on the throne of the universe seated on the floor, her head
leaning on a chair which was dampened by her tears? Ah, if it had
been my blood, I should have suffered less! With what remorse
was I stung at that instant! My bliss became my torment, I no longer
felt anything but your distress, and I would have atoned for your
tears and all my pleasure with my life. I wished to hurl myself at
your feet; I wished to wipe those precious tears away with my lips,
to bury them in the bottom of my heart, to die or to dry them up
forever; but I heard your mother coming back, and I had to return
abruptly to my place. I carried away all your sorrow and the remorse
which will never end except with it.
How humiliated I am, how debased I am by your repentance! |
am very despicable, then, if our union makes you despise yourself
and if the delight of my life is the torment of yours. Be more just to
yourself, my Julie; look with a less prejudiced eye upon the holy
bonds your heart has formed. Have you not obeyed the purest
laws of nature? Have you not freely entered into the holiest of
engagements? What have you done that both divine and human
laws can and must not authorize? What does the tie that joins us
lack except a public declaration? Consent to be mine, and you are
no longer sinful. Oh my wife! Oh ray worthy and chaste companion!
Oh delight and happiness of my life! No, it is not what your love
has done that can be a crime, but what you would like to rob from
it; only by accepting another husband can you offend honor. Be-
long forever to the friend of your heart if you wish to remain
innocent. The tie which unites us is legitimate; only an infidelity
which would break it would be reproachful, and from now on it is
for your love to be the guardian of your virtue.
But if your sorrow were reasonable, if your remorse were well-
founded, why keep my share of it from me? Why do my eyes not
shed half your tears? You have no grief that I ought not feel, no
sentiment that I ought not share, and my justly jealous heart re-
proaches you for all the tears which you do not pour out into my
bosom, Tell me, cold and dissembling lover, is not everything
 LETTER XXXII - RESPONSE 83

that your soul does not communicate to mine stolen from my love?
Must not everything be in common between us? Do you no longer
remember having said so? Ah! If you loved as I do, my happiness
would console you as much as your grief afflicts me, and you would
feel my pleasure as I feel your sorrow.
But I see that you scorn me as a madman because my reason goes
astray in the midst of delights. My ecstasies frighten you, my delir-
ium makes you pity me, and you do not consider that the utmost
human strength cannot be equal to limitless pleasure. Do you think
that a sensitive soul may enjoy infinite bliss moderately? Do you
think that he can withstand so many kinds of raptures all at once
without losing his bearing? Do you not know that there is a time
when no one’s reason resists any longer, and that there is no man in
the world whose good sense may then prevail? Therefore, pity the
distraction into which you have thrown me, and do not be contemp-
tuous of errors which you occasion. I am no longer master of myself,
I confess; my estranged soul is wholly absorbed in yours. Thus, I am
more fit to feel your sorrows and more worthy to share them. Oh
Julie, do not conceal them from your other self.

4% LETTER XXXII &

Response

THERE WAS A TIME, my dear friend, when our letters were easy and
delightful. The sentiment which dictated them poured out with an
elegant simplicity. They needed neither art nor coloring, and their
purity constituted all their eloquence. That happy time is no more.
Alas! It cannot return, and as the first consequence of so cruel a
change, our hearts have already ceased to understand each other.
Your eyes have seen my sorrows. You think you have fathomed
the source of them, you wish to console me by vain words, and
while you think you are deluding me, it is yourself, my friend,
whom you delude. Believe me, believe in the tender heart of your
Julie; my remorse is much less for having given too much to love
than for having deprived it of its greatest charm. That sweet en-
chantment of virtue is vanished like a dream. Our passions have
84 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

lost that divine ardor which gave vigor to them by purifying them.
We have sought pleasure, and happiness has fled us. Recall once
more those delightful moments in which our hearts fused the more
we respected each other, in which our passion drew from its own
excess the strength to conquer itself, in which our innocence con-
soled us for our restraint, in which the homage paid to honor
turned everything to the profit of love. Compare such a charming
time to our present situation. What disturbances! What fright!
What mortal alarms! How our immoderate sentiments have lost
their first sweetness! What has become of that zeal for prudence
and honesty, the love of which used to inspire all our actions and
which in turn made love more delightful? Our enjoyments used
to be peaceful and lasting; we now have nothing but fits of passion.
This mad joy is more like attacks of frenzy than tender caresses. A
pure and holy flame used to burn our hearts; now, given up to the
delusions of the senses, we are nothing but common lovers, suff-
ciently happy if jealous love still condescends to preside over the
pleasures which even the most brutish mortal can enjoy.
There, my friend, are the losses which we share, and which I do
not regret less for you than for myself. I say nothing concerning
the one more immediately mine; your heart is capable of feeling it.
Look at my shame, and grieve if you know how to love. My mistake
is irreparable; my tears will never dry. Oh you who caused them to
flow, be fearful of attempting to end such just sorrows; my whole
hope is for them to be made eternal. The worst of my crimes would
be to be comforted for them, and the ultimate disgrace is to lose,
along with innocence, the sentiment which makes us love it.
I know my fate, I sense the horror of it, and yet one consolation
is left me in my despair. It is the only one, but it is sweet. It is from
you that I expect it, my dear friend. Since I no longer dare think of
myself, I think with more pleasure of the one I love. I give you all
the esteem that you have taken from me, and you become only more
dear to me by compelling me to despise myself. Love, this fatal love
which destroys me, gives you new value; you are elevated while I
am degraded, and your soul seems to have profited from all the
debasement of mine. Therefore, from now on be my only hope. It
is for you to justify my crime, if you can, cover it with the honesty
of your sentiments, let your merit efface my shame, and excuse
with the strength of your virtues the loss of mine that you occa-
sioned. Be my whole being, now that I am nothing. The only honor
I have left is wholly in you, and as long as you are worthy of re-
spect, I shall not be completely contemptible.
 LETTER XXXIII - FROM JULIE 85
Though I regret the return of my health, I cannot
conceal it any
longer. My face belies my speech and my prete
nded convalescence
can no longer deceive anyone. Hurry then, before
I am forced to
resume my ordinary duties, to take the step upon
which we have
agreed. I see clearly that my mother has conceived
some suspicions
and that she is watching us. My father seems to know
nothing, I
confess; that proud gentleman does not even imagine
that a man
not nobly born may be in love with his daughter. But
after all, you
know his resolution. He will send you away if you do
not prevent
him, and in order, then, to keep your access to our house,
you must
banish yourself from it completely. Believe me, speak
to my mother
while there is still time. Pretend to have some business affairs
which
keep you from continuing to tutor me, and let us give up
our fre-
quent meetings so that we may meet at least sometimes; for
if the
door is closed to you, you can present yourself at it no longer
, but if
you close it yourself, your visits will be, in a way, at your discre
tion,
and with a little ingenuity and management, you will be able to
pay
them more frequently afterwards without anyone noticing or find-
ing it amiss. I shall tell you this evening the means that I am invent
-
ing for other opportunities to meet, and you will agree that my in-
separable cousin, who formerly occasioned so many complaints, will
not now be useless to two lovers, whom, indeed, she should never
have left alone.

& LETTER XXXIII &

From Julie

AH, MY FRIEND, what a poor refuge for two lovers a social gathering
is! What torment to meet and have to restrain ourselves! It would
be a hundred times better not to see each other at all. How can we
be calm with so many emotions? How can we be so different from
ourselves? How can we think of so many things when one alone
preoccupies us? How can we control our gestures and eyes when
our hearts are soaring? I never in my life felt an anxiety equal to
the one I experienced yesterday when you were announced at the
home of Madame d’Hervart. When your name was pronounced, I
86 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

thought it was a reproach addressed to me; I imagined that the

whole group was watching me. I no longer knew what I was doing,
and when you came in, I blushed so excessively that my cousin, who
was watching over me, was obliged to hold her fan up in front of
me, as if whispering in my ear. I feared that even that artifice might
create a poor impression and that people might look for a mystery
in that whispering. In short, in everything I found new reasons
for alarms, and I never felt more fully how a guilty conscience
needs no accuser.
Claire pretended to observe that you were not presenting a better
figure. You seemed to her to be embarrassed, uncertain what to do,
not daring to advance or retire, to approach me or withdraw, and
looking all around the room in order to have, she said, a pretence
for looking at us. A little recovered from my confusion, I thought
I perceived yours, when young Madame Belon spoke to you and
you sat chatting with her, becoming calmer at her side.
I feel, my friend, that this manner of living, which affords so
much constraint and so little pleasure, is not good for us. Our love
is too great for such restraint. These public assemblies are only fit
for people who, not being in love, are nevertheless on good terms,
or people who can dispense with secrecy. My anxiety is too disquiet-
ing, your indiscretions too dangerous, and I cannot always keep a
Madame Belon at my side to create a diversion in case one is needed.
Let us return, let us return to that solitary and peaceful life,
from which I drew you so inadvertently. That life gave rise to and
nourished our passions; perhaps they would be weakened by this
more dissipated manner of living. All the great passions are formed
in solitude. There is nothing like them among society, where
there is no time for a single object to make a profound impression
and where the variety of pleasures enervates the strength of the
sentiments. Solitude is also more suited to my melancholy; it is
sustained by the same food as my love. Your dear image nourishes
both, and I prefer to see you tender and sensible in my heart than
constrained and distracted in an assembly.
Besides, there may come a time when I should be forced into a
greater seclusion. Would that it had already come, this desired time!
Prudence as well as my own inclination require that I accustom my-
self beforehand to habits which necessity may demand. Ah! If from
my error could spring the means of amending it! The sweet hope
of one day being . . . but inadvertently I say more than I wish
about the design which preoccupies me. Forgive me this mystery, my
dearest friend; my heart shall never keep any secret which would be
 LETTER XXXIV + RESPONSE 87

sweet for you to know. You must nevertheless be ignorant of this

one, and all that I can tell you at present is that love, which occa-
sioned our misfortunes, is to bring us relief from them. Consider,
comment to yourself, if you want, but I forbid you to question me.

4 LETTER XXXIV *&

Response

HOW INDEBTED I am to that pretty Madam Belon, for the pleasure

she provided me! Forgive me, divine Julie, but I dared enjoy for a
moment your tender fears, and that moment was one of the sweetest
of my life. How charming were those uneasy and curious glances
which you stole toward me and which were immediately lowered
to avoid mine! What was your happy lover doing then? Was he
chatting with Madame Belon? Ah, my Julie, can you think so? No,
no, incomparable girl, he was more worthily occupied. With what
delight was his heart following the emotions of yours! With what
avid impatience were his eyes devouring your features! Your love,
your beauty filled, ravished his soul; it was scarcely equal to so
many delightful sentiments. My only regret is that I was enjoying
at your expense pleasures which you did not share. Do I know what
Madame Belon said to me during that whole time? Do I know what
I answered her? Did I even know it at the time of our conversa-
tion? Could she tell it, and could she understand the slightest thing
in the discourse of a man who was speaking without thinking and
answering without listening?

Com’ huom, che par ch’ ascolti, e nulla intende.

[?]
Like a man who seems to listen and yet hears nothing.
And she has conceived the most perfect contempt for me. She has
said to everyone, to you perhaps, that I have no common sense, or
what is worse, not the slightest wit, and that I am completely as
foolish as my books. But what does it matter to me what she says
and thinks? Does not my Julie alone determine my fate and the
88 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

position I hold? Let the rest of the world think of me as it likes;

my whole worth is in your esteem.
Ah, do not think that Madame Belon or any superior beauty is
privileged to create the diversion you speak of and to keep my heart
and my eyes from you for a moment! If you doubt my sincerity, if
you could do this mortal injury to my love and to your charms, tell
me, how could I have taken account of all that took place around
you? Did I not see you shining among the beautiful young women
like the sun among the stars which it eclipses? Did I not see the cav-
alvers* gather around your chair? Did I not see the admiration they
singled you out for, in spite of your companions? Did I not notice
their assiduous attentions, their compliments and their gallantry?
Did I not see you receive everything with that air of modesty and
indifference that is more affecting than pride? When you took off
your glove for the refreshments, did I not see the effect which that
uncovered arm produced among the spectators? Did I not see the
young stranger who picked up your glove tempted to kiss the charm-
ing hand which took it? Did I not see a bolder stranger whose ar-
dent stare drained my life’s blood and obliged you, when you saw
it, to add a pin to your shawl? I was not so distracted as you think.
I saw all this, Julie, and yet was not jealous, for I know your heart.
It is not, I am convinced, one of those which can be twice in love.
Will you accuse mine of being so?
Then let us return to that solitary life which I left only with re-
gret. No, my heart finds no satisfaction in the hubbub of society.
False pleasures make the privation from true ones more bitter, and
I prefer my suffering to empty compensations. But, my Julie, there
is, there perhaps can be more substantial satisfaction in any situa-
tion other than our present constraint, and you seem to forget it!
What, to spend two whole weeks so close to one another, without
meeting or speaking! Ah, what do you want a heart burning with
love to do during so many centuries? Even separation would be less
cruel. What use is an excess of prudence which does us more harm
than it prevents? What use is it to prolong a life in torment? Would
it not be a hundred times more preferable to meet for a single
instant and then die?
I own freely, my sweet friend, that I should like to discover the
pleasant secret which you are hiding from me. There never was any
that could interest us more, but I am needlessly attempting to
* Cavaliers: an old word which is no longer used. One says gentlemen. I am
indebted to the provincials for this important remark and for being thus use-
ful to the public at least once. [Rousseau]
 LETTER XXXV - FROM JULIE 89
know it. I shall nevertheless keep the silence you impose and re-
press an indiscreet curiosity, but in respecting so sweet a mystery,
may I not at least be assured of soon being satisfied? Who knows,
who yet knows if your projects are not vain fancies? Dear soul of my
life, ah! At least let us begin to make them realities.

P.S. I neglected to tell you that Monsieur Roguin has offered me

a company in the regiment he is raising for the king of Sardinia. I
have been sensibly moved by the esteem of this brave officer. Thank-
ing him, I told him that I was too short-sighted for the service and
that my passion for study unfitted me for so active a life. In this, I
have not made a sacrifice to love. I think that everyone owes his life
and blood to his country and that he is not permitted to part with
it for princes to whom he is in no way indebted, still less to sell him-
self and turn the most noble profession in the world into that of a
vile mercenary. These precepts were those of my father, whom
I should be very happy to imitate in his love for his duty and for
his country. He never would enter the service of any foreign prince,
but in the war of 1712 he bore arms honorably for his own country.
He was in several battles, in one of which he was wounded, and
in the battle of Wilmerghen he had the good fortune to capture an
enemy flag under the eyes of General de Sacconex.

4 LETTER XXXV &

From Julie

I DO NOT FIND, my friend, that the few words I said laughingly about
Madame Belon were worth so serious an explanation. Taking so
much trouble to justify oneself sometimes produces a contrary re-
sult, and it is only the attention given to trifles which makes them
important. That surely will never happen between us, for well-oc-
cupied hearts are hardly punctilious, and lovers’ disputes over noth-
ing almost always have a much deeper foundation than they think.
I am glad, however, that this trifle may furnish us an opportu-
nity to discuss jealousy, a subject unfortunately too important for
me.
90 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I see, my friend, by the temper of our souls and by the agreement

of our dispositions, that love will be the great business of our lives.
Whenever love has once made the deep impression that we have
felt, it must extinguish or absorb every other passion. The slightest
cooling of our passion would soon be the languor of death for us;
an invincible apathy, an eternal indifference would replace our ex-
tinguished love, and we could not live for very long after having
ceased to love. As for me, you well know that only the delirium of
passion blinds me to the horror of my present situation, and that I
must love extravagantly or die of sorrow. See, then, if I am justified
in seriously discussing a point on which depends the happiness or
the misery of my life.
As far as I can know myself, it seems to me that though I am often
too emotional, I am nevertheless little inclined to anger. My an-
noyances would have to ferment a long time within me before I
would dare reveal their source to their author, and since I am per-
suaded that one cannot do offence without intending to, I would
rather submit to a hundred subjects of complaint than ever come to
an explanation. Such a disposition must go to extremes with ever
so little a penchant for jealousy, and I am much afraid of feeling
this dangerous penchant in my own heart. It is not that I am not
convinced that your heart is made for mine and no other, but one
can be deceived, mistake a passing fancy for a real passion, and
do as many things because of his imagination as he might perhaps
have done because of love. Now, if you can believe yourself incon-
stant without really being so, I could falsely accuse you of infidelity.
This frightful doubt would poison my life, however; I would suffer
without complaining and die inconsolable without having ceased
to be loved.
I implore you, let us prevent this misfortune, the mere idea of
which makes me shudder. Therefore, my sweet friend, swear to me
—not by love, an oath which is kept only when it is superfluous,
but by the holy name of honor which you so respect—that I shall
ever be the confidante of your heart, and that it will have no un-
expected change of which I shall not be the first one told. Do not
plead that you never will have anything to tell me; I believe, I hope
so, but prevent my foolish alarms and pledge to secure my present
peace eternally against a future which could never be. I should be
less pitiable learning my real misfortunes from you than suffering
ceaselessly from imaginary ones; at least I should enjoy your re-
morse, for if you no longer shared my passion, you would still share
 LETTER XXXV - FROM JULIE 9]
my pain, and thus I should find the tears that I would shed into
your
bosom less bitter.
It is on this account, my friend, that I am doubly pleased in my
choice, both in the sweet bond which unites us, and in
the honor
which assures it. With us, the dictates of principle are followe
d in
matters of pure sentiment; with us, strict virtue can
dispel the
problems of tender love. If I had a lover without principle, even
were he to love me eternally, where should I find the guarant
ee
of this constancy? What means should I have to silence my contin-
ual misgivings, and how could I assure myself of not being deceived
either by his pretense or by my own credulity? But you, my worthy
and respectable friend, you who are incapable of artifice or of dis-
sembling, you will, I know, preserve the honesty you have promised
me. The shame of confessing an infidelity will not outweigh the
duty of your upright soul to keep your word, and if you could no
longer love your Julie, you would say to her, . . . yes, you could
say to her, “Oh Folie ida noes 2 My friend, never shall I write
those words.
What do you think of my device? It is the only one, I am sure,
which could root out all my feeling of jealousy. There is an inde-
finable enchantment in entrusting your love to your good faith,
thus removing my ability to believe you unfaithful when you
would not first inform me yourself. That, my dear, is the certain
effect of the promise I am exacting from you, for I could believe
you an inconstant lover but not a deceiving friend, and even if I
should doubt your heart, I could never doubt your faith. What
pleasure I enjoy in taking useless precautions in this matter, in
anticipating a change of heart, the impossibility of which I feel so
well! What delight it is to speak of jealousy with so faithful a lover!
Ah, if you were capable of inconstancy, do not believe that I could
speak to you in this way! My poor heart would not be so clever in
that case, and the slightest real distrust would soon deprive me of
my desire to secure myself against it.
There, my very honored teacher, is matter for discussion for this
evening, for your two humble pupils will have the honor of sup-
ping with you at the home of my uncle. Your learned comments on
the gazette have raised you so high in his eyes that no great artifice
was needed to get you invited. My cousin has had her harpsichord
tuned, my uncle has leafed through Lamberti’s book, and I shall
perhaps repeat the lesson of the arbor at Clarens. Oh, you doctor
of all sciences, you must adapt your knowledge to all of us. Mon-
92 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

sieur d’Orbe, who you may be sure is invited, has been told to begin
a learned dissertation on the future homage to the king of Naples,
during which we shall all three go into my cousin’s room. There,
my loyal vassal, on your knees before your lady and mistress, your
hand in hers, and in the presence of her chancellor, you will swear
faith to her and loyalty on every occasion—that is not to say eter-
nal love, a pledge no one can absolutely keep or break, but truth,
sincerity, inviolable frankness. You will not swear to be ever sub-
missive, but rather never to commit an act of treachery and at least
to declare war before shaking off the yoke. This done, you shall
have the accolade and be acknowledged as sole vassal and loyal
knight.
Adieu, my good friend. The thought of this evening’s supper
inspires me with gaiety. Ah! How sweet it will be to see you sharing
my joy.

4 LETTER XXXVI *

From Julie

KISS THIS LETTER and leap for joy at the news I am going to tell you.
But be assured that though I do not leap and have nothing to kiss,
I feel the joy no less keenly. My father, obliged to go to Berne on
account of his lawsuit and from there to Soleure for his pension,
has proposed to take my mother with him, and she has agreed,
hoping for some salutary effect upon her health in the change of
air. They wished to do me the honor of taking me along also, and
I did not consider it appropriate to tell them what I was thinking.
But the difficulty of carriage arrangements made them abandon that
project, and now they are endeavoring to console me for not be-
ing in the party. I have to pretend to be sad, and the false role
which I am constrained to play gives me such true sorrow that re-
morse has almost made the pretense useless.
During my parents’ absence, I shall not remain as mistress of the
house but am to be lodged at my uncle’s, so that I shall be during
this time wholly inseparable from my cousin. Moreover, my mother
has preferred to take along a maid and leave me Babi as a govern-
 LETTER XXXVI + FROM JULIE 93
ess, a hardly dangerous sort of Argus whose faith may not be cor-
rupted nor her confidence assured but whom one may easily dis-
miss if need be by offering her the slightest allurement of pleasure
or gain.
You understand what opportunities we shall have to meet dur-
ing these two weeks, but it is in this that discretion must restrain
us, and we must voluntarily impose upon ourselves the same re-
serve which is forced on us at other times. When I am at my cou-
sin’s, you must not come there more often than before, for fear of
compromising her. I hope that it will not even be necessary to speak
to you of the consideration her sex requires, or of the sacred rights
of hospitality, and that an honorable man will not need to be in-
structed in the respect due the friendship which gives his love asy-
lum. I know your ardent disposition, but I know the inviolable lim-
its to it. If you had never renounced virtue, you would not have to
make a sacrifice today.
Why that discontented air and that sad eye? Why complain of
the restraints which duty imposes upon you? Leave it to your Julie
to sweeten them. Did you ever repent having been submissive to her
voice? Near the flowery banks of the source of the Vevaise, there is
a remote village which sometimes is used as a shelter for hunters
but should only serve as a refuge for lovers. Scattered around the
main building, which belongs to Monsieur d’Orbe, are some suffi-
ciently remote chalets,* which with their thatch roofs may be able
to shelter love and pleasure, the friends of rustic simplicity. The
young and discreet milkmaids know enough to keep for others the
secret which they need kept for themselves. The streams which run
through the meadows are bordered by flowering shrubs and delight-
ful groves. Farther on, some thick woods offer more secluded and
shaded refuges.

Al bel seggio riposto, ombroso e fosco,

Ne mai pastori appressan, ne bifolci.
PETRARCH

In the fair, secluded place, shady and dim,

Neither shepherds nor plowmen ever come near you.

There, neither art nor the hand of man displays its restless toil.
One sees everywhere only the tender care of nature, our common

* A sort of wooden house in which cheese and various kinds of milk products
are made in the mountains. [Rousseau]
94 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

mother. It is there, my friend, that one is solely under her protec-

tion and may listen only to her laws. At the invitation of Mon-
sieur d’Orbe, Claire has already persuaded her papa to go with
some friends to hunt for two or three days in that area and to
take along the inseparable cousins. These inseparables have others,
as you know only too well. The one, being the master of the house,
will naturally do the honors of it; the other with less ceremony
will do those of a humble chalet for his Julie, and this chalet, sanc-
tified by love, will be for them the temple of Cnidus.* To carry
out this charming project happily and surely, we must only make
some arrangements which will easily be settled between us, and
which will themselves constitute a part of the pleasure which they
are intended to produce. Adieu, my friend, I leave off abruptly
for fear of being surprised. Besides, I think that your Julie’s heart
is flying to the chalet a little too soon.

P.S. All things well considered, I think that we shall be able to

meet without indiscretion almost every day—that is to say, at my
cousin’s every other day and the other while walking in the fields.

4 LETTER XXXVII *&

From Julie

THEY LEFT this morning, my tender father and my incomparable

mother, overwhelming with the most tender caresses their cher-
ished daughter, too unworthy of their goodness. On my part, I
embraced them with a little reluctance in my heart, while deep
inside this ungrateful and unnatural heart bubbled with an odious
joy. Alas! What has become of that happy time in which I continu-
ally led an innocent and wise life under their observation, in
which I was not content except near them and could not take a
single step from them without displeasure? Now guilty and fearful,
I tremble to think of them, I blush to think of myself, all my virtu-
ous sentiments have been corrupted, and I torture myself with

* A shrine housing Praxiteles’ statue of Aphrodite and especially dedicated to

the worship of that goddess. [Translator’s note]
LETTER XXXVIII - TO JULIE 95

vain and barren regrets that do not even arouse a true repentance.
These bitter reflections have brought on all the sorrow which their
farewells had not first effected. A secret grief stifled my soul after
the departure of these dear parents. While Babi was setting
things to rights after them, I mechanically entered my mother’s
room, and seeing some of her things still scattered about, I kissed
them all one by one and burst into tears. This state of tenderness
comforted me a little, and I found some sort of consolation in feel-
ing that nature’s sweet emotions are not completely extinguished
in my heart. Ah tyrant! In vain do you wish to conquer this tender
and too feeble heart absolutely. In spite of you, in spite of your
fond illusions, it still respects and cherishes some rights more sacred
than yours.
Oh my sweet friend, forgive these involuntary emotions, and do
not fear that I will extend these reflections as far as I should. The
moment in our lives in which our love is perhaps most untroubled
is not one of regret, I know. I wish neither to hide my sor-
row from you nor to overwhelm you with it; you must know it,
not to bear but to mitigate it. Into whose bosom should I pour out
my grief, if not yours? Are you not my tender consoler? Do you not
sustain my shaken courage? Do you not foster in my soul the love
for virtue, even after I have lost it? Without you, and with-
out that adorable cousin whose compassionate hand has so often
dried my tears, how many times might I not already have suc-
cumbed to the most fatal despondency? But your tender at-
tentions sustain me. I do not dare abase myself as long as you still
esteem me, and I flatter myself that neither of you could love me as
much if I deserved only contempt. I shall fly into the arms of
my dear cousin, or rather, my tender sister, to leave my trouble-
some sorrow in the bottom of her heart. Come to me this evening
to restore to mine the joy and the serenity which it has lost.

4% LETTER XXXVIII *&

To Julie

NO, JULIE, it is not possible for me to see you each day only as I
saw you yesterday. My love must augment and increase forever
96 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

with the discovery of your charms, and you are an inexhaustible

source of new sentiments which I had not even imagined. What a
wonderful evening! What unknown delights my heart experienced
because of you! Oh enchanting melancholy! Oh the languor of a
tender soul! How these surpass turbulent pleasures, wanton gaiety,
extravagant joy, and all the ecstasies that a boundless passion offers
to the unbridled desires of lovers! Never, never will the impressive
memory of that peaceable and pure bliss which has nothing to equal
it in the voluptuousness of the senses be erased from my heart. Gods!
What a ravishing sight, or rather, what ecstasy to see two such
touching beauties tenderly embracing, your head reclining on
Claire’s bosom, your sweet tears mingling with hers and bathing
that charming bosom just as the dew from Heaven moistens a
freshly opened lily! I was jealous of so tender a friendship. I found
in it something indefinably more interesting than in love itself, and
I wished to be somehow punished for not being able to offer you
such tender consolations without disturbing them by the violence
of my passion. No, nothing, nothing on earth is capable of excit-
ing so voluptuous a tenderness as your mutual caresses, and in my
eyes, the sight of two lovers might have offered a less delightful sen-
sation.
Ah, in that moment I might have been in love with that adora-
ble cousin, if Julie had not existed. But no, it was Julie herself who
spread her irresistible charm over everything which surrounded
her. Your dress, your finery, your gloves, your fan, your work—ev-
erything I saw around you enchanted my heart, and you yourself
were responsible for the whole enchantment. Stop, oh my sweet
friend! By increasing my intoxication, you would deprive me of the
pleasure of feeling it. What you make me experience approaches
a true delirium, and I am fearful of finally losing my reason in it. Let
me at least know a frenzy which constitutes my happiness; let me en-
joy this new rapture, more sublime, more penetrating than all my
former ideas of love. What, you can believe yourself abased! What,
does passion take away your reason also? I find you too perfect
for a mere mortal. I should believe you to be a purer species, if
this devouring fire which pierces my being did not unite me to yours
and did not make me feel that they are one and the same. No, no
one in the world knows you. You do not know yourself. My heart
alone knows you, feels you, knows what place you are to occupy
in it. My Julie! Ah, if you were only adored, what homage would
be robbed from you! Ah! If you were only an angel, how much of
your value would you lose!
LETTER XXXVIII +TO JULIE se
Tell me how it can be that a passion such as mine can increase?
I do not know how, but I feel it. However much you are with me
at all times, there are some days above all that your image, more
beautiful than ever, pursues me and torments me with an assidu-
ousness from which neither space nor time protects me, and I think
you left that image with me in the chalet which you mentioned in
the conclusion of your last letter. Since there has been talk of this
rustic rendezvous, I have left town three times. Each time my feet
have carried me to the same slopes, and each time the prospect
of so desirable a visit there has seemed to me more pleasant.

Non vide il mondo si leggiadri rami,

Ne mosse ’] vento mai si verdi frondi.
PETRARCH

Never did the world see branches so beautiful,

Nor ever did the wind stir such green leaves.

I find the country more gay, the green more fresh and vivid, the air
more pure, the sky more serene. The song of the birds seems to
be more tender and voluptuous; the murmur of the brooks
evokes a more amorous languor; from afar the blooming vine
exudes the sweetest perfumes; a secret charm either embellishes
everything or fascinates my senses. One would say that the earth
adorns itself to make for your happy lover a nuptial bed worthy of
the beauty he adores and of the passion which consumes him. Oh
Julie! Oh dear and precious half of my soul, let us hurry to add the
presence of two faithful lovers to these ornaments of spring. Let us
carry the sentiment of pleasure into the places which afford only an
empty idea of it. Let us animate all nature; it is dead without the
warmth of love. What! Three days of waiting? Still three days?
Drunk with love, greedy for ecstasies, I wait for this delayed moment
with a painful impatience. Ah! How fortunate we would be if
Heaven removed from life all the tedious intervals which separate
such moments!
98 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER XXXIX *

From julie

YOU DO NOT have one sentiment, my good friend, which my heart

does not share, but speak no more to me of pleasure while peo-
ple who deserve more than we do are suffering, sorrowing, and
while I must reproach myself with their misery. Read the enclosed
letter and then be tranquil if you can. As for me, knowing the ami-
able and virtuous girl who has written it, I have not been able to
read it without tears of remorse and pity. Regret for my sinful
negligence has pierced my soul, and I see with bitter confusion to
what point the forgetfulness of my principal duties has brought that
of all the others. I had promised to take care of this poor child. I
recommended her to my mother, I kept her in some way under my
protection, but being unable to protect myself, I abandoned her
without thinking and exposed her to worse dangers than those to
which I have succumbed. I shudder to think that in two days time,
perhaps, it might have been my fault that poverty and seduction
ruined a modest and wise girl, who could one day be an excellent
mother of a family. Oh my friend, how many men are there in the
world base enough to extort from misery the prize which the heart
alone should award and to take from a hungry mouth the tender
kisses of love!
Tell me, could you not be touched by the filial devotion of my
Fanchon, by her honest sentiments, by her innocent simplicity? Are
you not touched too by the uncommon tenderness of her lover who
will sell himself to assist his mistress? Will you not be only too happy
to contribute to the union of such a well-matched couple? Ah, if
we were without compassion for the united hearts which people try
to separate, from whom could we ever expect any ourselves? For my
part, I have resolved to make amends to them for my neglect at no
matter what cost and to arrange it so that these two young people
may be joined in marriage. I hope that Heaven will bless this un-
dertaking and that it will be a good omen for us. I suggest to you,
and I implore you in the name of our friendship, to leave today if
LETTER XL - FROM FANCHON REGARD TO JULIE 99

you can for Neuchatel, or at the very latest tomorrow morning. Go

to negotiate with Monsieur de Merveilleux to obtain the discharge
of that honest boy. Spare neither entreaties nor money. Take with
you my Fanchon’s letter; there is no sensitive heart which it cannot
soften. In short, whatever it may cost us both in pleasure and in
money, return only with the absolute release of Claude Anet, or
else be assured that our love will not give me a moment of pure joy
for the rest of my life.
I am aware of many objections your heart must raise. Do you
doubt that mine may not have raised them before you? But I am
persistent, for virtue must be only an empty word if it does not de-
mand sacrifices. My friend, my worthy friend, we can meet a thou-
sand times to make up for this disappointed rendezvous; a few
pleasant hours vanish like a lightning flash and are no more. But if
the happiness of an honest couple is in your hands, think of the fu-
ture you are shaping for them. Believe me, the opportunity to make
people happy is rarer than one thinks; the punishment for having
missed it is to find it again no more, and the use we shall make of
this one will leave us either an eternal contentment or remorse. For-
give my zeal for this superfluous speech; I have said too much to an
honorable man and a hundred times too much to my friend. I know
how much you hate that cruel self-indulgence which hardens us to
the miseries of others. You yourself have said a thousand times that
he is a wretch who does not know how to sacrifice one day of pleasure
to the duties of humanity.

4 LETTER XL *&

From Fanchon Regard to Julie

MADEMOISELLE,
Forgive a poor girl in despair who, no longer knowing which
way to turn, dares to have recourse again to your kindness. For
you never grow tired of consoling the afflicted, and I am so unfortu-
nate that I have annoyed everyone but you and our good Lord with
my complaints. I was very sorry to leave the apprenticeship you put
100 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

me into, but having had the misfortune of losing my mother that

winter, I had to return home to my poor father, whose paralysis
keeps him ever in his bed.
I have not forgotten the advice you gave my mother to try to
marry me to an honest man who might take care of the fam-
ily. Claude Anet, who returned from your father’s service, is a brave,
steady lad who knows a good trade and who has taken a liking to
me. Having been already so indebted to your charity, I no longer
dared to trouble you, so it was Claude who supported us during
the whole winter. He was to marry me this spring; he had set his
heart on this marriage. But I had been tormented so much to find
money to pay three years rent due at Easter that, not knowing where
to get so much, the poor young man enlisted again, without telling
me, in the company of Monsieur de Merveilleux, and brought me
his enlistment payment. Monsieur de Merveilleux is at Neucha-
tel only for seven or eight days more, and Claude Anet must set
out in three or four with the rest of the recruits. Thus we do not
have the time nor the means to get married, and he is leaving me
without any resource. If through your influence or that of your
father, the Baron, you could obtain at least a five or six week ex-
tension for him, we would try during that time to make some ar-
rangements to get married or else to reimburse that poor lad. But
I know him well; he will never want to take back the money he has
given me.
This moment there came a very rich gentleman to offer me a
great deal more, but thank God, I refused him. He said that he
would return tomorrow morning to know my final decision. I told
him not to take the trouble to return, for he knew it already. Were
God to lead him, he would be received tomorrow as he was today.
I could indeed resort to the fund for the poor, but one is so despised
after that that it is better to suffer; and then Claude Anet has too
much pride to want a girl receiving public assistance.
Forgive the liberty I am taking, my good lady. I dare confess my
troubles only to you, and my heart is so oppressed that I can write
no more. I am, your very humble and affectionate servant to com-
mand,

Fanchon Regard.
LETTER XLII + TO JULIE 101

s+ LETTER XLI *&

Response

I HAVE been deficient in memory and you in confidence, my dear

child. We have both been greatly at fault, but mine is impardona-
ble. I shall try at least to make amends for it. Babi, who brings
you this letter, is ordered to provide what you most urgently need.
She will return tomorrow morning to help you dismiss that gentle-
man, if he comes back. After dinner, my cousin and I will come to
see you, for I know that you cannot leave your poor father, and
I want to become acquainted myself with the condition of your
little household.
As for Claude Anet, be uneasy no more. My father is away, but
in waiting for his return we shall do what we can, and you may be
confident that I shall not forget either you or this brave lad. Adieu,
my child, may the good Lord console you. You are right not to have
recourse to public charity; it is never necessary to do that as long
as there is something left in the purse of benevolent people.

* LETTER XLII &

To Julie

I HAVE received your letter and am setting out immediately. This

will be all the answer I shall make. Ah cruel one! How distant is
my heart from this hateful virtue which you suppose in me and
which I detest! But you command; I must obey. Were I to die a
hundred times, I must have Julie’s esteem.
102 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER XLIII *

To Julie

I ARRIVED yesterday morning at Neuchatel, and I learned that

Monsieur de Merveilleux was in the country. I hurried to see him
there, but he was out hunting, so I waited for him until evening.
When I had explained the purpose of my trip and after I had begged
him to set a price for the discharge of Claude Anet, he raised a great
many objections. I thought I could remove them by offering a rather
considerable sum and increasing it in proportion to his resistance.
But being able to obtain nothing and assuring myself that I would
find him in again this morning, I was obliged to take leave of him,
quite resolved not to leave him again until I had obtained what I
had come to ask him, either with money or importunities or what-
ever it might require. Having got up very early for that purpose, I
was ready to mount my horse, when a messenger brought me the
young man’s discharge in due form, with this note from Monsieur
de Merveilleux:

Here, Monsieur, is the discharge which you have come to

request. I refused it to your offers. I give it to your charitable
intentions, and I beg you to believe that I never set a price
upon a good deed.

Judge by your own what joy I felt in learning of this happy suc-
cess. But why must it not be as perfect as it ought? I cannot
avoid going to thank and to reimburse Monsieur de Mer-
veilleux, and if this visit delays my departure a day, as I fear it will,
have I not the right to say that he has shown himself generous at
my expense? No matter, I have done what pleases you; I can bear
anything at that price. How happy one is to do good in serving
her whom he loves and thus unite the charms of love and of virtue
in the same action! Oh Julie! I confess that I left with my heart
full of impatience and chagrin. I reproached you for being so
sensible of the troubles of others and for considering mine as noth-
ing, as if I were the only person in the world who deserved nothing
LETTER XLIV + FROM JULIE / 103

from you. I thought you cruel, after having enticed me with so

sweet a hope, to deprive me needlessly of a blessing that you your-
self had deluded me into expecting. All these regrets have vanished;
I feel instead an unknown contentment in the bottom of my heart.
Already I am experiencing the compensation you promised me, you
who have been so well taught the enjoyment of doing good through
your habitual benevolence. What a strange control is the one you
exercise over me, which can make disappointment as sweet as pleas-
ure and give obeying you the same charm one would find in self-
gratification! Ah, I have said a hundred times that you are an angel
from heaven, my Julie! With so much authority over my soul, yours
is no doubt more divine than human. How can I not be eternally
yours, since your reign is celestial, and what use would it be for me
to cease loving you since I must always adore you?

P.S. According to my calculations, we still have at least five or six

days before the return of your mother. Would it be impossible
during that interval to make a pilgrimage to the chalet?

4% LETTER XLIV *

From Julie

DO NOT COMPLAIN so much, my friend, over this unexpected return.

It is more advantageous to us than it seems, and if we should have
tried to do through skill what we have done through charity, we
should not have had more success. Look at what would have hap-
pened if we had followed only our inclinations. I would have gone
to the country the very day before my mother’s return to town, I
would have received a message before having met you, I would
have had to leave immediately, perhaps without being able to give
you notice, and thus leave you in mortal anxiety, and we would
have parted just at the moment when it would have been most pain-
ful. Moreover, people would have known that we were both in the
country. In spite of our precautions, perhaps they might have known
that we were there together. At least they would have suspected
that we were, and that is enough. Our indiscreet eagerness for the
104 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

present would have ruined all our expedients for the future, and
remorse for having disregarded a good deed would have tormented
us all our lives.
Now compare that to our actual situation. First, your absence has
produced an excellent result. My Argus will not fail to tell my
mother that you were seldom seen at my cousin’s. She knows of
your trip and its purpose; that is one more reason for esteem-
ing you. And how can they’ think that two people who have an
affection for each other would voluntarily separate during their
only moment of freedom? What ruse have we used to avert a dis-
trust which is only too well founded? The only one, in my
opinion, consistent with honor is to be discreet to an unbelievable
degree so that an attempt to be virtuous may be mistaken for an act
of indifference. My friend, how sweet must a love thus concealed
be to the hearts which enjoy it! Add to this the pleasure of reunit-
ing two lovers in despair and of making two such deserving young
people happy. You have seen my Fanchon; tell me, is she not charm-
ing, and does she not truly deserve all you have done for her? Is
she not too pretty and too indigent to remain unmarried without
disaster? Might Claude Anet, whose natural goodness has mi-
raculously withstood three years of the service, have been able to
bear three more without becoming good-for-nothing like all the
others? Instead, they are in love and will be united; they are poor
and will be assisted; they are honest people and will be able to
continue so, for my father has promised to provide for them. What
blessings you have procured for them and for us by your kindness,
not to mention the esteem I must have for you because of it! Such,
my friend, is the assured consequence of the sacrifices one makes to
virtue. If they are often painful to make, it is always sweet to have
made them, and never has anyone been seen repenting a good deed.
I suspect that at the example of my inseparable cousin, you will
also call me “the preacher,” and indeed, I do not practice what I
preach any better than those who are preachers by profession. But
even if my sermons are not as good as theirs, at least I am pleased
to see that they are not like water thrown into the wind. I do not
deny, my amiable friend, that to your character I should like to add
as Many virtues as a mad passion has made me lose; and being
no
longer able to respect myself, I like to respect myself still in you.
For your part, you need only to love perfectly, and all will come
of
itself. With what pleasure must you see that you are continually
in-
creasing the debts that love is obliged to pay!
My cousin has learned of the conversations which you have had
LETTER XLV - TO JULIE 105

with her father on the subject of Monsieur d’Orbe, and she is as

grateful to you because of them as much as if we had never been
indebted to her friendship. Good heavens, my friend, what a for-
tunate girl I am! How dearly am I loved, and how delighted I am
to be so! Father, mother, friend, lover—I cannot cherish all who
surround me enough, for I find myself either prevented or out-
done. It seems that all the sweetest sentiments in the world continu-
ally seek out my soul, and I regret having only one to enjoy all my
good fortune.
I forgot to tell you of a visitor you are to receive tomorrow morn-
ing. It is Lord Bomston, who has come from Geneva where he
spent seven or eight months. He says that he saw you at Sion on
his return from Italy. He found you quite melancholy, and more-
over, he speaks of you as I do. Yesterday he praised you so well and
so opportunely before my father that he completely predisposed me
in his favor. Indeed, I found sense, wit, and brilliancy in his con-
versation. His voice rises and his eye sparkles in telling of great
deeds, as it happens with men capable of performing them. He also
speaks interestingly of matters of taste, especially of Italian music,
which he extols to the heavens, and I thought I was again listening
to my poor brother. But he puts more energy than grace into his
discourse, and I even find his wit a little unpolished. Adieu, my
friend.

do LETTER XLV *

To Julie

1 was still only reading your letter for the second time when Ed-
ward, Lord Bomston entered. When I had so many other things to
tell you, how was I to think, my Julie, to tell you about him? When
two people are enough for each other, is one minded to think of a
third? But, I will tell you what I know of him, now that you seem
to desire it.
Having crossed over the Simplon Pass, he reached Sion before the
carriage which runs between Brig and Geneva, and since want of
occupation makes men rather sociable, he sought me out. We made
106 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

as intimate an acquaintance as an Englishman, naturally rather

reserved, can make with a very preoccupied man who is seeking
solitude. However, we felt that we suited each other. There was a
certain harmony of souls which we discerned from the first instant,
and we were intimate friends at the end of eight days, but for all
our lives, as two Frenchmen would have been at the end of eight
hours for merely the time that they had left together. He talked to
me of his travels, and knowing him to be English, I thought that he
would speak to me of buildings and of paintings. But soon I was
pleased to see that pictures and monuments had not made him
neglect the study of manners and men. However, he spoke to me of
the fine arts with much discernment, but in moderation and with-
out pretention. I judged that his opinions were based more on feel-
ing than knowledge, and determined according to results more than
rules, which confirmed for me that he had a sensitive soul. As for
Italian music, he seemed as enthusiastic over it as you are; he even
had me listen to some, for he has a virtuoso with him. His valet-de-
chambre plays the violin very well, and he himself the cello tol-
erably. He chose for me several of what he claimed to be some very
moving pieces, but whether the style was so new for me and re-
quired a more practiced ear, or whether the charm of the music,
so soothing in its melancholy, was lost in my profound sadness,
these pieces gave me little pleasure, and I found their melody in
truth pleasant, but bizarre and expressionless.
There was also a discussion of my affairs, and Lord Bomston
learned of my situation with interest. I told him as much of it as he
ought to know. He offered to take me with him to England with
prospects of wealth—impossible since they were in a country where
Julie did not live. He told me that he was going to spend the win-
ter in Geneva, the following summer at Lausanne, and that he
would come to Vevey before returning to Italy. He has kept his
word, and we have seen each other again with renewed pleasure.
As for his character, I believe him fiery and hasty, but virtuous
and steady. He prides himself on his philosophy and on those prin-
ciples of which we have spoken formerly. But I believe him basi-
cally to be by temperament what he thinks he is by method, and
the stoic polish which he puts on his actions only glosses his heart’s
inclinations with fine reasoning. However, I have learned with
some little pain that he had some affairs in Italy and that he duelled
there several times.
I do not know what lack of polish you find in his manners; truly
they: are not engaging, but I feel there is nothing repelling in
 LETTER XLVI + FROM JULIE 107

them. Although his manner of addressing one may not be as open

as his heart, and although he disregards the little proprieties, his
behavior nevertheless is agreeable, it seems to me. If he does not
have that reserved and circumspect politeness which confines it-
self only to outward appearances and which our young officers are
bringing us from France, he has that humanitarian politeness
which prides itself less on distinguishing position and rank at first
glance and respects all men in general. Shall I tell you the frank
truth? Lack of elegance is a fault which women do not pardon, even
in the case of merit, and I am afraid that Julie may have been a
woman for once in her life.
Since I am in the mood for sincerity, I shall tell you again, my
pretty preacher, that it is useless to wish to put off my rightful de-
serts and that a starving love is not nourished by sermons. Think,
think of the compensations promised and due. All the morality you
have offered is very good, but whatever you may say, the chalet is
still better.

4 LETTER XLVI *#

From Julie

WELL THEN, my friend, always the chalet? Your heart lays excessive
stress upon the idea of the chalet, and I clearly see that sometime I
must make it up to you. But are you so attached to the places where
you never were that one may not compensate you elsewhere, and
could not love, which created the palace of Armida in the middle
of a desert,* be able to create a chalet for us in town? Hear me—
my Fanchon is going to be married. My father, who has no objection
to festivals and celebrations, is willing to give her a wedding which
we shall all attend. This wedding will not fail to be exciting. Some-
times mystery has been known to spread its veil over the tumultuous
joy and din of festivals. You understand me, my friend. Would it
not be sweet to recapture the pleasures our benevolence cost us in
its result? ;
It seems to me that you are rather superfluously zealous to vin-

* In Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. [Translator’s note]

108 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

dicate Lord Bomston, for I was far from thinking ill of him. Besides,
how could I pass judgment on a man whom I saw only for an after-
noon, and how could you yourself judge him on the basis of a few
days acquaintance? I speak of him only from conjecture, and you
can hardly know him better, for the proposals which he made to
you are those vague offers which strangers often make lavishly, be-
cause they give them an air of power and because they are easily
evaded. But I recognize your usual vivacity and tendency to pre-
dispose yourself for or against people, almost at first sight. However,
we shall examine his proposals at our leisure. If love favors my
project, perhaps something better is promised for us. Oh my good
friend, patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet!
To return to your Englishman, I told you that he seemed to me
to have a great and strong soul and more intelligence than embel-
lishment in his mind. You say almost the same thing, and then,
with that air of masculine superiority, abandoned not even by our
humble admirers, you reproach me for having been a woman for
once in my life, as if a woman ever should cease being so! Do you
remember that, while reading your Plato’s Republic, we once dis-
puted the point of the moral difference between the sexes? I persist
in the opinion which I held then and cannot imagine one common
model of perfections for two such different beings. The attack and
the defense, the audacity of men, the modesty of women—these are
by no means conventions, as your philosophers think, but natural
institutions which are easily accounted for and from which all the
other moral distinctions are readily inferred. Besides, the purposes
of nature not being the same in each sex, its inclinations, percep-
tions, and sentiments must be directed according to its own views;
Opposite tastes and constitutions are required for tilling the soil and
for nursing children. A taller stature, a stronger voice, and features
more strongly marked seem to have no necessary bearing on one’s
sex, but these exterior modifications indicate the intentions of the
creator in the modifications of the spirit. The souls of a perfect
woman and a perfect man must not resemble each other more than
their appearances. Our vain imitations of your sex are the height of
folly; they make the wise man laugh at us and they discourage love.
In short, I find that unless we are to be five and a half feet tall,
have a bass voice and a beard on our chins, we have no business pre-
tending to be men.
See how unskillful lovers are in insults! You reproach me for a
mistake that I have not committed or that you commit as well as I,
and you attribute it to a defect in which I pride myself. Do you
LETTER XLVII - TO JULIE 109

want me, paying your plain speaking with my own, to tell you
frankly what I think of your sincerity? I find it only a refinement of
flattery, for the purpose of justifying to yourself by this apparent
frankness the enthusiastic praises you heap upon me at every turn.
My imaginary perfections blind you so that you do not have the wit
to find substantial reproaches to make to me to deny those you se-
cretly make to yourself for your predisposition.
Believe me, do not undertake to tell me my faults; you would do
it too poorly. Do the eyes of love, all-penetrating as they are, know
how to perceive faults? These attentions belong to honest friend-
ship, and in that your pupil Claire is a hundred times more learned
than you. Yes, my friend, praise me, admire me, find me beautiful,
charming, perfect. Your praises please me without deluding me be-
cause I see that they are the language of error and not of deceit and
that you deceive yourself but that you do not wish to deceive me.
Oh how delightful are the illusions of love! Its flattery is, in a sense,
truth: the judgment keeps silent, but the heart speaks. The lover
who praises in us the perfections which we do not possess sees them
in fact such as he describes them. He does not lie by telling these
falsehoods; he flatters us without debasing himself, and we may
esteem him at least even though we do not believe him.
Not without some beating of the heart, I heard a proposal to in-
vite two philosophers tomorrow for supper. One is Lord Bomston;
the other is a learned man whose gravity is sometimes a little dis-
composed at the feet of a young pupil. Do you know him? Exhort
him, I beg you, to try to preserve the philosophical decorum a little
better tomorrow than usual. I shall take care to warn the young
pupil as well to lower her eyes, and to appear in his as unattractive
as possible.

4 LETTER XLVII *

To Julie

AH EVIL ONE! Was that the circumspection you promised me? Is it

thus that you spare my heart and veil your charms? What infractions
of your pledges! First, your finery, for you wore none at all, and you
 110 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

well know that you are never so bewitching as then. Second, your
demeanor, so sweet, so modest, so calculated to display all your
charms gradually. Your conversation, more refined, more studied,
more witty even than usual, which made us all more attentive and
made our ears and hearts anticipate each word. That air you sang,
in a low pitch which made your voice still sweeter, and which, al-
though French, pleased even Lord Bomston. Your timid glance and
the unexpected flashes of light from your downcast eyes which
threw me into an inevitable disturbance. Finally, that undefinable,
inexpressible enchantment you seemed to have cast over your whole
person to turn everyone’s head, without even appearing to dream
of doing so. As for me, I do not know how you do it, but if such is
your way of being as unattractive as possible, I warn you that you
must be much more so for men to act wisely around you.
I strongly fear that the poor English philosopher felt the same
influence a little. After having escorted your cousin home, since we
were all still wide awake, he proposed that we go to his house for
some music and some punch. While his servants were assembling,
he never ceased speaking of you with a warmth which displeased
me, and I did not hear your praises in his mouth with as much pleas-
ure as you had heard mine. On the whole, I confess, I do not like
for anyone except your cousin to speak to me of you; it seems that
each word deprives me of part of my secret or of my pleasures, and
whatever anyone says of you is so suspicious or so short of what I
feel that on that subject I do not like to listen to anyone but myself.
It is not that I am, like you, inclined to be jealous. I know
your
soul better than that; I have guaranties which do not even permit
me to imagine your inconstancy to be possible. After your pledges, I
say nothing more to you about other suitors. But this one, Julie!
. suitable conditions . . . the prejudices of your father...
You well know that it is a matter of my life. Deign then to speak
to me of this matter. One word from Julie, and I am
forever tran-
quil.
I spent the night listening to and playing Italian music,
for some
duets were found and I had to venture to do my part
in them. I do
not yet dare tell you of the effect which it produced
in me. I am
afraid, I am afraid that the impression of last night’s
supper might
have influenced what I was hearing and that I
have mistaken the
effect of your enchantment for the charm of the
music, Why should
the same cause which made it disagreeable to me
at Sion not make
it pleasing here in a contrary situation? Are
you not the prime
source of all the affections of my soul, and am I
not at the mercy of
LETTER XLVI + TO JULIE 11]

the power of your magic? If the music really had produced that en-
chantment, it would have affected all those who heard it. But while
those songs kept me in ecstasy, Monsieur d’Orbe slept tranquilly in
an armchair, and in the midst of my raptures, all the praise he be-
stowed was to ask if your cousin knew Italian.
All this will be better clarified tomorrow, for we are to have an-
other musical gathering this evening. His Lordship wishes to make
it complete, and he has sent to Lausanne for a second violin, who
he said is tolerable. I shall bring on my part some operatic music,
some French cantatas, and we shall see!
Upon arriving home, I was in an extreme dejection which has
of late brought upon me the habit of sitting up and which is going
away as I write you. Yet I must try to sleep a few hours. Come with
me, my sweet friend; do not leave me during my sleep. But whether
your image troubles or assists it, whether it brings me the dream
of Fanchon’s wedding or not, a delicious moment which cannot es-
cape me and which it prepares for me is the feeling of my happiness
upon awakening.

“+ LETTER XLVIII *

To Julie

AH! MY JULIE, what I have heard! What moving sounds! What

music! What a delightful source of sentiments and pleasures! Do
not lose a moment; carefully gather together your operas, your can-
tatas, and your French music; make a large, very hot fire; throw in
it all that wretched stuff; and fan the flame carefully, so that so
much ice may burn there and give warmth at least once. Make this
propitiatory sacrifice to the god of taste, in order to expiate our
crime in having profaned your voice with this doleful psalmody and
in having so long mistaken a noise which only stuns the ear for the
language of the heart. Oh how right was your worthy brother! In
what an unaccountable error have I lived until now concerning the
productions of this charming art![6] I implore you to hear an ex-
periment of this music soon, whether at home or at your inseparable
cousin’s. Whenever you wish, his Lordship will bring over all his
112 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

people, and I am sure that with a voice as sensitive as yours and

more knowledge than I had of Italian declamation, a single session
will suffice to bring you to the point where I am and make you share
my enthusiasm. I propose to you and even beg you to profit from
the visit of the virtuoso by taking lessons from him, as I have begun
to do since this morning. His manner of teaching is simple, clear,
and consists in practice more than precept. He does not say what is
to be done, he does it, and in music, as in many other things, ex-
ample is worth more than rule. I see already that it is only a matter
of marking the tempo, of feeling it well, of phrasing and punctu-
ating with care, of holding the tones equally and not swelling
them, finally of refining the voice from outbursts and all the French
bellowing in order to make it just, expressive, and flexible. Yours,
naturally so soft and so sweet, will easily get into this new habit;
your sensitivity will soon teach you the energy and the vivacity of
the expression which enlivens Italian music.

E’] cantar che nell’ anima si sente.

PETRARCH

And the singing that is felt in the soul.

Therefore, abandon forever this. wearisome and lamentable

French singing which resembles cries of stomach-ache more than
raptures of passion. Learn to form those divine sounds which sen-
timent inspires, which alone are worthy of your voice, and which al-
ways convey the charm and the fire of sensitive natures.

4 LETTER XLIX &

From Julie

YOU WELL KNow, my friend, that I can write you only by stealth and
always at the risk of being surprised. Thus, since it is impossible to
write long letters, I limit myself to answering what is most essential
in yours or to supplying what I have not been able to say to you in
our conversations, which are no less furtive than our letters. That
LETTER XLIX + FROM JULIE 113

is what I shall do, especially today since your mentioning Lord

Bomston makes me forget the rest of your letter.
My friend, you are fearful of losing me and you speak to me of
songs! ‘That would be a beautiful issue for a quarrel between lovers
who understand one another less than we. Truly you are not jeal-
ous, it is evident, but for once I shall not be jealous myself, for I
have penetrated into your soul and sense only your confidence
where others would have thought to feel your indifference. Oh what
a sweet and charming security is that which comes from the feeling
of a perfect union! Through it, I know, you derive from your own
heart your good opinion of mine; through it also, mine justifies you,
and I would think you much less in love if I saw you more alarmed.
I do not know, nor wish to know, if Lord Bomston has any regard
for me other than those which all men have for girls of my age.
However, it is not a matter of his feelings but of my father’s and
mine; these are both the same as they were with regard to the pre-
tended suitors, of whom you claim you will say nothing. If his ex-
clusion and theirs will be enough for your repose, be tranquil. What-
ever honor we might receive in the courtship of a man of his rank,
never with her own or her father’s consent will Julie d’Etange be-
come Lady Bomston. That you may count on.
Do not believe, therefore, that his Lordship has even been con-
sidered as a suitor. I am sure that of us four you are the only one
who even supposed him to have a liking for me. Be that as it may,
I know the will of my father in this matter without it being neces-
sary for him to tell me or anyone else, and I should not be better
informed if he would positively declare his wishes. That is enough
to calm your fears, that is to say, as much as you are to know. The
rest is a matter of pure curiosity, and you know that I have resolved
not to satisfy it. You reproach me vainly for this reserve and claim it
far from our common interest. If I had always been so reserved, it
would be less important to me today. Had it not been for the in-
discreet account I gave you of some of my father’s words, you would
not have been disconsolate at Meillerie, you might not have written
the letter which ruined me, and I should still be innocent and aspire
to happiness. By what a single indiscretion has cost me, judge the
fear that I must have of committing others! You have too many fits
of passion to be prudent; you could sooner conquer your passions
than disguise them. The slightest alarm would put you into a furor;
at the slightest glimmer of hope you would be overconfident! All our
secrets would be read in your soul, and your zeal would ruin all the
success my pains have achieved. Therefore, leave to me the cares of
 114 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

love, and keep for yourself only the pleasures of them. Is this divi-
sion so painful, and do you not see that you can do nothing toward
our happiness except not to set up an obstacle to it?
Alas, what use will these late precautions be to me from now on?
Is it time to step cautiously when I am at the bottom of a precipice
and to prevent the evils by which I am crushed? Ah, miserable girl,
it is well for you to speak of happiness! Can there ever be any hap-
piness where shame and remorse reign? God! What a cruel state, to
be able neither to bear my crime nor to repent it, to be beset by a
thousand fears, deceived by a thousand vain hopes, and not even to
enjoy the horrible tranquillity of despair! I am henceforth only at
the mercy of fate. The question is no longer of strength or of virtue,
but of fortune and of prudence, no longer of extinguishing a love
which is to last as long as my life, but of making it innocent or dying
guilty. Consider this situation, my friend, and see if you can trust
in my zeal.

+ LETTER L *&

From Julie

AS I LEFT YOu yesterday, I refused to explain the cause of the sadness

for which you reproached me because you were in no state to listen
to me. But I owe you this explanation, in spite of my aversions to
them, for I have made a promise and will hold to it.
I do not know if you remember the strange conversation you held
with me yesterday evening and the manners with which you ac-
companied it. As for me, I shall not forget them soon enough for
your honor and for my repose, and unfortunately I am too shocked
to be able to forget them easily. Similar expressions have some-
times struck my ear as I passed near the harbor, but I did not think
that they might ever issue from the mouth of an honorable man. I
am quite sure at least that they never entered the vocabulary of
lovers, and I was quite far from thinking that they might pass be-
tween us. Good Heavens! What kind of love is yours, thus to season
its pleasures! It is true, you had just come from a proionged dinner,
and I,am aware that in this country one must pardon the excesses
 LETTER L + FROM JULIE 115

people may be guilty of at such affairs. It is also for this reason that
I speak to you. Be assured that if you had treated me that way when
you were sober, the interview would have been the last one of our
lives.
But what alarms me with regard to you is that often the conduct
of a man inflamed with wine is only the effect of what takes place in
his inmost heart at other times. Shall I believe that in a condition
where nothing is disguised you showed yourself such as you are?
What would become of me if you soberly believed what you said last
evening? Rather than bear such contempt, I should prefer to ex-
tinguish such a gross passion and lose a lover who, knowing how to
respect his mistress so poorly, deserves so little esteem. Tell me, you
who cherish honest sentiments, have you succumbed to that cruel,
mistaken idea that a lover once made happy need no longer be dis-
creet in regard to modesty and that he owes no more respect to the
woman whose severity is no longer to be feared? Ah! If you had
always thought so, you would have been less to be feared and I
should not be so unfortunate! Do not deceive yourself, my friend;
nothing is so dangerous to true lovers as the prejudices of the world.
So many people speak of love, and so few know how to love, that for
its pure and gentle laws most mistake the vile maxims of an abject
commerce which, soon satiated, has recourse to the monsters of the
imagination and becomes depraved in order to support itself.
I am possibly mistaken, but it seems to me that true love is the
most chaste of all bonds. It is true love, it is its divine fire which can
purify our natural inclinations by concentrating them in a single
object. It is true love which shelters us from temptations and which
makes the opposite sex no longer important, except for the beloved
one. For an ordinary woman, every man is always the same, but for
her whose heart is in love, there is no man but her lover. What do I
say? Is a lover no more than a man? Ah, let him be a much more
sublime being! There is no man at all for her who is in love: her
lover is more, all the others are less, and she and he are the only of
their kind. They have no desires; they are in love. The heart does
not follow but guides the senses. It throws a delightful veil over
their frenzies. No, in true love, there is nothing of the obscene as in
debauchery and its coarse language. True love, always modest,
does not wrest its favors audaciously; it steals them timidly. Secrecy,
silence, and fearful bashfulness sharpen and conceal its sweet ecsta-
sies; its flame honors and purifies all its caresses; decency and chas-
tity accompany it even into the midst of voluptuousness; and it
alone knows how to gratify all the desires without trespassing
116 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

against modesty. Ah! Tell me, you who once knew true pleasures,
how could cynical effrontery be joined to them? How could it not
fail to banish their delirium and all their charm? How could it not
fail to soil that image of perfection in which one likes to contemplate
his beloved? Believe me, my friend, debauchery and love could not
live together and cannot even be set against each other. The heart
creates true happiness when two people are in love, and nothing
can take the place of it when they are no longer so.
But if you were unfortunate enough to take pleasure in this im-
modest language, how could you have prevailed on yourself to use
it so indiscreetly and, toward her who is dear to you, to take on a
tone and manners which a man of honor must not even know? Since
when has it been pleasant to mortify a loved one, and what is this
barbarous voluptuousness which delights in enjoying the torment
of others? I have not forgotten that I have lost the right to be re-
spected, but if ever I do forget, is it for you to remind me? Is it for
the author of my fault to aggravate its punishment? Rather, he
should console me. Everyone except you has the right to scorn me.
You owe me the price of the humiliation to which you have reduced
me, and so many tears poured out over my weakness ought to make
you try to alleviate my sorrow. I am neither prudish nor precious in
this. Alas, how far I am from it, I who have not even known how
to be discreet! You know too well, ingrate, whether this tender heart
can refuse anything to love. But at least what it yields, it wishes to
yield only to love, and you have taught me its language too well to
be able to substitute such a different one in its place. Insults, blows
would offend me less than such caresses. Either renounce Julie, or
merit her esteem. I have already told you that I do not acknowledge
a love without modesty, and whatever it may cost me to lose yours,
it would cost me still more to conserve it at that price.
I have many more things left to say on this subject, but I must
finish this letter, and I defer them to another time. Meanwhile, you
may notice one result of your false precepts on the immoderate use
of wine.* Your heart is not guilty, I am sure. However, you have
wounded mine, and without knowing what you were doing, as if
designedly you afflicted this heart, too quick to take fright and in-
different to nothing which comes from you.

*In a deleted description of the peasants of the Valais, the hero speaks
of
slight intoxication as a positive good, inducing the free flowing
of the heart’s
affections. [Translator’s note]

4
LETTER LI - RESPONSE 117

#& LETTER LI &

Response

THERE IS NOT one line in your letter which does not freeze my blood,
and I have difficulty in believing, after having read it twenty times,
that it is addressed to me. Who, I, I? Could I have offended Julie?
Could I have profaned her charms? Might she, to whom each instant
of my life I offer adoration, have been exposed to my insults? No,
I should have pierced my heart a thousand times before so bar-
barous a design might have come near it. Ah, how poorly you know
this heart which idolizes you! This heart which flies to prostrate it-
self under each of your steps! This heart anxious to invent new
praise for you unknown to mortals! How poorly you know it, oh
Julie, if you accuse it of lacking that ordinary and common respect
that even a common lover would have for his mistress! I cannot
believe I am either imprudent or brutal; I hate immodest language
and never in my life entered places where one learns it. But let me
repeat what you say; let me improve upon your just indignation:
had I been the vilest of mortals, had I spent my early years in de-
bauchery, had the liking for shameful pleasures found a place in a
heart in which you reign, oh, tell me Julie, angel of heaven, tell me
how could I have shown you the effrontery which one can have only
before those who like it? Ah no, it is not possible! A single look from
you would have kept my mouth in check and purified my heart.
Love would have concealed my passionate desires beneath the
charm of your modesty, it would have been victorious without in-
sult, and in the sweet union of our souls, their delirium only would
have led the senses astray. I appeal to your own testimony. Tell me,
if in all the extravagance of a measureless passion I ever ceased to
have respect for its charming object? If I received the reward that
my ardor had deserved, tell me if I took advantage of my good
fortune to insult you in your sweet bashfulness? If an ardent and
fearful love sometimes made an attempt upon your charms with a
timid hand, tell me if ever a brutal rashness dared to profane
them? If an indiscreet transport drew aside for an instant the veil
which covers them, did not charming modesty immediately substi-
 118 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

tute its own? Would this holy vestment abandon you for one mo-
ment, if you had none other? Incorruptible as your chaste soul is,
have all the fires of mine ever altered it? Is not the union of our
souls, so touching and so tender, sufficient for our felicity? Does it
not alone constitute the happiness of our lives? Do we know any
pleasures in the world outside of those which love gives? Can you
conceive how I could in an instant have forgotten chastity, our love,
my honor, and the invincible respect I should always have for you,
even had I not adored you? No, do not think so; it is not I who
could offend you. I have no recollection of it, and if I had been
guilty for an instant, could I ever lose my remorse? No, Julie, a
demon jealous of a lot too fortunate for a mortal has taken my form
to distress it and has left me my heart to make me more miserable.
I abjure, I detest the grave crime which I must have committed,
since you accuse me of it, but in which my will had no part at all.
How I will abhor this fatal intemperance which once seemed to me
favorable to the effusions of the heart and which has so cruelly de-
ceived mine! Irrevocably I swear it to you: from today for life I
renounce wine as the most deadly poison. Never shall that fatal
liquor disturb my senses, never shall it soil my lips, and no longer
shall its mad delirium make me guilty without my knowledge. If I
break this solemn vow, my love, heap upon me the chastisement
which I shall deserve. At that instant may the image of my Julie for-
sake my heart forever and abandon it to indifference and to despair.
Do not think that I wish to expiate my crime by so slight a pen-
alty. This is a precaution and not a punishment. I expect from you
what I deserve. I beg for it to alleviate my remorse. Let offended
love avenge itself and be appeased. Punish me without hating me;
I shall suffer without a murmur. Be fair and severe; it is necessary,
and I agree to it. But if you want to leave me my life, deprive me of
everything but your heart.

*’ LETTER LII &

From Julie

WHAT, MY FRIEND, renounce wine for one’s mistres

s? ‘Chat is what is
called a sacrifice! Oh, I defy anyone to find in the
four cantons a man
 LETTER LII - FROM JULIE 119
more in love than you! Not that there may not be some little
Frenchified gentlemen among our young people who drink water
through affectation, but you will be the first Swiss whom love
ever
caused to drink it; that is an example to cite in Switzerland’s annals
of gallantry. I have even been informed of your conduct, and I have
been extremely edified to learn that, supping yesterday with Mon-
sieur de Vueillerans, you let six bottles go the rounds after dinner
without touching them and did not spare your glasses of water any
more than the other guests did their wine from the coast. However,
this penitence has lasted for three days since my letter was written,
and three days make at least six dinners. Now, to six dinners ob-
served through faithfulness, we can add six others observed through
fear, and six through shame, and six through habit, and six through
obstinacy. How many motives can prolong these painful privations
for which love alone would have all the credit? Could love con-
descend to credit itself with what it cannot claim?
These pleasantries are more unpleasant than the wicked words
you spoke to me; it is time to put a stop to them. You are by nature
serious. I have noticed that lengthy raillery overheats you, as a long
walk overheats a stout man; but I am almost revenged upon you as
Henri IV was revenged upon the Duc de Mayenne, and your sov-
ereign wishes to imitate the clemency of the best of kings. Also I am
afraid that by virtue of remorse and excuses you might in the end
make a merit of a fault so fully atoned, and I want to forget it im-
mediately, for fear that if I waited too long it might no longer be
generosity but ingratitude.
With regard to your resolution to renounce wine forever, it does
not have as much luster in my eyes as you might think; vigorous
passions think little of these trifling sacrifices, and love does not take
nourishment from gallantry. Besides, sometimes there is more
shrewdness than courage in making a present advantage of an un-
certain future and in paying oneself in advance for an eternal ab-
stinence which may be renounced when one wishes. Ah my good
friend! In everything which pleases the senses, is the abuse there-
fore inseparable from the enjoyment? Is drunkenness necessarily at-
tached to a taste for wine? And would philosophy be vain or cruel
enough not to offer another way to prevent immoderate use of
things which give pleasure besides that of depriving oneself of them
completely?
If you keep your pledge, you deprive yourself of an innocent
pleasure and risk your health by changing your manner of living. If
you break it, love will be doubly offended, and even your honor will
120 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

suffer. Therefore, I make use of my privilege on this occasion, and

not only do I release you from a vow worthless for being made with-
out my permission, but I even forbid you to observe it beyond the
term which I am going to prescribe. Tuesday we shall have Lord
Bomston’s concert here. At the refreshment time, I shall send you a
cup half full of a pure and wholesome nectar. I want you to drink it
in my presence and for my sake, after having made an expiatory
libation to the graces with a few drops. Then my penitent friend
will resume at his meals the sober use of wine tempered with the
crystal of fountains, and as your good Plutarch says, moderate Bac-
chus’s ardors by communication with the Nymphs.[7]
Until Tuesday then, my dear friend, my teacher, my penitent,
my apostle. Alas! That you are not mine at all! Why must it be
that with so many rights you lack only one title?

P.S. Do you know that there is talk of a pleasant party on the lake
like the one we had two years ago with poor Chaillot? How timid
my artful teacher was then! How he trembled in giving me his hand
to get out of the boat! Ah, the hypocrite! ... He has greatly
changed.

% LETTER LIII &

From Julie

THUS EVERYTHING disconcerts our plans, everything disappoints our

expectation, everything betrays the passions that heaven should
have rewarded! Base playthings of a blind fortune, sad victims of a
mocking hope, shall we endlessly draw near fleeing pleasure without
ever reaching it? This wedding so fruitlessly desired was to have
taken place at Clarens. Bad weather thwarted us, and it was neces-
sary to have it in town, We were to have contrived a meeting there;
both beset by troublesome people, we could not elude them at the
same time, and the moment when one of the two escaped was that
when it was impossible for the other to join him. Finally a favor-
able instant was presented, the cruelest of mothers arrived to wrench
it from us, and this instant was close to being the ruin of two un-
LETTER LIII - FROM JULIE 121

fortunate people whom it ought to have made happy! But, far from
dismaying my courage, so many obstacles have stimulated it. I don’t
know what new power is animating me, but I feel in myself a fear-
lessness which I never had before; and if you dare share it, tonight,
this very night can discharge my promises and once and for all pay
all the debts of love.
Consider well, my friend, and determine to what point life is sweet
for you, for the measure I am proposing can lead us both to death.
If you fear it, do not finish this letter; but if the point of a sword
does not frighten your heart any more today than the abysses of
Meillerie frightened it before, mine will run the same risk and not
hesitate. Listen.
Babi, who usually sleeps in my room, has been ill for three days,
and although I have indeed wished to take care of her, she has
been carried elsewhere in spite of me. But since she is better, per-
haps she will return as early as tomorrow. The room where we eat
is far from the staircase which leads to my mother’s apartment and
to mine; at the supper hour the whole house is deserted, except for
the kitchen and the dining room. Moreover, night in this season has
already fallen by that hour; its cover can easily conceal passers-by
in the street from spectators, and you are perfectly acquainted with
the members of the household.
That is enough to make myself understood. Come this afternoon
to my Fanchon’s. I shall explain the rest to you and give you the
necessary instructions, but if I cannot come, I shall leave them in
writing in the old hiding-place for our letters, where, as I have in-
formed you, you will find this one already, for the subject is too
important to dare confide to anyone.
Oh how I see your heart beating now! How I read in it your ecsta-
sies, and how I share them! No, my sweet friend, no, we shall not
leave this short life without having tasted happiness for an instant.
But yet remember that this instant is surrounded by the horrors of
death; that to come is to be subject to a thousand hazards, to stay is
dangerous, to leave is extremely perilous; that we are ruined if we
are discovered, and that to avoid it everything must assist us. Let us
not deceive ourselves. I know my father too well to doubt that I
might see him stab you to the heart immediately with his own
hand, if indeed he did not begin with me; for surely I should not be
spared, and do you think that I should expose you to this danger if
I were not sure of sharing it?
Still, remember that it is not a matter of depending upon your
courage. You must not think of it and I even forbid you quite ex-
122 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

pressly to carry any weapon for your defense, not even your sword.
Besides, it would be perfectly useless to you, for if we are surprised,
my plan is to throw myself into your arms, to grasp you strongly in
mine, and thus to receive the deadly blow so that we may be parted
no more, happier at the moment of my death than I was in my life.
Yet, I hope that a kinder fate is reserved for us. I feel at least
that we deserve it, and fortune will grow weary of being unjust to
us. Come then, heart of my heart, life of my life, come and be re-
united with yourself. Come under the auspices of tender love to re-
ceive the reward for your obedience and your sacrifices. Come to
swear, even in the midst of pleasures, that from the union of hearts
they draw their greatest charm.

4+ LETTER LIV *

To Julie

I ARRIVE full of an emotion which increases upon entering this re-

treat. Julie! Here I am in your rooms; here I am in the sanctuary
of all my heart adores. The torch of love has guided my steps, and I
have passed through the house without being perceived. Charming
room, fortunate room, which formerly saw so many tender looks
repressed, so many eager sighs stifled, which saw my first fires born
and nourished and for the second time will see them rewarded, wit-
ness of my everlasting constancy, be the witness of my happiness,
and conceal forever the pleasures of the most faithful and the most
fortunate of men.
How is this secret room so charming? Everything in it pleases and
nourishes the ardor which devours me. Oh Julie! It is full of you,
and the flame of my desires spreads over all traces of you. Yes, all
my senses are at once intoxicated by them. An indefinable perfume,
almost imperceptible, sweeter than the rose and more delicate than
the iris is here exhaled from every part of the room. I imagine that
I hear the pleasing sound of your voice. All the parts of your scat-
tered dress present to my ardent imagination those of your body
that they conceal. This delicate headdress which sets off the large
blond curls which it pretends to cover; this happy bodice shawl
against which at least once I shall not have to complain; this elegant
LETTER LV - TO JULIE 15

and simple gown which displays so well the taste of the wearer; these
dainty slippers that a supple foot fills so easily; this corset so slender
which touches and embraces . . . what an enchanting form...
in front two gentle curves . . . oh voluptuous sight . . . the whale-
bone has yielded to the force of the impression . . . delicious im-
prints, let me kiss you a thousand times! . . . Gods! Gods! What
will it be when . . . Ah, I think I am already feeling that tender
heart beating under my happy hand! Julie! My charming Julie! I see
you, I feel you everywhere, I breathe you in with the air that you
have breathed; you penetrate my entire being. How inflaming and
painful your room is for me! My impatience is terrible. Oh come,
fly, or Iam lost.
What good fortune to have found ink and paper! I am expressing
my feelings in order to temper their excess; I moderate my ecstasy by
describing it.
It seems to me I hear a noise. Could it be your cruel father? I do
not consider myself a coward . . . but at this moment, would not
death be horrible to me? My despair would be equal to the ardor
which is consuming me. Heaven! I ask for one more hour to live,
and I give up the rest of my life to your severity. Oh desires! Oh
fear! Oh cruel palpitations! . . . The door is opening! . . . Some-
one is coming in! . .. It is she! . . . It is she! I catch a glimpse of
her, I have seen her, I hear the door being closed. My heart, my
feeble heart succumbs to so many agitations. Ah, let it seek strength
to bear the happiness which overwhelms it!

4% LETTER LV *&

To Julie

OH LET Us DIE, my sweet friend! Let us die, beloved of my heart!

What shall we do henceforward with an insipid youth, now that we
have exhausted all its delights? Explain to me, if you can, what I
felt during that inconceivable night; give me hope for a life spent
in that way, or let me leave this one which has no more experiences
like that which I have just had with you. I had tasted pleasure and
thought I understood happiness. Ah, I had known only an empty
dream and imagined only the happiness of a child! My senses de-
 124 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ceived my unrefined soul; only in them did I search for the ulti-
mate good, and I found that their exhausted pleasures were only
the beginning of mine. Oh unique masterpiece of nature! Divine
Julie! Delicious possession with whom all the transports of the most
ardent love are hardly sufficient! No, it is not those transports
which I now miss most; ah, no, if it is necessary, withdraw those in-
toxicating favors for which I would give a thousand lives, but give
me back all that does not depend upon them and surpasses them a
thousand times. Give me back that intimate union of souls, which
you had told me of and which you have made me enjoy so well.
Give me back that languor so sweet, filled with the overflowings of
our hearts; give me back that enchanting sleep found in your bo-
som; give me back that still more delightful instant of awakening,
and those broken sighs, and those sweet tears, and those kisses that
a voluptuous languor made us savor slowly, and those murmurs so
tender, during which you pressed together those hearts which were
made to be united.
Tell me, Julie, you who through your own sensibility know how
to judge that of others so well, do you think that what I felt before
was really love? My sentiments, do not doubt it, have undergone a
natural change since yesterday; they have taken on an indefinable
quality, less impetuous but sweeter, more tender and more charm-
ing. Do you remember that whole hour we spent in peacefully
speaking of our love and of that obscure and fearful future by which
the present was made still more tender for us—that hour, too short,
alas, during which a slight touch of sadness made the conversation
so moving? I was tranquil, and yet I was near you; I adored you and
desired nothing. I did not even imagine another felicity than that
of feeling your face next to mine, your breath on my cheek, and
your arms around my neck. What calm in all my senses! What pure,
continuous, complete voluptuousness! The charm of possession was
in the soul, no longer momentary but eternal. What a difference
between the frenzies of love and a situation so peaceful! That was
the first time in my life that I experienced it near you, and yet con-
sider the strange change which I experienced. It is of al! the hours of
my life the one which is most dear to me, and the only one which I
should have wished to prolong eternally.* Julie, tell me, then, if be-
fore I did not love you at all or if now I no longer love you?

* Too compliant woman, do you wish to know if you are loved? Examine
your
lover as he leaves your arms. Oh love! If I miss the age at which you are
enjoyed, it is not for the hour of possession; it is for the hour
which follows it.
[Rousseau]
LETTER LV + TO JULIE 125

If Ino longer love you? What a fear! Have I then ceased to exist,
and is my life not more in your heart than in mine? I feel, I feel
that you are a thousand times more dear to me than ever, and I
have found in the abatement of my desire new strength to cherish
you still more tenderly. The sentiments I have conceived for you are
more peaceable, it is true, but more affectionate and more varied;
without becoming weakened they have multiplied. The sweetness of
friendship tempers the frenzies of love, and I can scarcely imagine
any sort of attachment which may not unite me with you. Oh my
charming mistress, oh my wife, my sister, my sweet friend! How
little I shall have expressed for what I feel, even after having ex-
hausted all the names dearest to the heart of man!
I must confess to you a suspicion I have conceived, to my shame
and humiliation. It is that you are more capable of love than I. Yes,
my Julie, it is indeed you who constitute my life and my being. I
adore you with all the powers of my soul, but yours is more loving;
love has penetrated it more profoundly. One sees, one feels that
love inspires your charms, reigns in your speech, gives that pene-
trating sweetness to your eyes, those accents so touching to your
voice. It is love which through your presence alone communicates
imperceptibly to other hearts the tender emotion of your own. How
far I am from that charming state which is enough in itself! I wish
to enjoy and you wish to love; I have ecstasies and you have passion.
All my frenzies are not equal to your delightful languor, and the
sentiment with which your heart is nourished is the only supreme
felicity. It is only since yesterday that I have enjoyed that voluptu-
ousness so pure. You have left me something of that inconceivable
charm which is in you, and I think that with your sweet breath you
breathed a new soul into me. Hurry, I implore you, to finish your
work. Take from my soul all which remains of me and put yours
completely in its place. No, angelic beauty, celestial soul, it is only
sentiments like yours which can do honor to your charms. You
alone are worthy of inspiring a perfect love; you alone are capable
of feeling it. Ah, give me your heart, my Julie, so that I may love
you as you deserve!
 126 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

s+ LETTER LVI *&

From Claire to Julie

MY DEAR COUSIN, I have to give you some news which concerns you.
Last night your friend had a quarrel with Lord Bomston which
could become serious. Here is what was told to me about it by Mon-
sieur d’Orbe, who was present and who, uneasy over the
results of
this affair, came this morning to give me an account of it.
They had both supped at his Lordship’s, and after an hour or
two of music they began to chat and drink punch. Your friend drank
only a single glass diluted with water; the other two were not so
sober, and although Monsieur d’Orbe may not admit being intoxi-
cated, I intend to tell him my opinion of that matter at another
time. The conversation naturally lit upon you, for you are not
un-
aware that Lord Bomston likes to speak of no one else.
Your friend,
whom these confidences always displease, received them with such
little grace that his Lordship, heated with punch and nettled by
this curtness, finally dared say in complaining of your coldness
that
it was not so general as one might think and that whoever said
noth-
ing about it was not so poorly treated as he. At that instant
your
friend, whose impetuosity you know, contradicted these words with
an insulting outburst that occasioned a charge of “liar,”
and they
leaped for their swords. Lord Bomston, half-intoxicated
, sprained
his ankle in running, which compelled him to sit down. His
leg
swelled immediately, and that calmed the quarrel better than
all
the trouble Monsieur d’Orbe had taken to do so. But
as he was
attentive to all that was going on, he observed your friend,
upon
leaving, approach Lord Bomston, and he heard him whisper
in his
ear, “As soon as you are in condition to walk, send
me notice, or I
shall take care to inform myself.”
“Do not bother,” said his Lordship with a mocking smile.
“You
will know it soon enough.”
“We shall see,” replied your friend coldly, and left.
In delivering this letter, Monsieur d’Orbe will explain
the whole
thing to you in more detail. Your discretion must suggest
to you the
means, of suppressing this unfortunate affair or tell me what
I must
LETTER LVI - FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 127

do on my part to help. In the meantime, the bearer of this letter is

at your service; he will do all that you command him, and you may
rely upon his secrecy.
You are going to be ruined, my dear; my friendship forces me to
tell you so. Your attachment cannot remain hidden for a long time
in a small town like this, and considering that it is more than two
years since it began, it is a miracle of good fortune that you have
not yet been a subject of public talk. But you will be if you do not
take care; you would be already if you were less beloved by the
townspeople. But there is such a general reluctance to speak ill
of you that doing so is a poor way of crediting oneself and a very
sure one of becoming despised. However, everything comes to an
end; I fear that the end of your love’s secrecy may have come, and
there is great likelihood that Lord Bomston’s suspicions have come
to him through some unpleasant remarks he may have heard.
Think it over well, my dear child. Some time ago the night-police-
man said that he saw your friend leave your house at five in the
morning. Fortunately the latter found out about this talk at the
outset; he hurried to the man and discovered the secret of silencing
him. But what is such a silence if not the way of confirming the se-
cretly widespread rumors? Also, your mother’s mistrust grows from
day to day; you know how many times she has made you aware of
it. She has spoken to me of it afterwards in a rather serious way,
and if she did not fear your father’s violence, no doubt she might
have already spoken to him about it; but she dares even less to do
so because he will blame her the most if the news comes from her.
I cannot repeat it too much: think of yourself while there is still
time. Send your friend away before people talk; prevent the grow-
ing suspicions that his absence will surely dispel. For what, finally,
can people believe that he is doing here? Perhaps in six weeks or in
a month it will be too late. If the slightest word reaches your fa-
ther’s ears, be fearful of the result of the indignation of an old sol-
dier obstinate about the honor of his house, and of the impatient
irritation of a passionate young man who cannot brook anything.
But you must first terminate the affair with Lord Bomston in one
way or another, for you would only anger your friend and obtain a
just refusal if you spoke to him of separation before that is finished.
 128 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER LVII &

From Julie

I HAVE BEEN carefully informed, my friend, of what took piace be-

tween you and Lord Bomston. With a perfect understanding of the
facts, I wish to discuss with you how you ought to conduct yourself
on this occasion according to the sentiments which you profess and
of which I suppose you do not merely make a vain and false parade.
I have not inquired if you are well versed in the art of fencing, or
if you think yourself in condition to cope with a man who in Eu-
rope has a superior reputation for handling his weapon and who,
having duelled five or six times in his life, has always killed,
wounded, or disarmed his man. I understand that in such a case as
yours, people do not consult their skill but their courage, and that
the proper way of revenging yourself upon a man who insults you is
to let him kill you. Let us pass over such a judicious maxim! You
will tell me that your honor and mine are more dear to you than
life. This, then, is the principle from which we must reason.
Let us begin by what concerns you. Could you ever tell me in what
respect you were personally insulted by a conversation which was
about me alone? Whether you ought to have espoused my cause on
this occasion is what we shall presently see; meanwhile you cannot
deny that the quarrel is perfectly irrelevant to your private honor,
unless you take the suspicion that I am in love with you as an af-
front. You have been insulted, I admit, but after having begun
the
quarrel yourself with an odious insult; and I, whose family is full
of soldiers and who have heard these horrible questions debated so
much, am not unaware that one outrage in response to another does
not annul it and that the man first insulted remains the only one
offended. It is the same as in the case of an unexpected fight, in
which the aggressor is the only criminal and in which the
one who
kills or wounds the other in self-defense is not considered
guilty of
murder.
Turning now to me, let us grant that I was insulted
by Lord
Bomston’s words, although he was only doing me justice
. Do you
know what you are doing in defending me with so
much warmth
LETTER LVII + FROM JULIE 129

and indiscretion? You are aggravating his insult; you are proving
that he was right; you are sacrificing my honor to a false point-of-
honor; you are defaming your mistress in order at most to win the
reputation of a good swordsman. Show me, please, what connection
there is between your way of vindicating me and my real vindica-
tion? Do you think that to espouse my cause with so much ardor is
great proof that there is no intimacy at all between us, and that it is
sufficient to reveal that you are brave to show that you are not my
lover? Be assured that all Lord Bomston’s remarks do me less wrong
than your conduct; it is you alone who by this scandal are respon-
sible for publishing and confirming them. As for his Lordship, he can
easily evade your sword in the duel, but never will my reputation,
or my life perhaps, evade the deadly blow you are dealing it.[8]
You know that my father had the misfortune in his youth to kill
a man in a duel. This man was his friend; they fought reluctantly,
compelled by an absurd point of honor. The fatal blow which de-
prived one of his life robbed the other of his peace of mind forever.
Since that time, painful remorse has never left his heart. Often we
hear him cry and lament in private; he thinks he still can feel the
blade thrust by his cruel hand piercing his friend’s heart. In his
nightmares he sees the pale and bloody body. Trembling, he gazes
upon the mortal wound; he would like to staunch the flowing blood;
terror seizes him; he cries out; the frightful corpse does not cease
pursuing him. Since five years ago when he lost the dear support of
his name and the hope of his family, he has reproached himself
with the death as if it were a just punishment from Heaven, who
upon his only son avenged the unfortunate father whose son he
had killed.
I confess that all this, added to my natural aversion to cruelty,
inspires in me such a horror of duels that I regard them as the last
degree of brutality to which men can descend. He who goes to fight
out of sheer wantonness is in my eyes only a ferocious beast who en-
deavors to tear another to pieces; and if the slightest natural senti-
ment remains in their souls, I find the one who perishes less to be
pitied than the victor. Look at these men accustomed to blood: they
defy remorse only by stifling the voice of nature; they gradually be-
come cruel, insensible; they sport with the lives of others; and the
penalty for having been deficient in humanity is finally to lose it
completely. What do they do in that state? Answer me, do you wish
to become like them? No, you are not made for that odious bru-
tality; be fearful of the first step which can lead you into it. Your
soul is still innocent and wholesome; at the hazard of your life do
 130 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

not begin to deprave it by an action without virtue, a crime without

approbation, a point of honor without reason.
I have said nothing to you of your Julie; she will win her point
no doubt, by permitting your own heart to speak. One word, a single
word, and I leave you to it. You have sometimes honored me with
the tender name of wife; perhaps at this moment I am to bear that
of mother. Will you leave me a widow before a sacred bond unites
us?

P.S. I use in this letter an authority which wise men have never
resisted. If you refuse to submit yourself to it, I have nothing fur-
ther to say to you, but first consider it well. Take a week for reflec-
tion, to meditate upon this important subject. I ask you for this
delay not for the sake of reason but for my own. Remember that
I am using on this occasion the prerogative which you yourself gave
me and that it extends at least to this point.

% LETTER LVIII &

From Julie to Lord Bomston

IT IS NOT to complain of you, my Lord, that I am writing. Since you

speak against me, I must necessarily have wronged you without
knowing it. How could I believe that an honest gentleman might
wish to dishonor an estimable family without cause? Satisfy your
vengeance then, if you believe it just. This letter will provide you
with an easy method of ruining an unfortunate girl who can never
forgive herself for having offended you and who is putting at your
discretion the honor you wish to deprive her of. Yes, my Lord, your
charges were correct; I have a lover. He is the master of my heart
and of my person; death only can break so sweet a bond. This lover
is he whom you honored with your friendship; he is worthy
of it
for he is attached to you and he is virtuous. Nevertheless, he will
die by your hand. I know that blood is needed to appease
an out-
raged honor; I know that his own courage will destroy
him; I know
that in a duel, little for you to fear, his intrepid heart
will bravely
seek the deadly blow. I have tried to curb his inconsidered
zeal; I
LETTER LIX - FROM MONSIEUR D’ORBE TO JULIE |

have spoken in the name of reason. Alas! Even while writing my

letter, I was aware of its uselessness, and whatever respect I have for
his virtues, I do not expect from him those sublime enough to de-
tach him from a false point of honor. You may enjoy beforehand
the pleasure you will have in stabbing your friend, but be assured,
cruel man, that at least you will not have that of enjoying my tears
and of gazing upon my despair. No, I swear by the love which
grieves my heart—you may be the witness to an oath which is not
taken in vain—I shall not survive him for whom I breathe one
day; and you will have the glory of putting into the tomb with a
single blow two unfortunate lovers who did not offend you inten-
tionally and who took pleasure in honoring you.
People say, my Lord, that you have a beautiful soul and a sensitive
heart. If these allow you to enjoy tranquilly a vengeance which I
cannot understand and to delight in causing unhappiness, can they
inspire in you when I shall be dead a little compassion for an in-
consolable father and mother who will yield to eternal grief over
the loss of the only child left to them?

é& LETTER LIX *

From Monsieur D’Orbe to Julie

IN OBEDIENCE to your orders, Mademoiselle, I hasten to give you an

account of the errand with which you entrusted me. I have just come
from the lodging of Lord Bomston, whom I found still suffering
from his sprain and unable to walk in his room except with the help
of a cane. I gave him your letter, which he opened eagerly; he
seemed moved in reading it. He mused for some time; then he read
it again with more perceptible agitation.
After finishing it, he said to me, “You know, Monsieur, that af-
fairs of honor have their rules from which one cannot depart. You
have seen what happened in this affair; it must be settled according
to the rules. Choose two friends, and give yourself the trouble to
return here with them tomorrow morning; then you will know my
decision.”
I again urged him that it would be better if the affair, having
 132 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

taken place among us, might be terminated the same way. “I know
what is proper,’ he said brusquely, ‘and I shall do what is
necessary. Bring your two friends, or I have nothing further to say
to you.”
I left, uselessly racking my brain to fathom his bizarre plan.
Whatever it may be, I shall have the honor of seeing you this eve-
ning, and tomorrow I shall carry out what you command. If you
find it proper for me to wait on his Lordship with my men, I shall
choose them from those whom I may depend upon at all events.

4 LETTER LX &

To Julie

CALM YOUR FEARS, tender and dear Julie, and from the following
account of what has just happened, know and share the sentiments
which I am experiencing.
I was so full of indignation when I received your letter that I
could scarcely read it with the attention it deserved. I should have
made fine work in refuting it; blind anger had the upper hand.
You may be right, I said to myself, but never speak to me of allow-
ing you to be disparaged. Were I to lose you and die a criminal, I
shall not allow anyone to be wanting in the respect which is due
you, and as long as I have a breath of life left, you will be honored
by all who approach you just as you are in my heart. However,
I
did not hesitate for a week only because you asked me to;
Lord
Bomston’s accident and my vow of obedience concurred in making
that delay necessary. Resolved, according to your command, to
use
that interval in meditating upon the subject of your letter, I busied
myself ceaselessly in rereading it and reflecting upon it, not
with a
view, however, to change my opinion but to justify it.
This morning, I had returned to that letter, too wise and judicio
us
to my thinking, and I was rereading it uneasily when there
was a
knock at the door of my room. A moment later, Lord Bomsto
n en-
tered, without his sword, leaning upon a cane; three persons
fol-
lowed him, among whom I recognized Monsieur d’Orbe.
Surprised
4
LETTER LX + TO JULIE 133

by this unexpected visit, I was silently awaiting what was to come of

it when his Lordship begged me to hear him for a moment and to
permit him to proceed and speak without interference.
“I ask your word not to interrupt,” he said. “The presence of
these gentlemen, who are your friends, ought to satisfy you that you
are not pledging it indiscreetly.”
I promised without hesitating; scarcely had I finished when, with
an astonishment you can well imagine, I saw Lord Bomston fall on
his knees before me. Surprised by such a strange attitude, I wished
to raise him up immediately; but after reminding me of my prom-
ise, he spoke to me in these words.
“I have come, Monsieur, to retract openly the injurious things
which intoxication caused me to say in your presence. The injustice
of them makes them even more offensive to myself than to you,
and I owe myself a public retraction of them. I submit to whatever
punishment you wish to impose upon me, and I shall not believe
my honor restored until my fault shall have been atoned. Whatever
the price may be, grant me the pardon I ask of you, and give me
back your friendship.”
“My Lord,” I said immediately, “I recognize now your great and
generous soul. And I can readily distinguish the words your heart
dictates from those you speak when you are not yourself; may those
be forever forgotten.”’ At that instant I helped him raise himself and
we embraced.
After that Lord Bomston, turning toward the witnesses, said to
them, “Gentlemen, thank you for your obligingness. Men of honor
like you,” he added with a proud air and an animated tone, “know
that whoever makes amends for his injurious actions in this way will
not be submissive and take insults from anyone. You may make pub-
lic what you have seen.”’ Then he invited all four of us to supper
for this evening, and the gentlemen left.
Scarcely were we alone when he returned to embrace me in a more
tender and friendly manner; then he took me by the hand and sat
beside me. “Fortunate mortal,” he exclaimed, “enjoy the happiness
you deserve. Julie’s heart is yours; could you both .. .”
“What are you saying, my Lord?” I interrupted. “Have you lost
your mind?”
“No,” he said, smiling, “but I was very near losing it, and it had
perhaps been all over with me if she who took away my reason had
not restored it to me.” Then he gave me a letter which I was sur-
prised to see written by a hand which never wrote to any man but
134 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

myself.* What emotions I felt in reading it! I saw an incomparable

lover willing to ruin herself in order to save me, and I recognized
my Julie. But when I came to that place wherein she protests that
she will not survive the most fortunate of men, I shuddered at the
risks I had run, I complained that I was loved too well, and my ter-
ror convinced me that you are only mortal. Ah, restore to me the
courage you have taken from me; I had enough to face the death
which threatened only my person, but I have none for dying com-
pletely.
While my heart was indulging in these bitter reflections, his
Lordship was saying things to which I paid little attention at first.
However, he called it forth by speaking of you, and what he said to
me pleased my heart and no longer excited my jealousy. He seemed
pierced with regret for having disturbed our passion and your tran-
quillity; he respects you more than anyone in the world, and not
daring to bring to you the excuses he made me, he begged me to
receive them in your name and to prevail upon you to accept them.
“I look upon you,” he said, “as her representative, and I cannot
humble myself too much before the one she loves, since I am un-
able to speak to her in person or even to name her without com-
promising her.” He confessed that he had entertained feelings for
you which no one can resist upon seeing you very closely, but they
were of a tender admiration rather than love. These feelings have
never prompted him to pretentions or to hope; he sacrificed them
all to our sentiments at the instant he became acquainted with
them, and the injurious remark which escaped him was the result
of punch and not of jealousy. He discusses love like a philosopher
who believes his soul to be above passions. But I am deceived if he
has not already experienced some passion which now prevents others
from taking deep root. He mistakes the weakening of his affection
for the effect of reason, but I am certain that to love Julie and to
renounce her is not humanly possible.
He desired to know in detail the story of our love and the ob-
stacles which stand in the way of my good fortune. I thought that
after your letter a superficial confidence was dangerous andiim per-
tinent; I made a complete breast of it, and he listened to me with an
attention that attested to his sincerity. More than once I saw his eyes
moist and his heart affected; I especially noticed the powerful im-
pression that all the triumphs of virtue made on his soul, and I

* One must, I think, except her father. [Rousseau]

4
LETTER LX + TO JULIE 135

think I have obtained a new protector for Claude Anet who will be
no less zealous than your father.
“There are neither intrigues nor adventures in what you have
told me,” he said, “and yet the catastrophes of a novel would in-
terest me much less, so much do your sentiments take the place of its
situations and your honest behavior that of its striking action. Your
two souls are so extraordinary that they cannot be judged by com-
mon rules. For you, happiness neither is to be attained by the same
manner nor is it of the same kind as that of other men; they seek
only power and the attention of others, but you need only tender-
ness and peace. Joined to your love is an emulation of virtue which
elevates you, and you would both be less worthy if you were not in
love.”
He dared to add that love will pass. (Let us forgive him for this
blasphemy uttered in the ignorance of his heart.) “Love will pass,”
he said, “but virtue will endure.” Ah, may it endure as long as love,
my Julie! Heaven will require no more.
At last I see that philosophical and national austerity does not
affect the natural humanity of this honest Englishman and that he
is truly interested in our difficulties. If influence and riches could be
useful to us, I believe we should have cause to rely upon him. But
alas! What use is power and money in making our hearts happy?
This conversation, during which we did not count the hours,
brought us to dinnertime. I had a chicken brought up, and after
dining we continued to talk. He spoke of his course of action this
morning, and I could not keep from evidencing some surprise at a
proceeding so notable and so uncommon. But, repeating the reason
he had already given me, he added that to give a partial satisfaction
was unworthy of a courageous man, that a full one was necessary or
nothing, lest he debase himself without making amends for any-
thing, and lest a step taken half-heartedly and grudgingly be attrib-
uted to fear.
“Besides,” he added, “my reputation is established; I can be just
without being suspected of cowardice. But you who are young and
just beginning in the world, you must emerge so clean from the first
affair of honor that no one is tempted to involve you in a second.
The world is full of those clever scoundrels who seek, as they say, to
feel out their man, that is, to discover someone who may be even
more of a cowardly scoundrel than they and at whose expense they
can push themselves forward. I wish to spare a man of honor like
you the unglorious necessity of punishing one of this sort, and if
136 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

they need a lesson I prefer them to receive it from me rather than

from you; for one more duel takes nothing from a man who has
already had several. But to have had only one is always a kind of
disgrace, and Julie’s lover must be exempt from that.”
This is the résumé of my long conversation with Lord Bomston.
I thought it necessary to give you an account of it so that you may
prescribe the manner in which I ought to behave to him.
Now that your fears must be allayed, I implore you to dispel
those distressing ideas which have taken possession of you for the
past few days. Remember the precautions made necessary by the
uncertainty of your present condition. Oh, if soon you could triple
my life! If soon an adored pledge . . . will an expectation already
disappointed once come to deceive me again? . . . oh desires! oh
fear! oh difficulties! Charming friend of my heart, let us live in or-
der to love, and let Heaven dispose of us as it may.

P.S. I forgot to tell you that his Lordship gave me back your letter
and that I raised no objections about taking it, considering that
such a treasure should not remain in the hands of a third party. I
shall give it back to you at our first meeting, because, as for me, I
no longer need it. It is written too well in my heart for me ever to
need to read it again.

“% LETTER LXI &

From Julie

Tomorrow, bring Lord Bomston here so that I may throw myself

at his feet as he did at yours. What greatness! What generosity! Oh,
how small we are compared to him! Preserve this precious friend as
you would the pupil of your eye. Perhaps he would be less deserving
if he were more even-tempered. Was there ever a man without faults
who had great virtues?
A thousand anxieties of all kinds had thrown me into dejection,
but your letter has rekindled my extinguished courage. By dis-
sipating my fears, it has made my troubles more supportable. Now
I feel strong enough to bear them. You live, you love me, neither
LETTER LXII - FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 137,

your blood nor that of your friend has been shed, and your honor is
saved. Therefore I am not completely miserable.
Do not fail our meeting tomorrow. Never have I had such great
need of you, nor so little hope of seeing you for very long. Adieu,
my dear and only friend. You have not spoken well, it seems to me,
in saying that we should live in order to love. Ah! You should have
said, let us love in order to live.

4 LETTER LXII &

From Claire to Julie

MUST I ALWAYS, dear cousin, perform for you only the most disagree-
able offices of friendship? Must I always, in the bitterness of my
heart, afflict yours with cruel information? Alas! All our sentiments
are the same, as you well know, and I can give you no new griefs
unless I have already experienced them. Would that I could hide
your misfortune from you without augmenting it! Or that our ten-
der friendship had as many recompenses as your love! Ah! Would
that I could promptly efface all the misery I give youl
After the concert yesterday, your mother having accepted the arm
of your friend to return home and you that of Monsieur d’Orbe, our
two fathers remained here with his Lordship to talk about politics,
a subject I am so tired of that boredom drove me to my room. A
half-hour later, I heard the name of your friend being mentioned
several times with some vehemence. I knew that the subject of the
conversation had been changed and I listened to it. I guessed by the
talk which followed that his Lordship had ventured to propose your
marriage to your friend, whom he was openly calling his own and
on whom as such he was offering to make a suitable settlement. Your
father scornfully rejected this proposal, and upon that the conversa-
tion began to grow heated.
“Understand,” his Lordship said, ‘“‘that in spite of your prejudices
he is of all men most worthy of her and perhaps most suited to make
her happy. He has received from nature all the gifts which are in-
dependent of men, and to them he has added all the talents which
 138 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

depended upon himself. He is young, tall, well-made, robust, and

skillful. He has education, sense, manners, and courage. He has
a fine wit, a sound mind. What, then, does he lack in order to de-
serve your consent? A fortune? He shall have one. A third of my
estate will suffice to make him the richest individual in the Vaud
region. If necessary I shall give him as much as half of it. Nobility?
An empty prerogative in a country where it is more injurious than
useful.* But he has nobility even so, do not doubt it, not written in
ink on old parchment but engraved on his heart in indelible char-
acters. In short, if you prefer reason to prejudice, and if you love
your daughter better than your titles, you will give her to him.”
Thereupon your father flew into a lively passion. He called the
proposal absurd and ridiculous. ‘“‘What! My Lord,” he said, “can an
honorable man like yourself even think that the last surviving
branch of an illustrious family might lose or degrade its name by
taking that of a nobody, without a home and reduced to living on
charity?”
“Stop,” interrupted his Lordship. “You are speaking of my friend.
Consider that I take as if done myself all the injuries done him in
my presence, and that names which are injurious to an honorable
man are even more so to the one who utters them. Such nobodies
are more respectable than all the country squires in Europe, and I
challenge you to find any means of coming by a fortune more
honorable than accepting acknowledgments of esteem and gifts of
friendship. If the son-in-law whom I propose to you does not have,
like you, a long succession of forefathers, always doubtful, he will be
the foundation and the honor of his own house, just as your first an-
cestor was of yours. Could you, then, consider yourself dishonored
by the marriage of the founder of your family, without this disdain
falling back upon yourself? How many great families would sink
back into oblivion if only those which began with a respectable man
were considered? Let us pass judgment on the past by looking at the
present: for the two or three citizens who become illustrious by vir-
tuous means, every day a thousand rogues raise their families to
the rank of nobility, and what does this nobility, of which their de-
scendants will be so proud, prove if not the thievery and the infamy
of their ancestor. I confess that one sees a great many dishonest men

* Daniel Mornet provides the following explanation for this remark:

Berne
had conquered the Vaud region, after which all the Vaud nobility had
been
excluded from public office; since there was little commerce or
industry in
which they cared to engage, they were reduced to a life of idleness
or expatria-
tion. [Translator’s note]
LETTER LXII - FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 139

among the common people, but the odds are always twenty to one
against a gentleman that he is descended from a scoundrel.” [9]
Imagine, my dear, what I was suffering in seeing this honest gen-
tleman through an ill-timed bitterness thus injure the interests of
the friend he wished to help. In fact, your father, irritated by so
many stinging invectives, however general, began to counter them
with personal remarks. He said to his Lordship outright that never
had a man of his position spoken in such words as he had just used.
“Do not uselessly plead the cause of someone else,” he added in a
brusque tone. “Great Lord that you are, I doubt if you could uphold
your own very well on the subject under consideration. You are ask-
ing for my daughter for your so-called friend without knowing if you
yourself could be suitable for her, and I am well enough acquainted
with English nobility to have, from your discourse, a mediocre opin-
ion of yours.”
“By Jove!” said his Lordship. “Whatever you think of me, I should
be very sorry to have no other proof of my merit than the name of a
man dead for five hundred years. If you are acquainted with the
English nobility, you know that it is the most enlightened, the best
educated, the wisest and bravest of Europe. With all that, I have no
need to ask whether it is the most ancient, for when we speak of what
it is, we never mind what it has been. We are not, it is true, slaves
of the Prince but his friends, nor are we oppressors of the people
but their leaders. Guardians of liberty, pillars of the country and
supports of the throne, we maintain an invincible equilibrium be-
tween the people and the king. Our first duty is to the nation, the
second to the one who governs it. It is not his will but his prerogative
which we consult. Supreme judges of the laws in the House of Peers,
sometimes even legislators, we render equal justice to the people and
to the king, and we allow no one to say ‘God and my sword’ but
only “God and my right.’
“Such, Monsieur,” he continued, “is this respectable nobility, as
ancient as any other but more proud of its merit than its ancestors,
of which you speak without knowledge. I am not the lowest in rank
in this illustrious order, and I think myself equal to you in every
respect, in spite of your pretentions. I have an unmarried sister. She
is of the nobility, young, amiable, and rich. She is inferior to Julie
only in those attributes which you consider as nothing. If it were
possible for him who has perceived your daughter’s charms to turn
his eyes and his heart elsewhere, what honor it would be for me to
accept for my brother-in-law, though without a fortune, the man
whom I propose for your son-in-law with half my wealth!”
140 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I knew by your father’s reply that this conversation would only

grow more bitter, and, although I was moved with admiration for
Lord Bomston’s generosity, I felt that such an inflexible man was
likely only to ruin forever the business he had undertaken. I hur-
ried, therefore, to return before things might go any further. My en-
trance broke off this conversation, and a moment later, they parted
rather coldly. As for my father, I found that he behaved very well
in this quarrel. At first he seconded the proposal with concern; but
seeing that your father would not hear of it at all and that the argu-
ment was beginning to become animated, he took, as was fitting, his
brother-in-law’s side again, and interrupting each of them perti-
nently with moderate words, he kept both within the bounds they
would probably have broken had they remained alone. After their
departure, he told me in private what had just taken place, and as
I foresaw what would come of it, I hastened to tell him that, things
being in this state, it was no longer proper for the person in question
to see you here so often, and that it would not be proper for him
even to come at all, if that had not constituted a kind of affront to
Monsieur d’Orbe, who is his friend, but that I should beg him to in-
vite him, and Lord Bomston as well, less frequently. That, my dear,
is the best I could do so as not to close our door completely to them.
This is not all. The crisis I see you in forces me to return to my
former counsel. The affair between Lord Bomston and your friend
has created all the talk in the town that one might expect. Although
Monsieur d’Orbe has kept secret the cause for the quarrel, too many
clues betray it for it to remain hidden. People suspect, they make
conjectures, and you are named; the report of the night policeman
is not so well suppressed that they do not remember it, and you are
not unaware that in the eyes of the public the suspicion of truth is
quite close to evidence. All that I can tell you for your consolation
is that in general your choice is approved, and that everyone would
look upon the union of such a charming couple with pleasure,
which confirms my idea that your friend has behaved well in this
country and is loved hardly less than you. But what is the public
voice to your inflexible father? All this talk has reached him or will
reach him, and I tremble at the effect it can produce, if you do not
hasten to prevent his anger. You must expect from him an inter-
pretation terrible for yourself, and perhaps worse yet for your
friend; not that I think that at his age he may want to test his
strength against a young man whom he does not think worthy of
his sword, but the influence he has in the town could furnish him,
LETTER LXIII + FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE 14]

if he wished, a thousand means of getting rid of him, and it is to be

feared that his fury may excite his wish to do so.
I implore you on my knees, my sweet friend, to think of the dan-
gers which surround you, the risk of which increases every moment.
An extraordinary good fortune has preserved you so far in the
midst of all these perils; while there is still time, put the seal of
prudence on the secrecy of your love affair, and do not strain your
luck to its breaking point, lest it may entangle in your misfortunes
the man who has been the cause of them. Believe me, my angel, the
future is uncertain; a thousand accidents, with time, may offer un-
expected expedients. But as for the present, I have told you and
now repeat it more forcefully: send your friend away, or you are
undone.

#% LETTER LXIII *

From Julie to Claire

ALL THAT you had foreseen, my dear, has happened. Yesterday, an

hour after our return, my father entered my mother’s room, his eyes
flashing, his countenance inflamed with anger—in short, in a state
in which I had never before seen him. Immediately I under-
stood that he had just had a quarrel or that he was going to begin
one, and my guilty conscience made me tremble in advance.
He began by exclaiming sharply but in general terms against
mothers who indiscreetly invite into their homes young men with-
out fortune or family, whose acquaintance brings only shame and
scandal to those who pay attention to them. Then, seeing that that
was not enough to draw any response from an intimidated woman,
with no discretion he brought up as an example what has happened
in our house since she had introduced a so-called fine wit, an empty
babbler, more fit to corrupt a chaste girl than to give her any good
education. My mother, who saw that she would gain little by keep-
ing silent, stopped him at the word corruption and asked him what
he found in the conduct or in the reputation of the honorable man
he was speaking of which might authorize such suspicions.
 142 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

“I did not think,” she added, “that intelligence and merit might
constitute reasons for exclusion from society. To whom, then, must
we open your house, if talent and manners may not obtain admit-
tance?”
“To suitable people, Madame,” he replied angrily, “who can re-
pair a girl’s honor when they have offended it.”
“No,” she said, “rather to honest people who will not offend it.”
“Learn,” he said, “that it is an insult to the honor of a house to
dare solicit an alliance without a title for obtaining it.”
“Far from seeing an insult in that,” said my mother, “I see on
the contrary only a mark of esteem. Besides, I am not aware that
the man against whom you are declaiming may have done anything
like that with regard to your house.”
“He has, Madame, and will do worse yet if I do not see to him.
But do not doubt that I shall attend to the charges which you exe-
cute so ill.”
Then began a dangerous quarrel which let me know that my
parents were unaware of the rumors you say are about the town,
but during which your undeserving cousin could have wished her-
self buried a hundred feet in the earth. Imagine the best and the
most deceived of mothers speaking in praise of her guilty daughter
and lauding her, alas, for all the virtues which she has lost, in the
most honorable, or I should say, the most mortifying terms. Picture
to yourself an angry father, profuse of injurious expressions, who
yet in all his rage did not utter one which indicated the slightest
doubt as to the chastity of her who in his presence is rent by remorse
and crushed with shame. Oh, what unbelievable torment from my
guilty conscience I had in reproaching myself with crimes that
anger and indignation could not even suspect! What an op-
pressive and insupportable weight is that of unmerited praise and
esteem which the heart secretly rejects! I felt so oppressed that in
order to rid myself of such a cruel burden I was ready to confess
everything, if my father would have given me the chance, but in the
impetuosity of his fury he kept saying the same things over a hun-
dred times and yet changed the subject every moment. He noticed
my downcast looks, distraught and humbled, an indication of my
remorse. If he did not deduce from them the result of my weakness,
he did deduce my love, and in order to make me feel more ashamed
of it he insulted its object in terms so odious and so scornful
that in spite of all my efforts I could not let him go on without inter-
rupting him.
I do not know, my dear, where I found so much courage or what
LETTER LXIII : FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE 143

frantic moment made me so forget my duty and modesty; however,

if for one instant I dared break a respectful silence, I paid the
penalty rather severely, as you will see.
“In the name of Heaven,” I said to him, ‘“‘calm yourself. A man
who deserved so many insults could never be a danger to me.”
At that moment, my father, who thought he felt a reproach in
these words and whose fury awaited only a pretext, flew upon your
poor friend. For the first time in my life I received a blow; nor was
that all, but giving himself up to his fit of passion with a violence
equal to the effort he was making, he beat me mercilessly, although
my mother had thrown herself between us, covered me with her
body, and received some of the blows which were intended for me.
In shrinking back to avoid them, I stumbled, I fell, and my head
struck the leg of a table, which caused me to bleed.
At this point, the triumph of anger was ended and that of na-
ture began. My fall, my bleeding, my tears and my mother’s moved
him. He raised me up with an anxious and earnest expression, and
having placed me in a chair, they both sought attentively if I was
hurt. I had only a slight bruise on my forehead and was bleeding
only from my nose. However, I saw by the change in my father’s
manner and voice that he was unhappy about what he had just
done. He was not reconciled to me with caresses; his paternal dig-
nity would not suffer so abrupt a change. But he apologized to my
mother with tender excuses, and I saw quite well by the looks that
he cast furtively on me that half of them were indirectly addressed
to me. No, my dear, there is no embarrassment as touching as that
of a tender father who thinks himself to blame for his injustice. A
father’s heart feels that it is made to pardon and not to have need of
being pardoned.
It was supper time. They delayed eating so as to give me time to
compose myself, and my father, not wishing the servants to see any-
thing of my disorder, went himself to fetch me a glass of water while
my mother bathed my face. Alas, that poor mother! Already lan-
guishing and ill, she could well have done without such a scene and
almost had more need of assistance than myself.
At the table, my father did not speak to me, but this silence was
from shame and not from disdain. He pretended to find everything
good in order to tell my mother to serve me some, and what touched
me most sensibly was to notice that he sought opportunities to call
me his daughter and not Julie, as he usually does.
After supper, the air was so chilly that my mother had a fire lit in
her room. She sat on one side and my father on the other. I was go-
 144 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ing to get a chair in order to put myself between them, when, laying
hold of my dress and drawing me to him without saying anything,
he placed me on his knees. All this was done so suddenly and by a
kind of quite involuntary impulse that he was almost regretful the
moment afterwards. However, I was on his knees, he could no
longer push me away, and what was more discomposing, he had to
hold me clasped in his arms in this embarrassing position. All this
was done in silence, but now and then I felt his arms press against
my sides and heard a rather poorly stifled sigh. I do not know what
false shame prevented these paternal arms from giving themselves
up to these sweet embraces. A certain gravity which he dared not
abandon, a certain confusion which he dared not overcome put be-
tween the father and his daughter this charming embarrassment
that modesty and passion cause in lovers; meanwhile, a tender
mother, beside herself for joy, was secretly devouring this very sweet
sight. I saw, I felt all this, my angel, and could no longer hold back
the tenderness which was overcoming me. I pretended to slip; to
prevent myself, I threw an arm around my father’s neck. I laid my
face close to his venerable cheek, and in an instant it was covered
with my kisses and bathed with my tears. I knew by those which
rolled from his eyes that he himself was relieved of a great sorrow.
My mother shared our rapture. Only sweet and peaceful innocence
was wanting in my heart to make this natural scene the most de-
lightful moment of my life.
This morning, weariness and the pain from my fall having kept
me in bed a little later than usual, my father came into my room
before I was up. He sat at the side of my bed, inquiring tenderly
after my health; he took my hand in his and bent to kiss it several
times, calling me his dear daughter and proving to me his remorse
for his anger. For myself, as I told him, I should think myself only
too happy to be beaten every day for this reward, and there was no
treatment so harsh that a single caress from him could not efface
from my heart.
Then assuming a more serious manner, he reminded me of yes-
terday’s subject and signified his will to me in polite but precise
terms.
“You know,” he said to me, “the husband I have decided upon
for you. I made that known to you as soon as I returned
and
I shall never change my mind in this matter. As for the man of
whom Lord Bomston spoke, although I do not. dispute
the
merit which everyone allows him, I do not know if he himself
has
conceived the ridiculous hope of an alliance with my family
4
or if
LETTER LXIIL + FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE 145

someone has inspired it in him, but even if I had no one in view

and if he owned all the guineas in England, be assured that I would
never accept such a man for a son-in-law. I forbid you as long as
you live either to see him or to speak to him, and that is as much
for the sake of his honor as for yours. Although I always felt but
little regard for him, now I hate him above all for the outrages he
caused me to commit, and I shall never forgive him for my vi-
olence.”
With these words, he left without waiting for my answer and al-
most with the same air of severity as that which he had just re-
proached himself for assuming before. Ah, my cousin, what infernal
monsters are these prejudices, which deprave the best hearts and
silence the voice of nature at every moment?
There, my Claire, is how the explanation you had foreseen took
place, the cause of which I could not understand until your letter
informed me. I cannot tell you very well what a revolution has
taken place within me, but since that moment I have changed.
It seems to me that I look with more regret upon the happy time
when I lived tranquil and content in the bosom of my family, and
that I feel the weight of my fault increase along with that of
the blessings it has caused me to lose. Tell me, cruel one! Tell
me if you dare, is the time of love gone, no longer to return?
Ah, do you really see all that is somber and horrible in that dis-
tressing thought? Yet my father’s command is precise; my lover's
danger is certain! Do you know what has happened within me
because of so many contradicting emotions which destroy each
other? A sort of stupidity which renders me almost insensible
and permits me to use neither my passions nor my reason. The mo-
ment, as you have told me, is critical, and I am aware of it. Yet I was
never less capable of acting. Twenty times I have tried to write
my lover; at each line I was ready to faint and could not write two
more. Only you are left for me, my sweet friend; please think,
speak, act for me. I deliver up my fate into your hands; whatever
course you take, I confirm in advance all that you do. ‘To your
friendship I entrust this fatal power over my lover which I have
bought so dear. Part me forever from myself, kill me if I must die,
but do not force me to pierce my heart with my own hand.
Oh my angel! My protectress! What a horrible task I am leaving
to you! Will you have the courage to perform it? Will you find
means to soften its severity? Alas! It is not my heart only that you
must rend. Claire, you know, you know how much he loves me!
I do not even have the consolation of being the most to be
 146 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

pitied. For mercy’s sake! Let my heart speak through your lips, let
yours be affected with the tender compassion of love, and console an
unfortunate man. Tell him a hundred times . . . Ah, tell him. . .
Do you not think, dear friend, that in spite of all prejudices,
all obstacles, all misfortunes, Heaven has made us for each other?
Yes, yes, I am sure of it; we are destined to be united. It is im-
possible for me to lose sight of this prospect; it is impossible
for me to give up the hope which accompanies it. Tell him to guard
himself against discouragement and despair. Do not trouble your-
self exacting in my name love and faithfulness from him; still less
promise him as much from me. Is not such assurance firmly rooted
in our hearts? Do we not feel that they are inseparable and that we
no longer have but one between us? Therefore, only tell him to
hope, and, if fortune persecutes us, to put his trust at least in love;
for I know, my cousin, in one way or another love will compensate
for the evils it has caused us, and however Heaven may dispose of
us, we shall not live separated for a long time.

P.S. After I had written my letter, I went into my mother’s room

and there became so ill that I was compelled to return to my bed.
T even perceived . . . I fear . . . ah, my dear! I quite fear that my
fall yesterday may have some consequence more disastrous than I
had thought. Thus all is finished for me; all my hopes abandon me
at once.

d LETTER LXIV &

From Claire to Monsieur D’Orbe

THIS MORNING, my father gave me an account of the convers

ation
he had with you yesterday. I see with pleasure that everyth
ing is
proceeding toward what you are pleased to call your good
fortune.
I hope, you know, that it will prove to be mine
as well. You have
won my esteem and friendship, and all the more
tender sentiments
which my heart can harbor are yours also. But
do not deceive your-
self in this; as a woman I am a kind of monster, and, I know not by
what caprice of nature, my friendship outweighs
my love. When
LETTER LXIV - FROM CLAIRE TO MONSIEUR D’ORBE 147

I tell you that my Julie is dearer to me than you, you only

laugh, and yet nothing is more true. Julie knows it so well that she
is more jealous in your place than you are, and while you seem
content, she is always finding that I do not love you enough. What
is more, I have such an affection for everyone who is dear to her that
both her lover and you hold almost the same place in my heart, al-
though in different ways. For him I have only friendship, but it is
more intense; for you I think I feel a little love, but it is more calm.
Although all this might seem ambiguous enough to disturb the tran-
quillity of a jealous man, I do not think that you will be very upset
by it.
How far those poor children are from this sweet tranquillity
which we presume to enjoy, and how ill does this contentment be-
come us while our friends are in despair! It is all over; they must
part. This is perhaps the moment of their eternal separation, and
the reason for the sadness for which we reproached them on the day
of the concert was perhaps a presentiment that they were seeing
each other for the last time. However, your friend knows nothing of
his ill fortune. In the security of his heart he still enjoys the happi-
ness he has lost; at the very instant of despair he mentally savors
the shadow of felicity, and like one who is carried off by an unex-
pected death, the wretch thinks of life and does not see the fate
which is about to seize him. Alas! It is from my hand that he must
receive this terrible blow! Oh divine friendship! The only idol of
my soul! Come to inspire me with your pious cruelty. Give me the
courage to be barbarous and to serve you worthily in such a sorrow-
ful duty.
I am depending on you in this case, and I would depend upon
you even if you loved me less, for I know your heart. I know that
you have no need of love’s zeal when humanity pleads. You must
first persuade our friend to come to my house tomorrow morning.
Take care, however, not to warn him of anything. Today I am free
and I shall spend the afternoon with Julie; try to find Lord Bom-
ston and come alone with him to see me at eight o’clock so that we
may together determine on means to persuade the unfortunate man
to leave and to prevent his despair.
I am expecting much from his courage and from our precautions.
I am expecting even more from his love. Julie’s will, the risks
her life and her honor are running are reasons he will not resist.
Whatever may happen, I declare to you that there will be no talk of
our marriage until Julie has peace of mind and that my friend’s
tears will never water the knot which is to unite us. Thus, Mon-
 148 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

sieur, if it is true that you love me, your interest in this case will
second your generosity, and this affair is not so much another’s as
it is also your own.

t+ LETTER LXV *#

From Claire to Julie

ALL HAS BEEN DONE, and in spite of her imprudence my Julie is safe.
The secrets of your heart are buried in the shadow of mystery; you
are again in the midst of your family and your people, cherished,
honored, enjoying a spotless reputation and a universal esteem. Con-
sider and tremble for the risks you have run through shame or love,
by doing too much or too little. Learn to desire no more to
reconcile incompatible sentiments, and praise Heaven, you too
foolish lover or too fearful girl, for good fortune which it reserved
only for you.
I wanted to spare your sorrowing heart the details of this de-
parture, so cruel and so necessary. But you desired to know them, I
promised you should, and I shall keep my word with the same sin-
cerity that is common to us and which never weighs advantage with
good faith. Therefore, read this, dear and wretched friend; read
since you must, but take courage and maintain your resolution.
All the measures which I had formulated and of which I told
you yesterday have been carried out exactly. Returning home, I
found Monsieur d’Orbe and Lord Bomston. I began by declaring to
the latter that we knew of his heroic generosity, and I showed him
how much both of us were affected by it. Next I revealed to them
the powerful reasons we had for your friend’s immediate departure
and the difficulties I foresaw in bringing it about. His Lordship was
perfectly sensible that it was necessary and showed much grief over
the result which his unconsidered zeal had produced. They agreed
that it was important to hasten the departure of your friend, and to
seize the moment of consent in order to forestall any new irresolu-
tion and remove him from the continual danger of delay. I wanted
to charge Monsieur d’Orbe with the task of making the suitable
preparations without your friend’s knowledge, but his Lordship,
LETTER LXV + FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 149

regarding this affair as his own, desired to take care of them. He

promised me that his carriage would be ready this morning at eleven
o'clock, adding that he would accompany it as far as necessary,
and he proposed first to get him away on some other pretext, in
order to tell him the real reason more leisurely. This expedient did
not seem to me sufficiently sincere for us and for our friend, nor did
I want to expose him at a distance from us to the first effects of a
despair which might more easily escape his Lordship’s eyes than
mine. For the same reason I did not accept the proposal he made to
speak alone to him to obtain his consent. I foresaw that this business
would be delicate, and I desired to entrust no one but myself with
it, for I am more certainly acquainted with the sensitive places of
his heart, and among men I know that a harshness always prevails
which a woman can better soften. However, I conceived that the
attentions of his Lordship would not be useless to us in the prepara-
tions. I saw the entire effect that could be produced in a virtuous
heart by the discourse of a sensitive man who thinks himself only a
philosopher, and I knew what warmth the voice of a friend could
give to the arguments of wisdom.
I therefore persuaded Lord Bomston to spend the evening with
him and, without saying anything which might have direct bearing
on his situation, imperceptibly to dispose his mind to stoic courage.
“You who know your Epictetus so well,” I told him, “here or
never is the opportunity to employ it usefully. Distinguish carefully
between apparent advantages and real advantages, between those
which depend on us and those outside our control. At this moment
when he is about to be threatened from without, prove to him that
he alone can give himself pain and that the man who keeps his wis-
dom with him at all times also has his happiness everywhere in his
own power.”
I knew by his answer that this touch of irony, which could not
make him angry, was enough to excite his zeal and that he very
much expected to send me your friend well prepared the next
day. This was all that I had intended, for although basically I
do not value all this verbose philosophy any more than you do,
I am persuaded that an honest man always has some shame at
changing his opinions overnight and at denying in his heart as early
as the next day all that his reason dictated to him the night before.
Monsieur d’Orbe wished also to be in the plan and spend the eve-
ning with them, but I begged him to do nothing of the sort; that
would only have disturbed or restrained the conversation. The in-
terest I have in him does not keep me from seeing that he is not a
 150 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

match for the other two. The masculine turn of thought in strong
minds, which gives them such a peculiar idiom, is a language the
grammar of which he does not know. Leaving them, I thought of
the punch, and fearing anticipated disclosures, I slipped in a word
about it laughingly to his Lordship.
“Be reassured,” he said to me. “I indulge in the habit when I see
no danger in it, but I never make myself slave to it. This concerns
Julie’s honor and perhaps the destiny of a man’s life, of my friend’s
life. I shall drink punch according to my custom, lest I give the
conversation some air of preparation, but this punch will be lemon-
ade, and since he abstains from drinking it he shall not notice it at
all.”
Do you not, my dear, find it quite a mortification to have con-
tracted habits which compel such precautions?
I spent the night in much agitation which was not all on your
account. [The innocent pleasures of our first youth, the sweetness of
an old familiarity, the still closer intimacy between us begun a year
ago because of the difficulty he had in seeing you—all that
burdened my heart with the bitterness of this separation. I felt that
along with half of yourself, I was about to lose a part of my
own existence. I counted the hours uneasily, and at dawn it was not
without dread that I saw the break of the day which was to deter-
mine your fate. I spent the morning thinking over my words and
reflecting upon the impression they could make. Finally, the time
came and I saw your friend enter. He had an uneasy manner and
hurriedly asked me for news of you, for since the day after your
scene with your father he had known you were ill, and Lord Bom-
ston had confirmed to him yesterday that you had not left
your
bed. In order to avoid entering into details on this subject,
I im-
mediately told him that I had left you much improved last
evening,
and I added that he would learn more in a moment by the return
of Hanz whom I had just sent to you. My precaution was useless;
he
asked me a hundred questions about your condition, and
as they
were leading me far from my purpose, I made short answers
and
began in turn to question him.
I began by sounding the condition of his spirit. I found
him seri-
ous, methodical, and ready to put sentiment
into the balance with
reason. ‘hank Heaven, I said to myself, here was my
philosopher
quite prepared. Nothing now remained but to put him
to the test.
Though the ordinary custom of announcing sad news
is by degrees,
my knowledge of his ardent imagination which at
a word carries
him to extremes decided me to follow a contrary
course, and I pre-
LETTER LXV + FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 151

ferred to overwhelm him at once in order to administer consolations

later rather than needlessly to multiply his griefs, giving him a thou-
sand instead of one. Assuming therefore a more serious tone and
looking at him fixedly, I said to him, “My friend, do you know the
limits of courage and virtue in a strong mind, and do you believe
that to renounce the person one loves requires an effort beyond the
powers of humanity?”
At that instant he started up like a madman; then clasping his
hands together and striking them against his forehead, he cried, “I
understand, Julie is dead. Julie is dead!” he repeated in a tone that
made me shudder. “I know it by your misleading precautions,
by your vain circumspection which only makes my death slower and
more cruel.”
Although alarmed by such an unexpected emotion, I soon guessed
the cause of it, and for the first time I saw how the news of your ill-
ness, Lord Bomston’s moral reflections, this morning’s meeting, his
evaded questions, those I had just put to him—all had managed to
give him a false alarm. I also saw clearly what advantage I could
draw from his mistake by leaving him in it for a few moments, but
I could not bring myself to that cruelty. The thought of a loved
one’s death is so frightful that anything else is a kind substitute,
and I hastened to profit from this advantage.
“Perhaps you will see her no more,” I told him, ‘“‘but she lives and
she loves you. Ah! If Julie were dead, could Claire have anything to
say to you? Thank Heaven which, unfortunate as you are, spares
you from the evils which might have crushed you.”
He was so astonished, so stricken, so distracted, that after having
made him sit down again, I had time to tell him the details in se-
quence of all that it was necessary that he know, and as best as I
could I asserted the worthiness of Lord Bomston’s conduct, in order
to give his noble heart some diversion from its sorrow by means of
the appeal of gratitude.
“That, my dear,” I continued, “is the actual state of things. Julie
is at the edge of the abyss, ready to be overwhelmed by public dis-
grace, by her family’s indignation, by the violence of an enraged fa-
ther, and by her own despair. The danger increases every moment.
Whether in her father’s hand or in her own, at every moment of her
life the dagger is within an inch of her heart. Only one way is left
to prevent all these misfortunes, and this way depends upon you
alone. The fate of your lover is in your hands. See if you have the
courage to save her by leaving her, since she is no longer permitted
to see you, or if you prefer to be the author and the witness of her
 152 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ruin and her disgrace. After having done everything for you, she
will see what your heart can do for her. Is it surprising that her
health has succumbed to her sorrows? You are uneasy about her
life; know that it depends on you.”
He listened without interrupting me, but as soon as he compre-
hended what was involved, I saw disappear that animated gesture,
that furious look, that frightened but nervous and impetuous man-
ner which he had before. A somber veil of sadness and consterna-
tion covered his face; his dull eye and his gloomy countenance be-
trayed the dejection of his heart. He hardly had the strength to
open his lips to answer me.
“I must leave,” he said to me in a tone that someone else would
have thought tranquil. “Well, I shall leave. Have I not lived long
enough?”
“No, not so,” I instantly replied, “you must live for her who loves
you. Have you forgotten that her life depends on yours?”
“Then we should not be separated,” he added immediately. “She
could and still can elope with me.”
I pretended not to hear these last words and was trying to cheer
him up with a few hopes to which his heart remained closed when
Hanz came back and brought me good news of your health. In the
moment of joy he felt over this, he cried, “Ah, may she live! May
she be happy . . . if it is possible. I wish only to say my last farewell
toher . . . and I shall leave.”
“Do you not know,” I said, “that she is not permitted to see you?
Alas! Your farewells are said, and you are already separated! Your
lot will be less cruel when you are farther from her. At least you
will have the consolation of having made her secure. Fly today, this
instant. Be fearful that even such a great sacrifice may be too late.
Tremble lest even yet you cause the ruin of her to whose security
you have devoted yourself.”
“What!” he said to me with a kind of furor, “should I leave with-
out seeing her again? What! Should I see her no more? No, no, we
shall both perish if we must. I know she will not think it painful to
die with me. But I shall see her, whatever happens. I shall leave my
heart and my life at her feet, before I am thus torn from myself.”
It was not difficult for me to show him the madness and the cru-
elty of such a project. But this “What, shall I see her no more!”
which he repeated ceaselessly in a more sorrowful voice seemed to
require at least some consolations for the future. “Why,” I said to
him, “do you imagine your misfortunes worse than they are? Why
do you renounce hopes that Julie herself has not lost? Do you think
LETTER LXV : FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 153
that she could thus part from you if she thought it might be forever?
No, my friend, you ought to know her heart better. You ought to
know how much she prefers her love to her life. I fear, I fear too
much (I added these words, I confess) that she will soon prefer it to
everything. Believe, then, that she has hopes, since she consents to
live. Believe that the precautions which her prudence dictates have
you in view more than it may seem, and that she is more careful of
herself on your account than her own.”
Then I took out your last letter, and showing him the tender
hopes of that deluded girl who believes her lover gone, I cheered
his with this sweet warmth. Those few lines seemed to distill a salu-
tary balm into his irritated wound. I watched his looks soften and
his eyes moisten; I saw tenderness gradually succeed despair. But
your last words, so moving, when your heart makes you say “We
shall not live separated for a long time,’ made him burst into tears.
“No Julie, no my Julie,” he said raising his voice and kissing the
letter, “we shall not live separated for a long time. Heaven will
unite either our destinies on earth or our hearts in the eternal rest-
ing place.”
This was the state of mind I had hoped for. His dry and sullen
grief disturbed me. I should not have allowed him to leave in that
disposition of mind, but as soon as I saw him weep and heard your
cherished name come tenderly from his lips, I had no more fear for
his life, for nothing is less tender than despair. At that instant he
drew from the emotion of his heart an objection which I had not
foreseen. He spoke to me of the condition you suspected yourself
in, swearing that he would rather die a thousand times than aban-
don you to all the dangers that were about to threaten you. I took
care not to tell him of your accident; I simply told him that your
expectation had again been mistaken and that there was no longer
any hope.
“Thus,” he said to me, sighing, “there will remain no living
memorial of my good fortune. It has disappeared like a dream that
was never real.”
It remained for me to execute the last part of your commission,
and I did not think that, after the intimacy in which you have lived,
neither preparation nor mystery was necessary for that. I should not
even have shunned a little argument over this slight point in order
to avoid the one which could have risen again over that of our
whole conversation. I reproached him for his negligence in the
care of his affairs. I told him that you feared that for a long time
he has not been attentive to them and that until he is in a better
 154 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

position you ordered him to take care of himself for your sake, to
attend to his needs better, and for this purpose to take the small
present which I had to give to him from you. He neither seemed hu-
miliated by this proposal nor pretended to make an affair of it. He
said to me simply that you well knew that nothing came to him
from you which he might not receive with joy, but that your pre-
caution was superfluous and that a little house in Grandson which
he had just sold,* the remainder of his small inheritance, had fur-
nished him with more money than he had ever had in his life.
“Besides,” he added, “I have a few talents from which I can draw
my subsistence anywhere. I shall be only too happy to find in their
exercise some diversion from my misfortunes, and since I have more
closely seen the use to which Julie puts her superfluous money, I
regard it as the sacred treasure of widows and orphans, from whom
humanity does not permit me to take anything.”
I reminded him of his journey to the Valais, your letter, and
the preciseness of your orders. ““The same reasons hold good now,” I
said.
“The same!” he interrupted in a tone of indignation. “The pen-
alty then for my refusal was never to see her again. Let her there-
fore permit me to stay and I will accept. If I obey, why will she pun-
ish me? If I refuse, what worse will she do to me? . . . The same!”
he repeated with impatience. “Then our intimacy was just begin-
ning. Now it is at an end. Perhaps I shall be parted from her for-
ever. There is no longer any connection between us. We shall be
strangers to one another.”
He pronounced these last words with such a shrinking of the
heart that I trembled to see him fall back into the state of mind
from which I had had so much trouble extricating him.
“You are a child,” I affected an air of gaiety to say to him. “You
still need a tutor, and I shall be yours. I am going to take charge of
this, and in order to dispose of it properly in the business we shall
engage in together, I desire to be informed of all your affairs.”
I tried thus to turn aside his distressing ideas by that of a familiar
correspondence to be kept up between us, and his simple soul,
which seeks only to cling, so to speak, to whatever is near you, easily

*T have a little trouble in understanding how this lover, without a family name,
who it will be hereafter said is not yet twenty-four, could sell a house,
not
having reached his majority. These letters are so full of like absurdities
that I
shall speak no more of them; it is enough to have given notice
of them.
[Rousseau]
At that time in Switzerland, the legal age of manhood was
twenty-five:
[Transfator’s note]
LETTER LXV - FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 155

accepted the diversion. We then settled upon addresses for our let-
ters, and as these plans could only be agreeable to him, I prolonged
their details until the arrival of Monsicur d’Orbe, who signaled to
me that everything was ready.
Your friend readily understood what was meant; immediately he
desired to write you, but I took care not to permit him. I foresaw
that an excess of tenderness would overcome his heart too much
and that he would hardly get to the middle of his letter when we
would have no more means of making him leave.
“All delays are dangerous,” I said to him. “‘Hasten to arrive at the
first stop where you can write her at your leisure.”
While saying this, I motioned to Monsieur d’Orbe; I went for-
ward to your friend, and, my heart heavy with sobs, I pressed my
face to his. I no longer knew what was happening; tears clouded my
sight, my head began to spin, and it was time for my part to be
finished.
A moment after, I heard them hurriedly descend. I went out onto
the landing to look after them. My distress needed only this last
blow. I saw the madman throw himself onto his knees in the middle
of the stairs, kissing the steps a thousand times, and Monsieur
d’Orbe could hardly wrest him from that cold stone to which he
clung with his whole body, heaving long sighs. I felt mine ready to
burst forth in spite of myself, and I went back in quickly, for fear of
making a scene in front of the whole house.
Some moments later, Monsieur d’Orbe returned, holding his
handkerchief to his eyes. He told me that it was done, that they
were on their way. Upon arriving home, your friend found the car-
riage at his door. Lord Bomston was waiting there also; he ran up
to him and clasped him to his breast.
“Come, unfortunate man,” he said to him in an emotional tone,
“come pour out your sorrows into this heart which loves you. Come,
you will perhaps feel that all on earth is not lost when you have
found a friend such as I.”
Immediately after, he helped him into the carriage with a vigor-
ous gesture, and they left clasping each other tightly by the arm.
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 t+ LETTER I *&

To Julie*

A HUNDRED TIMES I have picked up and flung down my pen. I hesi-

tate at the first word. I do not know what tone I ought to assume, I
do not know where to begin, and yet it is to Julie that I would write!
Ah, wretch that I am! What has happened to me? The time, then, is
no more when a thousand delicious sentiments flowed from my pen
like an inexhaustible torrent! Those sweet moments of confidence
and effusion of hearts are gone. We live no longer for each other,
we are no longer the same persons, and I no longer know to whom I
write. Will you condescend to receive my letters? Will you conde-
scend to read them? Will you find them sufficiently reserved, suf-
ficiently circumspect? Dare I preserve in them our former familiar-
ity? Dare I speak of an extinguished or disdained passion, and am
I not to be more distant than on the first day I wrote you? What a
difference—oh Heaven—between those days, so charming and so
sweet, and my frightful present misery! Alas! I was beginning to
live and I sunk into nothing. The hope of life was warming my
heart; now I have nothing before me but the prospect of death,
and three years have circumscribed the happiness of my life. Ah,
would that I had ended them before I outlived myself! Would that
I had followed my first feelings just after those rapid moments of
delight, when I no longer saw anything in life worthy of prolonging
it! Without a doubt, either I should have terminated it after those
three years or those moments should have been removed from that
period. It is preferable never to have tasted happiness than to taste

*I think I hardly need to mention that in this second part and the one which
follows it, the two separated lovers do nothing but speak irrationally and
deliriously; the poor creatures no longer have any presence of mind. [Rousseau]
 160 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

it and lose it. If I had been exempted from that fatal interval, if I
had evaded that first look which made another being of me, I
should still be in possession of my reason, I should still discharge a
man’s duties, and I should perhaps sow some virtues during my
insipid career. A moment’s mistake has changed everything. My eye
dared to look upon what it was not supposed to see. That spectacle
has finally produced its inevitable result. After having been grad-
ually led to ruin, I am now only a fool whose mind is deranged, a
cowardly slave without strength and without courage who ignomini-
ously drags his chain and his despair.
Idle delusions of a distracted mind! False and misleading desires,
immediately disclaimed by the heart which has formulated them!
What good is it for real ills to invent imaginary remedies which we
should reject when they are offered us? Ah! Who will ever know
love, see you, and be able to believe that there may be any possible
felicity which I would purchase at the expense of my first passion?
No, no, let Heaven keep its blessings and leave me, along with my
misery, the remembrance of my past good fortune. I prefer the pleas-
ures which are in my memory and the regrets which rend my soul
than happiness forever without my Julie. Come adored image,
make complete a heart which beats only for you. Follow me in my
exile, console me in my misery, cheer and sustain my extinguish
ed
hope. This unfortunate heart will forever be your inviolable sanctu-
ary, from which neither fate nor society can ever remove you. If
I
am lost to happiness, I am not to the love which makes me worthy
of it. This love is invincible, like the charms which gave
rise to it. It
is based on the firm foundation of merit and virtue; it cannot
perish
in an immortal soul. It no longer needs hope as a support, and
the
memory of the past will sustain it for eternity.
But you, Julie, oh you who once knew what it is to love!
How can
your tender heart have forgotten life? How can this holy flame
have
been extinguished in your pure soul? How can you have
lost the
taste for those heavenly pleasures which you alone were capable
of
feeling and inspiring? You drive me away pitilessly, you banish
me
with shame, you give me up to my despair, and you do not
see, in
the error which misleads you, that by making me miserable
you are
depriving yourself of your life’s happiness. Ah Julie, believe
me, you
will look vainly for another heart akin to yours! A thousan
d will
adore you, no doubt; mine alone knew how
to love you.
Answer me, now, my deceived or deceiving lover,
what has be-
come of those projects formed with such secrecy? Where
are those
vain expectations with which you so often ensnared my
credulous
LETTER II - FROM LORD BOMSTON TO CLAIRE 161

simplicity? Where is that holy and desired union, the sweet object
of so many ardent sighs, with which your pen and your lips used to
flatter my hopes? Alas! On the faith of your promises, I dared aspire
to that holy name of husband, and thought myself already the hap-
piest of men. Tell me, cruel one! Did you deceive me only to make
my sorrow finally more intense and my humiliation more profound?
Have I occasioned my misfortune through my own fault? Have I
failed in obedience, in docility, in discretion? Did you see me so
weak in my desires to deserve to be dismissed, or else preferring my
passionate desires to your supreme will? I have done everything to
please you and you renounce me! You were entrusted with my
happiness and you destroyed me! Ungrateful one, give me an ac-
count of the treasure I confided to you. Give me an account of my-
self, after having seduced my heart in that supreme felicity that you
showed me and now take from me. Heavenly angels, I might have
scorned your lot! I might have been the happiest of beings...
Alas! I am no longer anything. One instant has deprived me of
everything. Instantaneously, I have passed from the summit of pleas-
ure to eternal remorse. I am still reaching after the happiness which
escapes me . . . I still reach after it and lose it forever! . . . Ah, if
I could believe that! If the vestiges of a vain hope did not sustain
. . . Oh crags of Meillerie, which my wandering eye measured so
many times, why did you not assist my despair! I should have less
regretted leaving life before I had experienced its value.

4% LETTER II *

From Lord Bomston to Claire

WE HAVE ARRIVED in Besancon, and my first concern is to give you

news of our journey. It passed, if not peacefully, at least without
accident, and your friend is as healthy as possible for a man so sick
at heart. He would even like to affect a kind of outward tranquillity.
He is ashamed of his condition and is much restrained in my pres-
ence, but everything betrays his secret distress; and if I pretend to
be deceived, it is to let him grapple with it himself and thus occupy
one part of his soul’s faculties in repressing the effect of the other.
 162 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

The first day he was extremely dejected. Seeing that the speed of
our journey was increasing his sorrow, I cut it short. He did not
speak to me at all, nor I to him; ill-timed condolence only embit-
ters violent afflictions. Indifference and coldness easily find words,
but sadness and silence are in those cases the true language of
friendship. I began yesterday to perceive the first sparks of the anger
which infallibly succeeds this lethargy; at dinner, we had been
stopped scarcely a quarter of an hour when he approached me with
an air of impatience.
“Why do we delay our departure?” he said to me with a bitter
smile. “Why are we staying for one moment so near to her?”
In the evening, he affected to speak a great deal, without saying
a word about Julie. He began again to ask questions I had already
answered ten times. He wanted to know if we were already on
French soil, and then he asked if we would soon reach Vevey. The
first thing he did at each stop was to begin some letter which a mo-
ment later he tore up or crumpled. I have saved two or three of
these fragments from the fire, by which you will be able to get an
imperfect notion of the state of his mind. However, I think he has
succeeded in writing a complete letter.
The outburst of passion which these first symptoms threaten is
easily foreseen, but I could not say what its result or duration will
be, for that depends upon a combination of the man’s character, the
nature of his passion, the circumstances which can arise—a thou-
sand things which no human knowledge can determine. As for me,
I can answer for his rage but not for his despair, for do as we will,
every man is always the master of his life.
I flatter myself, however, that he will have respect for his person
and my attentions, but for that I rely less upon the zeal of friend-
ship, which will not be spared, than upon the character of his pas-
sion and that of his mistress. A soul can hardly occupy itself very
much and for a long time with one object without contracting the
dispositions related to that object. Julie’s extreme sweetness must
temper the intensity of the passion she inspires, and I do not doubt
either that love, from a man of such lively passions as he, makes
her
a little more ardent than she would naturally be without him.
I dare also to depend upon his heart; it is made for struggling
and conquering. Such a love as his is not so much a weakness as
a
strength badly exerted. An ardent and unhappy passion is for
a
time, for always perhaps, capable of smothering some of his facul-
ties, but it is itself a proof of their excellence and of the use he could
4
LETTER II -* FROM LORD BOMSTON TO CLAIRE 163

make of them in cultivating wisdom; for the highest reason is only

attained through the same power of the soul which gives rise to
great passions, and we serve philosophy worthily only with the same
ardor that we feel for a mistress.
Be sure, charming Claire, that I am no less interested than you
in the fate of this unfortunate couple, not out of a sentiment of
pity, which can only be a weakness, but out of a concern for justice
and order which desires everyone to be disposed of in the manner
most advantageous to himself and to society. These two beautiful
souls left nature’s hand made for each other. It is in a sweet union,
it is in the midst of happiness, free to display their talents and ex-
ercise their virtues, that they might enlighten the world with their
example. Why must an absurd prejudice reverse eternal directions
and overturn the concord of thinking beings? Why does the vanity
of a cruel father thus hide their light under a bushel and cause ten-
der and gracious beings to grieve tearfully, those who were born to
dry the tears of others? Is not the conjugal tie the freest as well as
the holiest of engagements? Yes, all the laws which obstruct it are
unjust; all fathers who presume to form or break it are tyrants.
That chaste, natural knot is subject neither to a sovereign’s power
nor to paternal authority, but only to the authority of our common
Father, who has command over hearts and who, decreeing their
union, can make them love each other.[10]
You are more fortunate, charming Claire; you have a father who
does not pretend to know wherein your happiness consists better
than you. Perhaps it is neither through great insight into wisdom
nor through an excessive tenderness that he thus leaves you mis-
tress of your destiny, but what does the cause matter if the effect is
the same and if, in the freedom he allows you, indolence supplies
the place of reason? Far from an abuse of this liberty, the choice you
have made at twenty would have the approval of the wisest father.
Your heart, absorbed by an unparalleled friendship, has had little
room for the fires of love. For them you substitute all which can
make up for that deficiency in marrriage. Though less a lover than
a friend, if you are not the most tender wife, you will be the most
virtuous, and this union which wisdom has created is to increase
with age and last as long as wisdom itself. The heart’s impulse is
blinder, but it is more irresistible; the way to ruin is to put oneself
under the necessity of resisting it. Happy are those whom love
unites as reason would have done and who have no obstacle to sur-
mount or prejudices to combat! Such would our two lovers be with-
 164 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

out the unjust resistance of a stubborn father. Such might they still
be in spite of him, if one of the two were well advised.
The example of you and Julie equally shows that it is only for
the parties themselves to judge if they suit each other. If love is not
predominant, reason alone will make the choice; that is your case.
If love prevails, nature has already chosen; that is Julie’s case. Such
is nature’s sacred law which man is not permitted to transgress,
which he never transgresses with impunity, and which considera-
tion for positions and ranks can repeal only at the cost of unhappi-
ness and crime.
Although winter is coming on and I have to get to Rome, I shall
not leave the friend I have under my protection until I see his soul
in a stable condition on which I may rely. He is a treasure dear to
me because of his worthiness and because you have entrusted him
to my care. If I cannot make him happy, I shall try at least to make
him prudent and bear the evils of humanity like a man. I have de-
termined to spend two weeks here with him, during which I hope
that we shall receive news from Julie and you and that you will both
help me to put some balm on the wounds of this broken heart
which cannot yet listen to reason unless it speaks the language of
sentiment.
I am enclosing a letter for your friend. Do not confide it, I beg
you, to any messenger, but give it to her yourself.

Fragments Attached to the Preceding Letter

(1)
Why could I not see you before departing? Did you fear that I might
die while taking leave of you? Pitiful heart! Be reassured. I am
well ... . I do not suffer’... .T am still alive. . 0 cau thinking
of you...I am thinking of the time I was dear
to you .
my heart is a little oppressed . . . the carriage makes
me giddy
- . - Lam depressed . . . I shall not be able to write you
long to-
day. Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall have more Strength ...or I
shall no longer need CHiNeh pein

(2)
Where are these horses dragging me with such
speed? Where is
this man who calls himself my friend leading me with
such zeal? Is
LETTER III - FROM LORD BOMSTON TO JULIE 165

it far from you, Julie? Is it by your command? Is it to places where

you will not be? ... Ah foolish girl! ... I examine the road
which I am traveling so rapidly. Where have I come from? Where
am I going? And why so much speed? Are you afraid, cruel ones,
that I will not run fast enough to my ruin? Oh friendship! Oh
love! Is this your contrivance? Are these your kindnesses? . . .

(3)
Have you well consulted your heart in driving me away so abruptly?
Could you, tell me Julie, could you renounce forever . . . no, no,
that tender heart loves me, I am sure of it. In spite of fortune, in
spite of itself, it will love me until death .. . I see it, you gave
way to persuasions* . . . what eternal remorse you are preparing
for yourself! . . . alas! it will be too late . .. what, could you
forget ... what, I could have misunderstood you! ... Ah,
think of yourself, think of me, think of . . . listen, there is still
time . . . you drove me away cruelly. I am fleeing faster than the
wind . . . Say a word, one word, and I shall return quicker than
lightning. Say one word and we shall be united forever. We must be
. we shall be . . . Ah! I complain to the winds! . . . and yet
I am fleeing; I am going to live and die far from her . . . live far
from her! .. .

+ LETTER III #

From Lord Bomston to Julie

YOUR COUSIN will give you news of your friend. Besides, I think he
has written you by this post. First satisfy your impatience with that
letter, so that you can next read this one calmly, for I warn you that
its subject will demand your whole attention.
I know men, I have lived a great deal in a few years, I have ac-
quired much experience at my own expense, and it is the path of
passions that has led me to philosophy. But of all I have observed

* The sequel shows that these suspicions fell upon Lord Bomston and that
Claire applied them to herself. [Rousseau]
 166 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

until now, I have never seen anything so extraordinary as you and

your lover. It is not that either of you have any peculiar character-
istic which at first glance can be distinguished, and it could be quite
possible that this difficulty in differentiating you might cause a su-
perficial observer to mistake you for ordinary souls. But that it is
impossible to differentiate you is actually what distinguishes you,
and the features of the common model, some of which are always
lacking in every individual, are all equally clear in you. In like
manner, each print of an engraving has its particular defects which
furnish it with character, but if one happens to be perfect, though it
may be found beautiful at first glance, it must be considered for a
long time for its perfection to be recognized. The first time I saw
your lover, I was struck by a new sentiment, which only increased
from day to day in proportion as reason justified it. In respect to
you, it was completely otherwise, and the sentiment you inspired
was so intense that I was mistaken about its nature. This impression
resulted not so much from the difference between the sexes as from a
character still more stamped by perfection than a heart, even one
independent of love, cam know. I well see what you would be with-
out your friend; I do not see in the same way what he would be
without you. Many men may resemble him, but there is only one
Julie in the world. After an injury to you for which I shall never
pardon myself, your letter arrived to enlighten me about my
real
sentiments. I realized that I was not jealous nor, consequently,
in
love; I realized that you were too good for me. You require
the first
fruits of the heart, and mine would not be worthy of you.
Since that moment I have taken a tender interest in
your mu-
tual happiness which shall not be extinguished. Thinki
ng to re-
move all obstacles, I took an indiscreet step with regard
to your
father, the ill success of which is only one more
reason that my zeal
should be inspired. Condescend to hear me, and
I can still make
amends for all the pain I have caused you,
Examine your heart carefully, oh Julie, and see if it
is possible
for you to extinguish the flame with which it is
devoured. There
was a time, perhaps, when you could stop its progres
s, but if a pure
and chaste Julie nevertheless fell from innocence,
how will she be
redeemed after her fall? How will she resist
triumphant love, armed
with the dangerous memory of all past pleasu
res? Young lover, de-
ceive yourself no longer about it, and renoun
ce the self-reliance
which seduced you. You are lost, if you
must still battle with love;
you will be disgraced and conquered, and
the sense of your shame
will gradually stifle all your virtues, Love has
insinuated too deeply
LETTER III - FROM LORD BOMSTON TO JULIE 167

into the substance of your soul for you ever to be able to drive it
out; like a corrosive acid, it intensifies and penetrates all your fea-
tures. You shall never efface love’s strong impression without at the
same time effacing all the exquisite sentiments which you received
from nature, and when you will no longer be in love, you will have
nothing left deserving regard. Therefore, what must you do now,
being able no more to alter the condition of your heart? Only one
thing, Julie. You must make it legitimate. For that I am going to
propose the only method which is left for you. Profit from it, while
there is still time; restore to innocence and to virtue the exercise of
that sublime reason with which Heaven endowed you, or be fear-
ful of forever debasing the most precious of its gifts.
In Yorkshire I have a rather considerable estate, which was for a
long time the seat of my ancestors. The mansion house is old, but
good and comfortable; the countryside is solitary, but pleasant and
variegated. The river Ouse, which runs through the end of the park,
presents both a charming prospect to the view and a means of trans-
portation convenient for provisions. The income from the land is
enough for the honest upkeep of the master and could double
under his supervision. Hateful prejudices have no access into this
happy country. The peaceable inhabitant there still preserves the
simple manners of earlier times, and one finds there a likeness of
the people of the Valais as described by your friend’s pen with
such affecting touches. This estate is yours, Julie, if you deign to
live on it with him, and it is there together that you could fulfill all
the tender hopes with which the letter I speak of concludes.
Come, unique pattern for true lovers. Come, charming and faith-
ful couple, and take possession of a place made to serve as the ref-
uge of love and of innocence. Come and there, in the presence
of God and man, tie the sweet knot which unites you. Come and
with the example of your virtues do honor to a country in which
they will be worshipped and simple people will be prone to imi-
tate them. In this tranquil place, may you be able to enjoy forever,
with the sentiments which unite you, the happiness of pure souls.
May Heaven there bless your chaste passions with children who re-
semble you. May your days be prolonged there in respectable old
age and be terminated at last peacefully in the arms of your chil-
to
dren. May posterity, perusing with secret delight that monument
“Here
conjugal felicity, one day say in the tenderness of its heart,
was the refuge of innocence; here was the home of two lovers.”
l
Your destiny is in your hands, Julie. Carefully weigh the proposa
examin e only the main point, for as to the
I am making to you and
 168 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

rest, I charge myself beforehand with irrevocably engaging your

friend in the pledge I am making. I charge myself also with the
security of your departure and with attending, along with him, to
that of your person until your arrival. Once there, you can immedi-
ately be married publicly without difficulty, for among us a girl of
marriageable age has no need of another’s consent to dispose of her-
self. Our wise laws do not abrogate those of nature, and if from this
pleasant harmony some problems result, they are much fewer than
those which it prevents. I have left my valet at Vevey, a man to be
trusted, brave, prudent, and faithful in every event. You will easily
be able to consult with him by word of mouth or in writing with
the help of Regianino, without the latter knowing anything of the
affair. When it is time, we shall set out to join you, and you will
not leave your father’s house except under the protection of your
husband.
I leave you to your reflections, but, I repeat, be fearful of the error
of prejudice and the seduction of scruples which often lead to vice
along the road of honor. I foresee what will happen to you if you
re-
ject my offers. The tyranny of an obstinate father will plunge
you
into the abyss, which you will recognize only after your fall.
Your
extreme gentleness sometimes degenerates into timidity; you
will
be sacrificed to the chimerical distinction of rank.* You will
be
forced to contract an alliance disavowed by your own heart.
Public
approval will incessantly be contradicted by the cry of your
con-
science. You will be respected but contemptible. It is preferab
le to
be forgotten but virtuous.

P.S. In doubt about your decision, I am writing you

without your
friend’s knowledge, for fear that a refusal on your part
might suc-
ceed in at once destroying all the effects of my care.

* The chimerical distinction of rank! This is an English

lord who is speaking
in this way! Must not all this be fictitious? Reader,
what do you say about it?
[Rousseau]
LETTER IV - FROM JULIE TO CLAIRE 169

e& LETTER IV *
From Julie to Claire

OH, MY DEAR! What distress you left me in last night, and what a
night I have spent pondering that fatal letter! No, never did a more
dangerous temptation worry my heart, never did I experience such
disturbance, and never was I more at a loss to quiet it. Formerly
some light of wisdom and reason directed my will; in every per-
plexing occasion, I would first discern the most honest course and
follow it immediately. Now, debased and continually overcome, I
can only fluctuate between contending passions. My frail heart has
now no other choice but between its foibles, and such is my deplora-
ble blindness that if by chance I succeed in following the best
course, my choice will not be directed by virtue and I shall feel no
less remorse than if I followed the worse. You know the husband
my father has determined for me; you know what bonds love has im-
posed on me. Would I be virtuous? Obedience and faithfulness im-
pose opposite duties upon me. Would I follow the inclination of my
heart? Whom shall I favor, my lover or my father? Alas, listening
to love or to nature, I cannot avoid driving either one or the other
to despair. Sacrificing myself to duty, I cannot avoid committing a
and whatever course I take, I am forced to die both un-
crime,
happy and guilty.
Ah! Dear and tender friend, you who were ever my only resource
and who have so many times saved me from death and despair, think
of the present horrible state of my mind and see if your helpful con-
your
sideration was ever more necessary! You know how I listen to
opinions; you know how I follow your advice; you have just seen
the counsel
how, at the expense of my life’s happiness, I can defer to
Pity, then, the dejection to which you have reduced
of friendship.
me; put an end to it, since you have begun; do duty for my crest-
you.
fallen spirits; think for her who no longer thinks but through
loves you; you know it better than I.
Lastly, read this heart which
since I no longer
Teach me, then, what I desire and decide for me,
which
have the strength with which to desire nor the reason with
to decide.
 170 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Read over the letter from that generous Englishman; read it a

thousand times, my Angel. Ah! Be affected by the charming picture
of happiness which love, peace, and virtue can still promise me!
Sweet and enchanting union of souls! Inexpressible delights, even
in the midst of remorse! Heavens! What could they be to my heart
in the midst of conjugal fidelity? What! Could happiness and in-
nocence be still within my power? Oh, I could expire for love and
joy between an adored husband and the dear pledges of his tender-
ness! . . . But I hesitate for one moment, and I do not fly to
atone for my fault in the arms of him who caused me to commit it.
And I delay becoming a virtuous wife and chaste mother. . . . Oh
that my parents might see me raised from my debasement! That
they might witness the way I should perform in my turn the sacred
duties that they have performed for me! ... But mine toward
them? Ungrateful and unnatural daughter, who will perform those
duties for them while you forget them? Is it by plunging a dagger
into the heart of a mother that you prepare to become one your-
self? Will she who dishonors her family teach her children to honor
her? Unworthy object of the blind fondness of a doting father and
mother, abandon them to regret for having given you birth, heap
their old age with sorrow and shame... and enjoy, if you can,
a happiness purchased at this price.
My God! What horrors surround me! To leave my country
fur-
tively, dishonor my family, abandon at once father, mother,
friends,
relatives, and you! You, my sweet friend! You, the darling of my
heart! You from whom since my childhood I can scarcely
remain
parted for a single day. To flee from you, to leave you, to
lose you,
to see you no more! ... Ah no! May never . . . what
torments
rend your unfortunate friend! At once she senses all
the evil
which she must choose, without the consolation of any of
the good
which will remain. Alas, I am bewildered. So many struggle
s sur-
pass my strength and disturb my reason. I am losing
both my cour-
age and my wits. I have no further hope except in you
alone. Either
decide for me or allow me to die.
LETTER V - RESPONSE 171

4 LETTER V &

Response

YOUR PERPLEXITY is only too well founded, my dear Julie. I foresaw

it but could not prevent it. I feel it and cannot relieve it, and what
is worse in your situation is that no one can extricate you except
yourself, When it is a matter of prudence, friendship may come to
the aid of a disturbed soul; when a choice must be made between
good and evil, mistaken passion may be overruled by disinterested
advice. But in this case, whatever course you take, nature both
authorizes and condemns it, reason both blames and approves it,
duty either is silent or contradicts itself. The consequences from
both courses are equally to be feared; you can neither remain un-
decided nor decide wisely. You have only evils to choose between,
and your heart alone is the judge of them. As for me, the impor-
tance of your deliberation frightens me and its result saddens me.
Whatever destiny you choose, it will still be unworthy of you, and
being able neither to point out to you an agreeable course of action
nor to conduct you to true happiness, I do not have the courage to
decide your destiny. This is the first refusal you ever received from
your friend, and I know indeed by what it is costing me that it will
be the last; but I should betray you by consenting to direct you in
a case in which reason itself imposes silence and in which the only
rule to follow is to listen to your own inclination.
con-
Do not be unjust toward me, my sweet friend, and do not
some circums pect friends
demn me too soon. I know that there are
themselves, refuse advice in difficult
who, fearing to compromise
their friends.
cases, and whose reserve increases with the peril of
capable of those
Ah! You will know if this heart which loves you is
g you in your affairs,
timid precautions! Allow me, instead of advisin
to speak for a moment of mine.
all who are
Have you never noticed, my Angel, to what degree
and a mother may
near you become attached to you? That a father
to wonder at; that an
cherish an only daughter is not, I know, much
girl is no more ex-
ardent young man is inflamed by a charming
a man as cold as Monsieur de
traordinary. But that at a mature age
 ee LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Woimar may by seeing you become tender for the first time in his
life; that a whole family may dote unanimously on you; that you
may be dear to my father, a man with so little sensibility, as much
as and more, perhaps, than his own children are; that friends, ac-
quaintances, servants, neighbors, and the entire village may adore
you unanimously and take the most tender interest in you—all
that, my dear, is a less likely coincidence which would not have oc-
curred if there were not in your person some particular reason. Do
you know what this reason is? It is neither your beauty, nor your
wit, nor your grace, nor anything of all that known as the talent
of pleasing. It is, rather, that tender heart and that sweetness of af-
fection which is matchless; it is the talent of loving, my child, which
makes you loved. One can resist everything except benevolence, and
there is no surer means of acquiring the affection of others than by
giving them your own. A thousand women are more beautiful than
you; several have as many graces. Only you have, along with these
graces, an indefinably more seductive quality which not only pleases
but affects and ravishes every heart. One feels that your heart asks
only to give itself, and the delightful sentiment which it is looking
for comes in turn to look for it.
You see with surprise, for example, the incredible affection of Lord
Bomston for your friend. You see his zeal for your happiness. With
wonder, you receive his generous offers; you attribute them to his
virtue alone, and my Julie is affected! An error, a mistake, charm-
ing cousin! God forbid that I should diminish his Lordship’s be-
neficence or that I should disparage his great heart. But believe me,
this zeal, wholly disinterested as it is, would be less ardent if under
the same circumstances he had to do with other people. It is your
and your friend’s invincible influence which, without his perceiv-
ing it even, determines him with such force and makes him do
through affection what he thinks he is only doing through gener-
osity.
That is what must happen to all souls of a certain temper. They
transform others into their own likeness, so to speak. They have a
sphere of influence in which nothing resists them. It is impossible
to know them without wishing to imitate them, and from their
sublime height they attract all who are about them. It is for that
reason, my dear, that neither you nor your friend will perhaps ever
know mankind, for you will see them much more as you fashion
them than as they would be in themselves. You will lead the way
for all who live with you. They will flee from you or become like
4
LETTER V + RESPONSE 173

you, and perhaps you will meet with no one in the world similar to
all those whom you have seen.
Let us turn now to me, cousin; though I have an opposite tem-
perament, the same blood, the same age, and above all a perfect
conformity of tastes and moods have united us since childhood.

Congiunti eran gl’ alberghi,

Ma pit congiunti i cori:
Conforme era I|’etate,
Ma ’] pensier pit: conforme.
Tasso

Our homes were close by,

But closer were our hearts:
Our ages were matched,
But our thoughts matched more perfectly.

What do you think it is that has produced in her who has spent
her life with you this charming influence which is felt by everyone
who comes near you? Do you think it can be only an ordinary con-
nection between us? Do not my eyes convey to you the sweet joy I
receive each day when they meet yours? Do you not perceive in my
tender heart my pleasure in sharing your sorrows and in weeping
with you? Can I forget that in the first ecstasies of a budding love,
my friendship was not troublesome to you and that the complaints
of your lover were not able to prevail upon you to send me from
you or to conceal from me the spectacle of your frailty? That was a
critical moment, my Julie; I know what a sacrifice your modest
heart made in confessing a shame which I escaped. Never should I
have been your confidante if I had been but half a friend to you,
and our souls feel themselves too intimately united now for any-
thing to be able to part them henceforward.
What is it that makes friendships between women so lukewarm
and so short-lived, I mean between women who are capable of love?
It is the selfishness of love, it is the influence of beauty, it is jealousy
over conquests. Now, if anything of that kind could have separated
us, this separation would already have taken place; but were my
heart more sensible of love, were I even unaware that your passions
are so much a part of your nature as to be extinguished only with
your life, your lover is my friend—that is to say, my brother—and
who has ever seen a true friendship like that one end in love? As
for Monsieur d’Orbe, he will assuredly have to be well pleased with
 174 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

your feelings for him for a long time befure I dream of complaining
of them, and I am not more tempted to hold him by force than you
are to tear him from me. Ah, my child! Would to Heaven that at
the cost of his affection I might cure you of yours. I keep him with
pleasure; I would resign him with joy. [11]
You grow impatient to know what I am driving at. Here it is. I
cannot give you the advice you ask of me. I have told you the rea-
son for it, but the course you will follow for yourself will be at the
same time that which you follow for your friend, for whatever your
fortune may be I am determined to share it. If you leave, I shall
follow you; if you stay, I shall stay. I have formed an unshakable
resolution; it is my duty and nothing can turn me from it. My fatal
indulgence caused your undoing; your destiny must be mine, and
because we have been inseparable since childhood, my Julie, we
must be so until death.
I foresee that you will find much rashness in this project, but
at base it is more reasonable than it seems, and I do not have the
same reasons for indecision as you. First, as to my family, if I leave
an easy father, I am leaving a rather indifferent one, who allows
his children to do all they please more through negligence than
through indulgence, for you know that European affairs interest
him much more than his own and that his daughter is consider-
ably less dear to him than the Pragmatic Sanction.* Besides, unlike
you I am not his only child, and among those that remain he will
hardly be aware if one is missing.
Am I leaving a marriage agreement ready to be concluded?
Manco male, my dear. It is for Monsieur d’Orbe, if he loves me,
to
console himself. As for me, although I esteem his character, althoug
h
I am not without an affection for his person, and although I would
regret losing a very honest gentleman, next to my Julie he is
noth-
ing to me. Tell me, my child, does the soul have a sex?
In truth, I
hardly feel one in mine. I may have fancies but very little
love.
A husband may be useful to me, but he would ever be for me only
a
husband, and of those, still free and as tolerable as I
am, I can find
one anywhere in the world.
Take care, cousin, for although I do not hesitate, I do
not say
* The Pragmatic Sanction is the name given to the decree
of 1718 by which, in
the absence of a male heir, the Emperor Charles VI declared
his eldest daughter,
Maria-Theresa, successor to all his Hapsburg dominions. At his death in
1740,
however, support of this alteration of the law of successio
n was weakened, and
Maria-Theresa was refused recognition by Elector Charles
Albert of Bavaria,
later Charles VII. The ensuing quarrel precipitated
the War of the Austrian
Succession, 1740-48. [Translator’s note]
LETTER VI + FROM JULIE TO LORD BOMSTON 175

that you ought not to hesitate; nor would I suggest to you to take
the course that I shall take if you leave. The difference between us
is great and your duties are much more rigorous than mine. You
still know that an unparalleled affection almost fills my heart and
so well absorbs all the other sentiments that they are as if stifled.
An invincible and sweet habit has attached me to you since my
childhood. I love no one else perfectly, and if I have a few ties
to break by following you, I shall be encouraged by your example.
I shall say to myself, “I am imitating Julie,” and I shall think myself
justified.

Note from Julie to Claire

I understand you, incomparable friend, and I thank you. For once
at least, I shall do my duty and shall not be completely unworthy
of you.

+ LETTER VI *

From Julie to Lord Bomston

YOUR LETTER, my Lord, fills me with tenderness and admiration.

The friend whom you deign to protect will not be less moved when
he knows all you have wanted to do for us. Alas! It is only the un-
fortunate who know the value of benevolent hearts. Already we
know in only too many ways all the worth of yours, and your heroic
virtues will affect us always, but they will no longer surprise us.
How sweet it would be for me to be happy under the auspices of
so generous a friend and to have from his kindness the good for-
tune that fate has denied me! But, my Lord, I see with despair that
fate frustrates your good designs. My cruel destiny triumphs over
your zeal, and the delightful prospect of the blessings you offer me
serves only to make their loss more poignant for me. You would
offer two persecuted lovers a pleasant and secure refuge; there you
make their passion legitimate, their union sacred; and I
would
know that under your protection I should easily elude the pursuits
of my angered family. That is a great deal for love; is it enough
for happiness? No, if you wish me to be peaceful and content, give
 176 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

me some refuge still more secure, in which I can elude shame and
remorse. You anticipate our needs, and with an unprecedented gen-
erosity for our maintenance you deprive yourself of a part of your
wealth destined for your own. Richer, more honored by your
charity than by my own patrimony, with you I may recover every-
thing, and you will deign to take the place of a father for me. Ah
my Lord! Shall I deserve to find one, after having abandoned the
one nature has given me?
This is the source of the reproaches my frightened con-
science gives me and of the secret pangs which rend my heart. I do
not concern myself with whether I have the right to dispose of my-
self contrary to the will of my parents but whether I can do so with-
out mortally afflicting them, whether I can abandon them without
driving them to despair. Alas! This is equal to debating whether I
have the right to kill them. When before has virtue thus had to
balance the rights of blood and of nature? When before has a sen-
sitive heart had to distinguish so carefully the bounds of gratitude?
Is it not already to be a criminal to consent to proceed to the point
at which we begin to become one, and do we question so minutely
the extent of our duty unless we are tempted to go beyond it? Who,
I? Should I pitilessly abandon those by whom I breathe, those who
maintain for me the life they have given me and make dear for me,
those who have no other hope, no other pleasure except in me
alone? A father almost sixty! A mother ever languishing! I, their
only child, should I leave them helpless in the solitude and the
weariness of old age, when it is the time to return to them the ten-
der solicitude they have lavished on me? Should I give their last
days up to shame, to remorse, to tears? Terror, the cry of my dis-
turbed conscience, would ceaselessly represent to me my father
and mother dying without consolation and cursing the ungrateful
daughter who has forsaken and dishonored them. No, my Lord,
the
virtue I abandoned in turn abandons me and no longer speaks
to
my heart, but this horrible idea speaks to me in virtue’s place; it
would follow me as my torment every instant of my life and would
make me miserable in the midst of happiness. In a word,
if my
destiny is such that the rest of my life must be given up to
regrets,
this one regret is too frightful to bear; I prefer to
run the risk of
all the others.
I cannot make a suitable answer to your arguments, I confess
; I
am only too inclined to find them just. But, my Lord, you
are not
married. Do you not feel that one must be a father to have
the right
to advise the children of others? As for me, my resolution is
LETTER VI - FROM JULIE TO LORD BOMSTON 177

taken. My parents will make me unhappy, I am convinced, but it

will be less cruel for me to grieve for my own misery than to have
caused theirs, and so I shall never desert my father’s house. Go,
then, delightful fancy of a sensitive soul, happiness so charming and
so desired, go vanish like a dream; for me you shall have no more
substance than that. And you, too generous friend, forget your
pleasant projects, and let no trace of them remain except in the
bottom of a heart too grateful to forget them. If the excess of our
grief does not discourage your great soul, if your generous kindness
is not exhausted, there is still a way for you to put it to use with re-
nown, and he whom you honor with the title of friend may under
your care deserve to become one. Do not judge him by the condition
in which you now see him; his distraction springs not from cow-
ardice but from an ardent and proud spirit which stiffens in the
face of adversity. There is often more insensitivity than courage in
an apparent moderation; common people do not know violent sor-
rows, and great passions hardly develop in feeble men. Alas! Into his
passion he has put that vigor of feeling which characterizes noble
souls, and it is that which is the cause of my present shame and de-
spair. My Lord, deign to believe me; if he was only an ordinary
man, Julie had never been undone.
No, no, this secret affection which predisposes you to a manifest
esteem for him has not betrayed you. He is worthy of all you have
done for him before knowing him well; you will do even more, if
that is possible, after you know him better. Yes, be his comforter, his
protector, his friend, his father, I implore you both for your sake
and for his. He will justify your confidence, he will esteem your
kindnesses, he will put your precepts into practice, he will imitate
your virtues, and he will learn your wisdom. Ah, my Lord! If in your
hands he becomes all that he is capable of being, how proud you
will be one day of your work!
 178 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

+ LETTER VII *&

From Julie

YoU Too, my sweet friend! You, my only hope, you have just
wounded my heart again while it is dying of sorrow! I was prepared
for fortune’s blows; long have my presentiments announced them
to me. I should have borne them patiently. But you for whom I suf-
fer them! Ah, only those which come to me through you are un-
bearable, and it is frightful for me to see my distress aggravated by
the one who ought to alleviate it. What sweet consolations which
I had promised myself vanish with your courage! How many times
I flattered myself that your strength would urge me from my lan-
guor, that your merit would efface my error, that your virtues would
raise my debased soul. How many times have I dried my bitter tears
in saying to myself, I am suffering for him, but he is worthy of it;
I am sinful, but he is virtuous; a thousand troubles beset me, but
his constancy sustains me; and in his heart I find recompense for
all my losses. Vain hope which the first trial has destroyed! Now
where is that sublime love which could elevate all your sentiments
and display your virtues? Where are your fine principles? What
has become of your imitation of great men? Where is that phi-
losopher whom misfortune could not shake but who succumbs
to the first accident which parts him from his mistress? What pre-
text will henceforth excuse my shame in my own eyes, when I see
in him who seduced me nothing but a man without courage who is
enervated by pleasures, a cowardly heart crushed by the first reverse
of fortune, a madman who renounces his reason as soon as he needs
it? Oh God! In this utter humiliation am I to see myself reduced to
shame for my choice as well as for my frailty?
Consider how far you are forgetting yourself. Is your distracted
and cringing soul stooping to cruelty? Do you dare reproach me?
Do you dare complain of me? . . . of your Julie? . . . Barbarous
one! . . . Why did your remorse not hold back your hand? Why did
not the sweetest proofs of the most tender love ever deprive you of
the courage to insult me? Ah, if you could doubt my heart, how
LETTER VII + FROM JULIE 179

despicable yours would be! . . . But no, you do not doubt it, you
cannot doubt it. I defy your anger; and at this very moment while
I am hating your injustice, you see only too well the source of the
first emotion of anger that I ever experienced.
Can you lay the blame on me, if I was led astray through blind
confidence and if my plans have not succeeded? How you would
be ashamed of your harsh words if you knew what hope had se-
duced me, what projects I dared form for our mutual happiness,
and how they have vanished with all my hopes! Some day, I dare
hope still, you will know better, and then your remorse will avenge
me for your reproaches. You know my father’s prohibition; you are
not unaware of public talk. I foresaw the consequences of these
things, I had my cousin make them clear to you, you were as sensi-
ble of them as we, and for our mutual preservation we had to sub-
mit to the fate which separated us.
I have driven you away, then, as you dare to say. But for whom
have I done so, you indelicate lover? Ungrateful man! It was for the
sake of a heart much kinder than he believes it to be, who would
rather die a thousand times than see me disgraced. Tell me, what
shall become of you when I am given up to opprobrium? Are you
hoping to be able to bear the sight of my dishonor? Come back,
cruel one, if you think you can; come back to receive the sacrifice
of my reputation with as much courage as I can offer it up to you.
Come, do not be afraid of being disclaimed by her to whom you
were dear. I am ready to declare in the face of Heaven and earth
all that we have felt for each other; I am ready to name you
openly as my lover, to die in your arms of love and of shame. I
would rather the entire world knew of my tenderness than see
you doubt it for one moment, for your reproaches are more bitter
than ignominy to me.
Let us forever end these mutual complaints, I implore you. They
are intolerable to me. Oh God! How can we quarrel when we are
in love, and by torturing each other lose the moments in which we
have such great need of consolation? No, no my friend, what use is
it to pretend a disagreement which does not exist? Let us complain
about fate but not about love. Never has love formed so perfect
a union; never has it formed one more lasting. Our hearts, too in-
timately blended, are no longer capable of separation, and we can
no longer live parted from each other but as two parts of one being.
How then can you feel only your own griefs? How is it you do not
feel your friend’s too? Why are you not aware of her heart-felt
 180 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

sighs in your breast? How much more grief-stricken they are than
your passionate outbursts! If you shared my sufferings, how much
more cruel they would be to you than even your own!
You find your situation deplorable! Consider your Julie’s, and
cry only for her. Consider the different position of my sex and of
yours in our common misfortunes, and decide which of us is most
to be pitied. To pretend to be insensitive while in the grip of pas-
sion, to appear joyful and content while prey to a thousand griefs,
to have a calm appearance and a distressed mind, to speak always
otherwise than we think, to disguise all we feel, to be deceitful
through obligation and to speak untruths through modesty—that
is the usual position of all girls of my age. ‘Thus we spend the prime
of our youth under the tyranny of propriety, which at length is
augmented by that of our parents who force us into an unsuitable
marriage. But in vain are our inclinations restrained; the heart
gives laws only to itself. It escapes enslavement; it bestows itself
of its own accord. Under an iron yoke, not imposed by Heaven,
only
the body but not the soul is subdued; person and faith remain
separately engaged, and an unfortunate victim is forced into crime
by being forced in one respect or the other to fail in the sacred duty
of fidelity. Are there girls more prudent than I? Ah, I know there
are! Are there those who have not been in love at all? How
for-
tunate they are! Have they resisted passion? I have attempted to
re-
sist. Are they more virtuous? Do they love virtue better than I? Had
it not been for you, for you alone, I should have always loved
it. Is it then true that I no longer love virtue? . . . You
have
ruined me, and it is I who console you! . . . But what is going to
become of me? . . . How weak is friendship’s consolation where
that of love is lacking! Who will console me, then, in my misery?
What a frightful fate I face, I who for having lived in sin
see noth-
ing but a fresh sin in the marriage bonds, abhorred and
perhaps
inevitable! Where shall I find tears sufficient to weep for my fault
and my lover if I yield? Where shall I find strength enough
to resist in my present dejection? I think I already can see
the fury
of an angered father! I think I already can feel my inmost
self
moved by the cry of nature, or my heart rent by the pangs
of love!
Deprived of you, I remain without resource, without
support, with-
out hope. The past degrades me, the present afflicts
me, the fu-
ture affrights me. I thought I was doing everything
for our happi-
ness by sending you away; I have only made us more
miserable by
preparing the way for a more cruel separation.
Our fleeting pleas-
LETTER VII - FROM JULIE 181

ures are no more, remorse remains behind, and the shame which
humiliates me is without alleviation.
It is for me, it is for me to be weak and miserable. Let me weep
and suffer; my tears are as inexhaustible as my fault is irreparable,
and even all-healing time only offers me fresh reasons for tears.
But you who have no violation to fear, whom shame does not
degrade, whom nothing forces basely to disguise your real senti-
ments, you who feel only the blow of misfortune and at least enjoy
your former virtues, how dare you lower yourself to the point of
sighing and sobbing like a woman and of flying into a passion like
a madman? Have I not deserved enough scorn on your account
without your augmenting it by making yourself scornful, and with-
out your crushing me with both my own shame as well as yours? Re-
call, then, your resolution, learn how to bear misfortune, and be a
man. Be again, if I dare say so, the lover Julie has chosen. Ah, if I
am no longer worthy of inspiring your courage, remember at least
what I once was, deserve what for your sake I have ceased to be,
and do not dishonor me twice.
No, my respectable friend, it is not you at all whom I recognize
in that effeminate letter which I wish to forget forever and which I
consider already disclaimed by you. I hope, wholly debased, wholly
confused as I am, I dare to hope that my memory does not inspire
feelings so base, that my image still reigns with more honor in a heart
which once I could inflame, and that I shall not have to reproach
myself, along with my frailty, for the cowardice of the one who
caused it.
Happy in your misfortune, you have found the most precious
compensation which is known to sensitive souls. Heaven, in your
grief, gives you a friend and allows you to wonder if that which it
gives you is not worth more than that which it takes away. Admire
and cherish that too generous man who at the expense of his ease
deigns to take care of your life and your reason. How affected you
would be if you knew all that he has wished to do for you! But what
use is it to inspire your gratitude by aggravating your grief? You
do not need to know how much he loves you to be aware of all his
worth, and you cannot respect him as he deserves to be without lov-
ing him as you must.
 182 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

+’ LETTER VIII &

From Claire

YOU ARE more passionate than delicate, and you know better how
to make sacrifices than to turn them to account. What do you
mean
by writing to Julie with a reproachful tone in her present condi-
tion, and because you are suffering must you lay the blame on her
who is suffering even more? I have told you a thousand times
that
in my life I have never seen a lover so grumbling as you. You are
al-
ways ready to argue over everything, and love for you is only a
state
of war; or if sometimes you are tractable, it is for the
purpose of
then complaining that you have been so. Oh, how such lovers
are to
be feared and how fortunate I consider myself to have never desired
any but those whom I can dismiss when I like without it costing
anyone a tear!
Believe me, change your language with Julie if you want her
to
survive; it is too much for her to bear both her own misery and
your
displeasure. Learn for once to treat her overly sensitive heart
with
caution; you owe her the most tender consolations. Be fearful
of in-
creasing your own misfortunes by complaining of them, or
at least
complain of them only to me who am solely responsible for
your
separation. Yes, my friend, you have guessed correctly. I suggested
to
her the course which the danger to her honor necessitated, or rather,
I forced her to take it by exaggerating the hazard. I prevailed also
on you to depart, and we all have done our duty. I did
more, how-
ever; I prevented her from accepting his Lordship’s offers. I have
kept you from being happy, but Julie’s happiness is dearer to
me
than yours. I knew that she could not be happy after having left her
parents in shame and despair, and I have difficulty, with
my knowl-
edge of you, in understanding what happiness you could enjoy at
the expense of hers,
Be that as it may, such was my conduct and my offense, and since
you take pleasure in scolding those who love you, you may blame
me alone for that. If in this you do not cease being ungrateful, you
at least cease being unjust. As for me, in whatever manner you be-
LETTER IX + FROM LORD BOMSTON TO JULIE 183

have to me, I shall always be the same towards you. You will be dear
to me as long as Julie loves you, and I could not possibly say more.
I am sorry neither for assisting nor for opposing your love. The
disinterested zealousness of friendship which has always guided
me justifies me equally in what I have done for and against you, and
if at any time I took an interest in your passion, more perhaps than
would seem to become me, the testimony of my heart is enough for
my tranquillity. I shall never blush for the services I have been able
to render my friend, and reproach myself only for their uselessness.
I have not forgotten what you once taught me of the fortitude of
the wise man under misfortunes, and I should be able, it seems to
me, to remind you of some precepts to that purpose. But Julie’s ex-
ample teaches me that a girl of my age is to a philosopher of yours
as bad as a preceptor as she is dangerous as a pupil, and it would not
become me to give lessons to my teacher.

e+ LETTER IX &

From Lord Bomston to Julie

WE HAVE TRIUMPHED, charming Julie. Our friend’s mistake has

brought back his reason. The shame of having found himself for a
moment in the wrong has dissipated all his fury and has made
him so tractable that henceforth we shall manage him all we please.
With pleasure I see that the fault with which he reproaches himself
leaves him more remorse than resentment, and I know he esteems
me, for he is humble and confused before me, but not embarrassed
or constrained. He senses his injustice too well for me to remember
it, and wrongs thus acknowledged do more honor to the one who
atones for them than to the one who pardons them.
I have profited from this change and from the effect it has pro-
duced to enter into some necessary arrangements with him before
we separate, for I cannot defer my departure much longer. As I ex-
pect to return next summer, we have agreed that he should go wait
for me in Paris and that afterwards we should go to England to-
gether. London is the only stage worthy of great talents, where their
 184 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

career is most extensive.* His are superior in many respects, and I

do not despair of seeing him, in a short time with the help of some
friends, make a career for himself worthy of his merit. I shall ex-
plain my view to you in more detail when I pass through your neigh-
borhood. Meanwhile, you know that through success one can re-
move many difficulties, and that there are modes of distinction
which can compensate for an inferior birth, even in your father’s
mind. That, it seems to me, is the only expedient left to be tried
to bring about your mutual happiness, since fortune and prejudice
have deprived you of all others.
I have written to Regianino to come join me post haste, so that I
may profit from him during the eight or ten days I will still spend
with our friend. His sadness is too profound to leave room for much
conversation. Music will fill the empty silences, allow him to dream,
and gradually change his sorrow into melancholy. I am waiting for
that state in order to leave him to himself. I should not dare trust
him alone before. As for Regianino, I shall return him to you when
I pass through and shall not take him back until I return from Italy,
a time when, judging by the musical progress that you both have
already made, you will no longer need him. As for the present, surely
he is useless to you, and I am depriving you of nothing by taking
him from you for a few days.

t+ LETTER X &

To Claire

WHY MUST I finally have my eyes opened? Would that I had shut
them forever, rather than look on the degradation into which I have

* This is to entertain a curious prejudice in favor of his country, for

I hear talk
that there is no place in the world where, generally speaking, foreigners
are less
well received and find more obstacles to their advancement than
in England.
Because of the taste of the nation, they are encouraged in
nothing there. But
let us also agree that the Englishman hardly asks others for
the hospitality that
he refuses them in his country. In what court outside
that of London does one
see these proud islanders cringing servilely? To what country
outside their own
do they go to seek to make their fortunes? They are
hard-hearted, it is true;
this hardness does not displease me when it is consistent
with justice. I think
it well that they should be nothing but Englishme
n, since they have no occa-
sion to be men. [Rousseau]
LETTER X * TO CLAIRE 185

fallen, rather than find myself the least of men, after having been
the most fortunate! Charming and generous friend, you who were
so often my protectress, again I dare to pour out my shame and my
grief to your compassionate heart; again I dare to beg for your con-
solations against the feeling of my own unworthiness. Abandoned
by myself, I dare to resort to you. Heavens, how could so despicable
a man ever be loved by her, or how could so divine a passion fail
to refine my soul? How she must now be ashamed of her choice,
she whom I am no longer worthy to name! How she must sigh to see
her image profaned in a heart so cringing and so base! How she
must disdain and hate the man who could love her and yet be noth-
ing but a coward! You shall know all my mistakes, charming
cousin;* you shall know my crime and my repentance. Be my judge
and let me die, or be my intercessor and let the person who creates
my destiny condescend again to be its arbiter.
I shall not speak to you of the effect which this unforeseen separa-
tion had on me. I shall say nothing to you of my stunned grief and
my insane despair. You will judge me only too much by the incredi-
ble distraction into which they both led me. The more aware I was
of the horror of my situation, the less I believed it possible for me to
renounce Julie voluntarily; and the bitterness of these sentiments,
joined with the astonishing generosity of Lord Bomston, made
me conceive suspicions which I shall never remember without hor-
ror and which I cannot forget without ingratitude to the friend who
has pardoned me for them.
In my delirium, putting together all the circumstances attending
my departure, I imagined I recognized a premeditated plan in it,
and I dared to attribute it to the most virtuous of men. Scarcely had
this frightful suspicion entered my mind than everything seemed to
me to confirm it. His Lordship’s conversation with Baron d’Etange;
the tone, a little insinuating, which I reproached him for having
affected during it; the quarrel which ensued; the prohibition against
Julie’s seeing me; the resolution to make me leave; the diligence
and the secrecy of the preparations; the conversation which he had
with me the night before; finally the rapidity with which I was
forced rather than led away—everything seemed to prove a plan
on his Lordship’s part to separate me from Julie, and his return near
her which I knew he intended ended by revealing, to my way of
thinking, the purpose of his attentions. I resolved, however, to get
still better information before bringing it out in the open, and with
“my cousin”; also in imitation of Julie,
*In imitation of Julie, he calls her
Claire calls him “my friend.” [Rousseau]
 186 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

this intention I contented myself in examining things with greater

care. But everything increased my ridiculous suspicions, and his
zealous humanitarianism inspired no kindness toward me from
which my blind jealousy did not extract some indication of his per-
fidy. In Besancon, I knew that he had written to Julie, without com-
municating to me the contents of his letter, without even speaking
to me of it. Therefore, I considered myself sufficiently convinced and
I waited only for her reply, over which I indeed expected to find him
displeased, to come to the explanation with him which I was con-
templating.
Last night we got in rather late, and I knew that there had been
mail from Switzerland, which I did not mention as we parted. I al-
lowed him time to open it; in my room I heard him murmuring
some words as he read. I listened attentively.
“Ah Julie!” he was saying in broken sentences, “I wanted to
make you happy . . . I respect your virtue . . . but I pity your mis-
take: tie *
At these words and others like them which I distinguished per-
fectly, I was no longer in control of myself. I put my sword under
my arm; I opened, or rather, I burst in the door; I went in like a
madman. No, I shall not defile this paper nor your eyes with the in-
sults that rage dictated to me in order to urge him to duel with me
immediately.
Oh my cousin! It was then above all that I was able to recognize
the influence of true wisdom, even over the most sensitive men, when
they will listen to its voice. At first he could understand nothing of
my words, and he mistook them for a real delirium. But the perfidy
of which I was accusing him, the secret plans for which I was re-
proaching him, that letter from Julie which he was still holding
and which I was mentioning to him incessantly finally made him
recognize the reason for my furor.
He smiled, then said coolly to me, “You have lost your reason,
and I do not duel with madmen. Open your eyes, blind as you are,”
he added in a more gentle tone. “Is it really I whom you accuse of
betraying you?”
I sensed in the tone of these words an inexpressible quality which
was not that of a perfidious man. The sound of his voice struck my
heart; I had no sooner met his looks before all my suspicions van-
ished, and I began with dismay to see my folly. He instantly per-
ceived this change; he held out his hand to me.
“Come,” he said to me, “if you had not recollected yourself before
my justification, I should never have seen you again. Now that you
LETTER X + TO CLAIRE 187

are rational, read this letter and for once recognize your friends.”
I wanted to refuse to read it, but the ascendancy which so many
advantages gave him over me made him insist in an authoritative
tone, so that, in spite of my dissipated suspicions, my secret desire
to read it was only too well assisted.
Imagine what state I found myself in after reading that letter
which informed me of the extraordinary beneficence of the man
whom I was presuming to berate with so much indignity. I threw
myself at his feet, and with a heart charged with admiration, with
remorse, and with shame, I clasped his knees with all my strength,
unable to utter a single word. He received my penitence as he had
received my insults, and required from me as the price of the par-
don he condescended to grant me only that I should never put my-
self in opposition to the good he would try to do for me. Ah, let him
henceforth do what he pleases! His sublime soul is above that of
mankind, and we are no more permitted to resist his beneficence
than we are to withstand that of the Deity.
Next he gave me the two letters which were addressed to
me, which he had not wanted to give me before he had read his own
and was informed of your cousin’s decision. Reading them, I saw
what kind of lover and friend Heaven has given me; I saw how it has
gathered sentiments and virtues about me in order to make my re-
morse more bitter and my meanness more despicable. Tell me, who
then is this unique mortal whose least influence is in her beauty,
both
and who, like the eternal powers, makes herself equally adored
through the good and through the evil she does? Alas! She has
robbed me of everything, the cruel woman, and I love her more for
it. The more miserable she makes me, the more I find her perfect. It
her
seems that all the torment she causes me is a new instance of
na-
merit for me. The sacrifice she has just made to the sentiments of
it augments the
ture makes me desolate and enchants me; in my eyes
has made to love. No, her heart can make no
value of that which she
refusal that is not of equal value to what it grants.
and perfect
And you, worthy and charming cousin, you unique
shall be cited among all women and
model of friendship that alone
le yours will dare to consid er
whom hearts which do not resemb
of philos ophy! I scorn that
imaginary—ah, speak to me no more
that phantom
deceiving parade which consists only of idle words,
defy passio ns at a dis-
which is only a delusion, which stirs us to
approa ch. Deign
tance and leaves us like a blustering bully at their
restore your former
not to abandon me to my distraction; deign to
longer deserve them,
s
kindnesses to this unfortunate man who no
 188 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

but who desires them more ardently and needs them more than
ever; deign to call me back to myself and let your sweet voice take the
place of reason’s in this sick heart.
No, I dare hope, I have not sunk into perpetual degradation. I
feel rekindled in me that pure and holy fire with which I once
burned. The example of so many virtues will not be lost on the one
who occasioned them, who loves them, admires them, and wishes to
imitate them ceaselessly. Oh my dear lover, whose decision I must
respect! Oh my friends whose esteem I wish to regain! My soul is re-
vived and recovers its strength and its life from yours. Chaste love
and sublime friendship will restore the courage that a cowardly de-
spair was ready to take from me. The pure sentiments of my heart
will supply the place of wisdom for me. Through you I shall be all
that I ought to be, and I shall compel you to forget my fall if for one
moment I can raise myself again. I do not know nor wish to know
what destiny Heaven is reserving for me; whatever it may be, I want
to make myself worthy of that which I have already enjoyed. That
deathless image which I carry within me will serve me as a shield and
will make my soul invulnerable to the blows of fortune. Have I not
lived enough already for the sake of happiness? Now it is for her
glory that I must live. Ah, may I be able to astonish the world with
my virtues so that people may one day say in admiring them, “Could
he have done less? He was loved by Julie!”

P.S. Marriage bonds abhorred and perhaps inevitable! What

do
these words signify? They are in her letter. Claire, I expect any-
thing; I am resigned, ready to bear my destiny. But these words
. whatever happens, I shall never leave this place until I have
had an explanation of those words.

+ LETTER XI &

From Julie

IS IT TRUE, therefore, that my soul is not closed

to pleasure and that
a sentiment of joy can still penetrate it? Alas, since your
departure I
thought myself sensible only to sorrow, away from you
I thought
LEITER XI + FROM JULIE 189

myself capable only of suffering, and in your absence I did not even
imagine any consolations. Your extremely pleasing letter to my
cousin has come to undeceive me; I read it and kissed it with tears of
tenderness. It sprinkled a fresh, gentle dew upon my heart, dried by
troubles and withered by sadness, and I felt by the serenity which it
left within me that far away you have no less influence than close
by over your Julie’s affections.
My friend! What delight for me to see you recover that vigor of
sentiment which becomes a courageous man! I shall esteem you
more for it, and I shall despise myself less for not having completely
debased the dignity of a chaste love nor corrupted two hearts at once.
I shall tell you more, now that we can speak freely of our affairs;
what was aggravating my despair was to see that yours was depriving
us of the only resource which we had left, the use of your talents.
Now you know the worthy friend that Heaven has given you. Your
whole life would not be too long to deserve his good deeds; it will
never be long enough to atone for the injury which you have just
done him, and I hope that you will no longer need another lesson in
order to restrain your impetuous imagination. It is under the pro-
tection of that respectable man that you will enter the world; it is
with the help of his influence, it is guided by his experience that you
will try to revenge yourself for neglected merit, for the severity of
fortune. Do for him what you would not do for yourself; try at least
to respect his kindness by not making it useless. Look what a joyous
prospect is still offered you; look what success you are to expect ina
career in which everything conspires to favor your zeal. Heaven has
lavished its gifts on you; your auspicious nature, cultivated by your
taste, has endowed you with every talent. At less than twenty-four,
you combine the graces of your age with the maturity that compen-
sates later for the passage of the years.

Frutto senile in su ’] giovenil fiore.

PETRARCH

Aged fruit surpasses the youthful.

ac-
Study has not blunted your vivacity nor made your person less
tive; insipid gallantry has not contrac ted your spirit nor besotted
your reason. Ardent love, by inspiring in you all the sublime senti-
are its offspring, has given you that elevation of
ments which
thought and that justness of mind from which it is inseparable.* In
show here in
* Justness of mind inseparable from love? Simple Julie, it does not
yours. [Rousseau]
 190 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

its gentle warmth, I have seen your soul unfold its splendid quali-
ties, like a flower opening in the sun’s rays. You have both all that
which leads to fortune and all that which sets you above it. To ob-
tain the world’s respects, you needed only to condescend to lay claim
to them, and now I hope that an object more dear to your heart
will give you the ardor for them which they do not in themselves
deserve.
Oh my sweet friend, are you going far away from me? . . . Oh my
beloved, are you going to fly from your Julie? . . . It must be so;
we must separate if one day we wish to see each other happy again,
and the result of the pains you are going to take is our last hope.
May so dear an idea inspire you, console you during this bitter
and long separation! May it inspire you with that ardor which sur-
mounts obstacles and masters fortune! Alas, the world and its affairs
will be continual distractions for you and will be a helpful diversion
from the pangs of absence! But I am to remain left to myself alone
or subject to persecutions, and everything will compel me to miss
you ceaselessly. I shall be fortunate at least if groundless alarms do
not aggravate my real torments and if besides my own evils I do
not feel within me all those to which you are going to be exposed!
I shudder to think of the risks of a thousand kinds that your life
and your morals are going to run. In you I place all the con-
fidence that a man can inspire; but since fate separates us, ah my
friend, why are you only a man? What advice you will need in that
unknown world in which you are about to entangle yourself! It is
not fitting for me—young, inexperienced, less qualified by study
and reflection than you—to give you advice on this head: that is a
duty I leave to Lord Bomston. J limit myself to charging you with
two things, for they pertain more to sentiment than to experience,
and though I know the world very little, I think I know your heart
very well: never forsake virtue, and never forget your Julie.
I shall not remind you of all those subtle philosophical arguments
which you yourself have taught me to despise, which fill so many
books and have never made one man virtuous. Ah! Those sorry
reasoners! What sweet delights their hearts have never felt nor
given! Leave these idle moralists, my friend, and consult your in-
most heart; it is there that you will always rediscover the source of
that sacred fire which inflamed us so many times with love for the
sublime virtues. It is there that you will see that eternal image of
true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy en-
thusiasm, an image which our passions defile ceaselessly but can
LETTER XI + FROM JULIE 19]

never efface.* [12] You have received from Heaven that happy
inclination for all that is good and virtuous. Listen only to your own
desires; follow only your natural inclinations; think above all of our
first affections. As long as those innocent and delightful moments
shall come back in your memory, it is not possible that you should
cease to love that which made them so sweet, that the charm of
the morally beautiful should be effaced from your soul, nor that you
should ever desire to obtain your Julie by methods unworthy of
you. How can one enjoy a pleasure for which he has lost the taste?
No, to be able to possess what one loves, it is necessary that the heart
that loved it should be kept the same.[13]
Therefore, never forget this Julie who was yours and whose heart
will never be another’s. I can say nothing more to you, in the de-
pendent state in which Heaven has placed me. But after having
charged you with fidelity, it is only fair to leave you with the sole
pledge of mine that is in my power. I have consulted not my duties
—my distracted mind no longer knows them—but my heart, the last
guide of those who can follow no other, and here is the result of its
inspirations: I shall never marry you without the consent of my
father, but I shall never marry anyone else without your consent.
On that I give you my word, which will be sacred whatever happens,
for there is no human power which can make me be unfaithful.
Therefore, be not disquieted over what may befall me in your ab-
sence. Go, my amiable friend, and seek under the auspices of tender
love a fortune worthy of rewarding it. My destiny is in your hands,
as much as it is in my power to commit it to you, and it will never
be altered except with your consent.

* The true philosophy of lovers is that of Plato; while the passion lasts, they
never have any other. A sensitive man cannot forsake this philosopher; a cold
reader cannot endure him. [Rousseau]
 192 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

& LETTER XII &

To Julie

O Qual fiamma di gloria, d’onore,

Scorrer sento per tutte le vene,
Alma grande parlando con tel
METASTASIO

O what flame of glory, of honor

I feel coursing through my veins,
Great soul, in speaking with you!

JULIE, let me catch my breath. You make my blood course, you

thrill
me, you make me palpitate. Like your heart, your letter burns
with
the holy love of virtue, and you have brought its celestial flame
to the
inmost recesses of mine. But why so many exhortations
when only
commands were required? Be sure that if I ever forget myself
to the
point of needing reasons in order to do good, at least
it is not your
fault; your will alone is enough for me. Are you not
aware that I
shall always do what pleases you and that I would
even do evil be-
fore being able to disobey you? Yes, I should have burned
down
the Capitol if you had commanded me to, because
I love you more
than everything. But do you really know why I love
you so? Ah! In-
comparable girl! It is because you can never desire
anything but
good, and because my love for your virtue makes my
love for your
charms more invincible.
I am leaving, encouraged by the pledge you have just
given me,
but you could have spared yourself the trouble
, for to promise to be
no other’s without my consent is to promise only to be
mine, is it
not? As for me, I speak more freely, and right
now as a man of honor
I give you my word, never to be broken: in the career
in which I am
going to try my hand to please you, I do not know
to what destiny
fortune is calling me, but never will the bonds
of love or of mar-
riage unite me to another than Julie d’Etange. I
live, I exist only
for her, and I shall die either unmarried or as
her husband. Adieu,
time is short and I am leaving immediately.
LETTER XII + TO JULIE 193

4 LETTER XIII *&

To Julie

LAST NIGHT I arrived in Paris, and he who could not live separated
from you by two streets is now more than a hundred leagues from
you. Oh Julie! Pity me, pity your unhappy friend. If slow streams of
my blood had marked that extremely long road, it would have
seemed shorter to me, and I would not have felt my spirits fail with
more languor. Ah, if at least I knew the time which was to rejoin us
as well as the space which separates us, I could compensate for the
distance between places by the progress of time, and every day taken
from my life I could count the steps which would bring me closer
to you! But this career of sorrows is covered by the gloom of the
future. The time which is to bring it to an end is concealed from my
feeble sight. Oh doubt! Oh torment! My restless heart seeks you and
finds nothing. The sun rises and no longer gives me hope of seeing
you. It sets and I have not seen you. Void of pleasure and joy, my
days slip away in one long night. In vain I have tried to rekindle my
extinguished hope; it offers me only uncertain assistance and sus-
picious consolation. Dear and tender friend of my heart—alas!—
what miseries must await me if they are to equal my past happiness?
Let this sadness not alarm you, I beg you; it is the passing effect of
solitude and reflections of my journey. Do not be afraid of the re-
turn of my former weaknesses. My heart is in your hands, my Julie,
and since you sustain it, it will no longer permit itself to be
depressed. One of the consoling ideas which are the fruit of your
last letter is that at present I find myself supported by a double
strength, and though love should have prostrated mine, neverthe-
less I should still gain, for the courage which comes to me from you
sustains me much better than I could sustain myself. I am convinced
that it is not good for a man to be alone. Human souls need to be
joined together in pairs in order to be worth their full value, and
the united strength of two friends, like that of the bars of an artificial
magnet, is incomparably greater than the sum of their individual
forces. Divine friendship, this is your triumph! But what is even
 194 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

friendship next to that perfect union which connects the whole en-
ergy of friendship with bonds a hundred times more sacred? Where
are those gross men who represent the transports of love as only a
fever of the senses, as a desire of a debased instinct? Let them come,
let them observe, let them feel what is taking place in my inmost
heart. Let them see an unhappy lover, separated from her he loves,
uncertain of ever seeing her again, hopeless of recovering his lost fe-
licity, but yet inspired by those immortal fires which he received
from your eyes and which your sublime sentiments have fed, ready
to defy fortune, to undergo its reverses, to see himself even deprived
of you, and to practice the virtues that you have instilled in him as
the worthy tribute to that adorable image which will never be ef-
faced from his soul. Julie, ah, what would I have been without you?
Dispassionate reason would have enlightened me, perhaps; as a cool
admirer of virtue, at least I should have respected it in others. Now
I shall do more; I shall be capable of practicing it zealously, and
penetrated by your wise lessons, I shall one day cause those who
have known us to say, “Oh, what men we should all be if the world
were full of Julies and of hearts who were capable of loving them!”
Meditating on your last letter while traveling, I decided to gather
together all those you have written me, now that I can no longer
receive your counsel from your own lips. Although there is not one
of them which I do not know by heart—and know well by heart, you
can believe me—I still like to reread them ceaselessly, were it only
to see again the characters of that dear hand which alone can con-
stitute my happiness. But the paper wears away imperceptibly, and
before they are in pieces I intend to copy them all in a blank book
which I have just chosen expressly for that purpose. It is rather
thick, but I am thinking of the future, and I hope I do not die
young enough to be limited only to this volume. I am setting apart
my evenings to this charming occupation, and I shall proceed slowly
in order to prolong it. This precious collection will never leave me
during my life. It will be my manual in the world I am about to
enter; it will be the antidote for me against the maxims that are in-
haled there; it will console me in my misery; it will prevent or cor-
rect my mistakes; it will instruct me during my youth; it will edify
me always—and to my knowledge these will be the first love letters
ever put to this use.
As for the last one, which I have now before me, excellent as it
seems to me, I nevertheless find in it one thing to omit. This is a view
already quite strange, but what must be even more so is that this
thing:is precisely one which concerns you, and that I reproach you
LETTER XII - TO JULIE 195

for even having thought of writing it. Why do you speak to me of

fidelity, of constancy? Once you knew my love and your power bet-
ter. Ah Julie! Do you inspire perishable sentiments, and though
I had promised you nothing, could I ever cease being yours? No, no
it was at the first glance from your eyes, at the first word from your
lips, at the first ecstasy of my heart that in it was lit this eternal
flame which nothing can extinguish any more. Had I seen you only
that first moment, it had already been done; it was too late ever to
be able to forget you. And should I forget you now? Now that, in-
toxicated with my past happiness, the very remembrance of it is
sufficient to make me happy still? Now that, subdued by the force
of your charms, I live only in them? Now that my former heart has
disappeared and that I live by the one you have inspired in me? Now,
oh Julie, that Iam out of temper with myself for expressing so poorly
to you all that I feel? Ah! Let all the beauties of the universe try
to seduce me! Is there another beside yours in my eyes? Let every-
thing conspire to wrench you from my heart. Let them pierce it, let
them rend it, let them break this faithful mirror of Julie; her pure
image will not cease to be reflected even in the smallest fragment.
Nothing is capable of destroying it. No, the supreme power itself
could not go that far; it can annihilate my soul, but not permit it
to exist and then make it cease to adore you.
When he passes through, his Lordship has taken it upon himself
to give you an account of what concerns me and of his projects in
my favor, but I am afraid that he will not strictly fulfill this promise
in regard to his present arrangements. Learn that he dares to abuse
the right that his benevolence gives him over me by extending it
even beyond propriety. I see myself, through a pension which he
has been careful to make irrevocable, in a condition to make an ap-
pearance much above my birth, and that is perhaps what I shall be
forced to do in London in order to submit to his designs. As for here,
where no affairs engage me, I shall continue to live in my own man-
ner, and shall not be tempted to use the surplus of my maintenance
in frivolous expenditures. You have taught me, my Julie, that the
principal needs, or at least the most sensible ones, are those of a
beneficent heart, and as long as one individual lacks the necessaries
of life, what virtuous man has a surplus?
 196 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

+’ LETTER XIV &

To Julie

WITH A SECRET horror I am entering this vast wasteland of a world.

This chaos offers me only a frightful solitude, in which a dismal si-
lence reigns. My oppressed soul seeks to burst forth but finds itself
everywhere restrained more closely. I am never less alone than when
I am by myself, an ancient writer said; as for me, I am only alone in
the crowd, where I can be neither with you or with others. My heart
would speak, but it senses that it is not heard. It would answer, but
nothing is said which can reach it. I do not understand the language
of the country, and no one here understands mine.
It is not that I have not been shown a great welcome, much friend-
liness, and kind attentions, or that a thousand officious solicitudes
do not seem on the wing to oblige me. But that is precisely what I
complain of. How can one be the friend so quickly of someone he
has never seen before? The honest concern for humanity, the sim-
ple and touching outpouring of a sincere heart has a language quite
different from the false demonstrations of politeness and the mis-
leading appearances that the custom of society demands. I am greatly
afraid that the man who treats me at first sight like a friend of twenty
years standing might treat me at the end of twenty years like a stran-
ger, if I had some important service to ask of him; and
when I see
such profligate men take so tender an interest in so many
people, I
readily presume that they are really taking one in nobody. [14]
Thus the men to whom one speaks are not at all those with whom
one communicates. Their sentiments do not come from their hearts,
their insight is not in their character, their speech does not represen
t
their thoughts. Of them only their appearance is perceived, and one
is in a company almost as if before a moving picture, where the
un-
moving spectator is the only being capable of self-motion.
Such is the idea I have formed of society at large based
on that
which I have seen in Paris. This idea is perhaps more pertine
nt to my
individual situation than to the real state of things and will
no doubt
be reformed under new illuminations. Besides, I only frequen
t the
groups to which Lord Bomston’s friends have introduced
me, and I
LETTER XV + FROM JULIE 197

am convinced that one must descend into the other classes to know
the true manners of a country, for those of the rich are everywhere
almost all the same. I shall try to inform myself better later. Mean-
while, judge if I am right in calling this crowded scene a wasteland,
and of being alarmed by a solitude in which I find only an empty
appearance of sentiment and of sincerity which changes every in-
stant and falsifies itself, in which I see only spectres and phantoms
which strike the eye for a moment and disappear as soon as one tries
to touch them? Until now I have seen a great many masks; when shall
I see the faces of men?

4 LETTER XV *

From Julie

YES, MY FRIEND, we shall be united in spite of our separation; we

shall be happy despite fate. It is the union of hearts which constitutes
their true felicity. Their attraction does not understand the law of
distances, and ours would be in contact from the two poles of the
earth. Like you, I find that lovers have a thousand means of sooth-
ing the feeling of absence and of being brought together in a mo-
ment. Sometimes we even see each other still more often than when
we saw each other every day, for as soon as one of us is alone, im-
mediately both are together. If you enjoy this pleasure every eve-
ning, I enjoy it a hundred times a day. I am more alone, I am sur-
rounded by remembrances of you, and I would be incapable of look-
ing upon the objects gathered about me without seeing you ever
near me.
Qui cantd dolcemente, e qui s’assise:
Qui si rivolse, et qui ritenne il passo;
Qui co’ begli occhi mi trafise il core:
Qui disse una parola, et qui sorrise.
PETRARCH

Here he sang sweetly, and here he sat:

Here he turned about, and here he paused;
Here with fair eyes he pierced my heart:
Here he spoke a word, and here he smiled.
 198 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

But you, are you capable of placing yourself in these peaceful situa-
tions? Are you capable of enjoying a tranquil and tender love which
speaks to the heart without stirring the senses, and are your griefs
today more prudent than your desires once were? The tone of your
first letter causes me to tremble. I fear these deceiving raptures, so
much the more dangerous when the imagination which excites them
has no limits, and I am afraid that you are insulting your Julie in
your very love for her. Ah, you do not feel, no, your too indelicate
heart does not feel how much love is offended by vain homage. You
consider neither that your life is mine nor that one often hastens
to his death in believing he is helping nature. Sensual man, will you
never know how to love? Remember, remember that sentiment, so
calm and so sweet, which once you experienced and which you de-
scribed in a manner so touching and so tender.* If such is the most
delightful that has ever been savored by happy lovers, it is the only
one permitted to separated lovers, and when one has been able to
enjoy it, though for a moment, he should no longer regret the loss
of any other. I remember some reflections we made, while reading
your Plutarch, on a depravity of taste which insults nature. Were
such sorry pleasures only not mutual, that would be enough, we
said, to make them insipid and despicable. Let us apply the same
conclusion to the wanderings of an over-active imagination; it will
be no less applicable. Wretch! What do you enjoy when you are the
only one to enjoy it? These solitary, sensual pleasures are lifeless
pleasures. Oh love! Yours are animated. It is the union of souls
which gives life to them, and the pleasure we excite in those we love
makes that which it gives us valuable.[15]
The inseparable cousin, in whose room I am wri ting you this let-
ter, claims that I was at the beginning in that state of playfulness
that love inspires or allows, but I don’t know what has become of
it. In proportion as I proceeded, a certain languor pervaded my
heart and hardly leaves me strength to write you the abuses the
wicked creature wanted to address to you.[16]
But do you really know what put us both in such good humor? It
is her forthcoming marriage. The contract was signed last night, and
the day fixed is a week from Monday. If ever a love was gay, it is as-
suredly hers. We have never in our life seen a girl so jestingly in
love. ‘The good Monsieur d’Orbe, whose head also is turned, is
en-
chanted by so gay a reception. Less hard to please than you
once
were, he takes pleasure in joking and looks upon
the art of divert-

* Part One, Letter LV. [Translator’s note]

LETTER XVI + TO JULIE 199

ing his mistress as a masterpiece in making love. As for her, we may

preach to her as we please, point out the dictates of decorum to her,
tell her that, so near her marriage, she ought to assume a demeanor
more serious and more grave and do honor a little better to the state
she is about to leave. She considers all that as foolish affectations,
and she maintains in front of Monsieur d’Orbe that on the day of
the ceremony she will be in the best humor in the world and that
people could not go too cheerfully to their weddings. But the little
dissembler does not tell everything. I found her this morning with
red eyes, and I wager that the tears of the night indeed pay for the
laughs of the day. She is going to form new ties which will relax
the gentle bonds of friendship; she is going to begin a manner of
living different from that which was dear to her. She was content
and tranquil; she is going to run the risks to which even the best
marriage exposes one, and whatever she may say of it, as a pure and
calm sea begins to be disturbed at the approach of the storm, her
timid and chaste heart does not see the forthcoming change in her
condition without some alarm.
Oh my friend, may they be happy! They are in love; they are
going to be married; they will enjoy their love without obstacles,
without fears, without remorse! Adieu, adieu, I can say no more.

P.S. We saw Lord Bomston only for a moment, so much was he

pressed to continue his journey. With a heart full of our obligations
to him, I tried to show him my feelings and yours, but I had a kind
of shame about them. In truth, it is to insult a man like him to
thank him for anything.

4 LETTER XVI *

To Julie

WHAT CHILDREN do impetuous passions make of men! How readily

does an extravagant love feed itself on shadows, and how easy it is
to mislead violent desires with the most trivial objects! I received
your letter with the same rapture that your presence would have
caused me, and in the passionate outburst of my joy, a mere piece of
200 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

paper took your place for me. One of the greatest miseries of ab-
sence, and the only one for which reason can do nothing, is the un-
easiness over the actual condition of the person one loves. Her
health, her life, her repose, her love—nothing escapes the appre-
hensions of him who has everything to lose. We are no more sure
of the present than of the future, and every possible accident is real-
ized ceaselessly in the mind of a lover who is fearful of them. At
last, I can breathe, I can live: you are well, you love me, or rather,
ten days ago all that was true. But who will assure me for today?
Oh absence! Oh torment! Oh bizarre and distressing situation, in
which we can enjoy only the past moment and in which the present
does not yet exist! [17]
In spite of my slow pace, in spite of my inevitable distractions,
my collection of your letters was finished when your last fortunately
arrived to prolong it, and I am astonished, seeing it is so short,
at how many things your heart was capable of saying to me in so
little space. No, I maintain that there is no reading so delightful,
even for someone who does not know you, if he has a heart similar
to ours. But how can one not know you as he reads your letters?
How can one ascribe such an affecting manner and such tender sen-
timents to a character other than yours? At each sentence does one
not see the sweet look in your eyes? At each word does one not hear
your charming voice? What woman other than Julie has ever loved,
thought, spoken, acted, written as she? Do not be surprised, then,
if your letters which describe you so well sometimes have the same
effect as your presence on your idolatrous lover. Rereading them,
I lose my reason, my head strays in a continual delirium, a devouring
flame consumes me, my blood takes fire and boiis over, a frenzy
causes me to tremble. I imagine I see you, touch you, press you to
my breast . . . adored object, enchanting girl, source of delight and
voluptuousness, seeing you, how can one not see the angelic com-
panions created for the blessed? . . . ah come! . . . I feel her...
she vanishes, and I embrace only a shadow .. . It is true, dear
friend; you are too beautiful and you were too indulgent for my
frail heart. It can forget neither your beauty nor your caresses. Your
charms triumph over absence; they follow me everywhere. They
make me fear solitude, and my greatest misery is that I dare not al-
ways preoccupy myself with thoughts of you.
Our friends, then, will be joined, in spite of obstacles, or rather,
they are married at the moment I am writing. Amiable and worthy
pair! May Heaven bestow upon them the happiness that they de-
serve: through their prudent and peaceful love, the innocence of
LETTER XVII + TO JULIE 201

their conduct, the goodness of their hearts! May it give them this
precious happiness of which it is so sparing toward hearts created
to enjoy it! Fortunate will they be, if it grants them, alas, all that
it takes from us! But nevertheless, do you not feel some sort of con-
solation in our grief? Do you not feel that our excessive misery is
not without compensation, and that if they have pleasures which we
are deprived of, we have some also which they cannot know? Yes, my
sweet friend, in spite of absence, privations, alarms, in spite of de-
spair itself, the powerful exertion of two hearts toward each other is
always attended by a secret pleasure unknown to tranquil souls. It
is one of the miracles of love to make us find pleasure in suffering,
and we should regard as the worst of misfortunes a state of indiffer-
ence and oblivion which would take all the feeling of our misery
from us. Let us lament our fate, oh Julie! But let us not envy any-
one. On the whole, there is perhaps no existence preferable to ours,
and like the goddess who derives all her happiness from herself,
hearts which glow with a celestial fire find in their own sentiments a
kind of pure and delightful pleasure, independent of fortune and of
the rest of the universe.

4 LETTER XVII &

To Julie

AT LAST, here I am completely in the torrent. My collection of let-

ters finished, I have begun to frequent the public diversions and
take supper in the city. I spend my entire day in society, I lend my
ears and my eyes to everything which impresses them, but perceiv-
ing nothing which resembles you, I wrap myself up in meditation
and secretly commune with you in the midst of the noise. It is not
that this busy and tumultuous life does not have some kind of attrac-
tion, or that the vast diversity of objects does not offer certain pleas-
ures to one just come to town, but to experience them, the heart
must be empty and the mind idle. Love and reason seem to unite
in giving me an aversion to them. As everything is only vain ap-
pearance and all changes every instant, I have neither the time to
be affected by nor the time to examine anything.
202 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Thus I am beginning to see the difficulties in a study of the world,

and I do not even know what position one must take in order to un-
derstand it well. The philosopher is too far from it; the man of the
world is too close to it. The one sees too much to be able to reflect
on any part; the other sees too little to pass judgment on the total
picture.[18]
What course shall I take, then, I, a foreigner who can have no
business in this country and whom the difference of religion alone
would prevent from aspiring to anything? * I am reduced to being
humble in order to instruct myself, and unable ever to be useful, to
trying to make myself entertaining. I exert myself as much as pos-
sible to become polite without falseness, obliging without servility,
and to taking so well to what good there is in society without adopt-
ing its vices that I may be admitted to it. Every idle man who wishes
to see the world must assume its manners at least up to a certain
point, for by what right could one demand to be admitted among
people to whom he is good for nothing and for whom he would not
know the art of being agreeable? But also, when he has discovered
that art, no more is asked of him, especially if he is a foreigner. He
can exempt himself from taking part in cabals, in intrigues, in quar-
rels. If he behaves kindly toward everyone, if he neither excludes
nor prefers certain women, if he keeps the secret of each group into
which he is received, if he does not expose the foolishness of one
house to another, if he avoids confidences, if he withstands bicker-
ing, if he retains a certain dignity everywhere, he will be able to ob-
serve the world peaceably, preserve his morals, his integrity, even
his sincerity, provided that it comes from a free and not a partisan
spirit. That is what I have tried to do on the advice of some in-
formed people whom I have chosen as guides from among the ac-
quaintances Lord Bomston has provided me. I have therefore be-
gun to be admitted into some less numerous and more select groups.
Until now I had found myself only at those regular dinner parties
where one sees no other woman but the mistress of the house, where
all the idlers of Paris are received however little they are known,
where each pays for his dinner as he can with wittiness or flattery,
and where the noisy and confused conversation does not differ
much from that of tables at public taverns.
Now I am initiated into more secret mysteries. I attend private
suppers, where the door is closed to all chance guests and
where one

* Protestants, from Switzerland or elsewhere, were generally refused employ-

ment in France at this time. [Translator’s note}
r
LETTER XVII - TO JULIE 203

is sure to find only people who are all agreeable, if not to each other
at least to those who receive them. There the women are less on
their guard, and one can begin to study them. There more refined
and more satirical conversation prevails with more decorum. It is
there that, instead of public news, plays, promotions, deaths, and
marriages—which were the topics of the morning—the anecdotes of
Paris are discreetly reviewed; that all the secret articles of the scan-
dalous chronicle are divulged; that the good and the bad alike are
turned to pleasantry and ridicule; and that describing the charac-
ters of others, skillfully and according to his particular interest,
each speaker undesignedly describes his own still much better. It is
there that a little surviving circumspection in front of the lackeys
has invented a certain ambiguous language, under which, pretend-
ing to make their satire more oblique, people only make it more bit-
ing. It is there, in short, that people carefully sharpen the dagger,
under the pretext of making it less hurtful, but in fact in order to
sink it more deeply.[19]
Thus, whatever way one looks at things, everything here is merely
babble, jargon, inconsequential talk. On the stage as in society, at-
tentive as one may be to what is said, he learns nothing of what is
done, but what need is there to learn it? As soon as a man
has spoken, is one not informed of his conduct? Has he not done
everything? Is he not judged? Here the good man is not he who
does good deeds but he who says good things, and a single uncon-
sidered word, let fall without reflection, can do to him who speaks it
an irreparable wrong which forty years of integrity would not erase.
In short, although the conduct of men hardly resembles their speech,
I see that they are depicted only by their words without regard for
their actions. I see also that in a large city society appears more gen-
teel, more agreeable, even more safe than among less learned people,
but are the men here in fact more humane, more temperate, more
just? I know nothing of it. I still see only appearances, and under
these exteriors, so open and so pleasant, their hearts are perhaps
more hidden, more buried within than ours. Foreign, isolated,
without business, without connections, without pleasures, and de-
siring only to have recourse to myself, how can I pass judgment
upon them?
However, I am beginning to feel the intoxication into which this
busy and tumultuous life plunges those who lead it, and I am
becoming giddy like a man before whose eyes a multitude of objects
is made to pass rapidly. None of those which impress me engage my
heart, but all together disturb and suspend its affections to the point
 204 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

that sometimes I forget what I am and whose I am. Each day in leav-
ing my room, I lock up my sentiments, in order to take on others
which are connected with the frivolous objects that await me. In-
sensibly I make judgments and reason as I hear everyone making
judgments and reasoning. If sometimes I try to shake off prejudices
and see things as they are, immediately I am overwhelmed with a
kind of torrent of words which greatly resembles reasoning. People
prove to me with illustrations that it is only a half-witted philoso-
pher who looks at the reality of things, that the truly wise man con-
siders them only by appearances, that he must take prejudices for
principles, decorum for law, and that the highest wisdom consists
in living like fools.
Compelled in this way to pervert the order of my moral affections,
compelled to give a value to shadows and to impose silence on na-
ture and on reason, I thus see disfigured that divine model I bear
within me, which served both as the object of my desires and as the
guide of my conduct. I float from caprice to caprice, and my tastes
being incessantly enslaved by opinion, I cannot be sure for a single
day of what I shall approve the next.
Confused, humiliated, struck with consternation over feeling
human nature in me being degraded, and seeing myself fallen so
low from that innate greatness to which our impassioned hearts had
reciprocally raised us, I return in the evenings pierced by a secret
sorrow, overwhelmed by a mortal disgust, my heart empty and puffed
up like a balloon full of air. Oh love! Oh the pure sentiments which
I possess because of it! . . . With what delight I recollect myself!
With what ecstasy do I find still within me my former affections and
my former dignity! How I rejoice to see there the image of virtue
shining in all its brilliance, to contemplate your image there, oh
Julie, seated on a throne of glory and with a breath dissipating all
those delusions! I feel my oppressed soul revive, I seem to have re-
covered my existence and my life, and along with my love I regain
all the sublime sentiments which make it worthy of its object.
LETTER XVIII + FROM JULIE 205

d LETTER XVIII *&

From Julie

I HAVE just enjoyed, my good friend, one of the sweetest sights which
could ever delight my eyes. The most prudent and the most amiable
of girls has at last become the most deserving and the best of wives.
Full of esteem and love for her, the honest man whose hopes she
has fulfilled lives only to cherish her, adore her, make her happy,
and I am enjoying the inexpressible delight of being witness to the
happiness of my friend, that is to say, of sharing it. You will not
share it less, I am quite sure, you whom she always loved so tenderly,
you who were dear to her almost since her childhood and who were
the recipient of so much of her benevolence, which must have made
her even more dear to you. Yes, all the sentiments she is experienc-
ing are felt in our hearts as in hers. If they are pleasures for her,
they are consolations for us, and such is the value of the friendship
which unites us that the felicity of one of the three is enough to
mitigate the misery of the other two.
Let us not pretend, however, that this incomparable friend is not
going to forsake us in some measure. Now she is in a new order of
things; now she is subject to new engagements, to new duties, and
her heart which once was only ours is now owed to other affections
to which friendship must give first place. What is more, my friend,
we must become more scrupulous on our part in the services we im-
pose on her zeal. We must not only consult her attachment for us
and our need for her, but also what is fitting in her new situation
and what can please or displease her husband. We have no need
to ask what virtue would demand in such a case; the laws of friend-
ship alone are enough. Would anyone who in his own self-interest
could compromise a friend deserve to have one? When she was un-
married, she was free, she had to answer only to herself for her con-
duct, and the uprightness of her intentions was enough to justify
her in her own eyes. She considered us as man and wife destined
for each other, and her sensitive and pure heart reconciling the
most chaste modesty in regard to herself with the most tender com-
passion for her guilty friend, she concealed my fault without shar-
 206 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ing it. But now all is changed. She must account for her conduct to
another. She has not only pledged her faith; she has resigned her
liberty. Now that she is entrusted with the honor of two people at
the same time, it is not enough for her to be respectable; she must
be respected as well. It is not enough for her to do nothing but
good; she must moreover do nothing which is not approved. A vir-
tuous woman must not only deserve her husband’s esteem but also
obtain it. If he blames her, she is to blame, and even were she in-
nocent, she is in the wrong as soon as she is suspected, for even keep-
ing up appearances is part of her duty.
I do not clearly see if all these reasons are good ones; you will be
the judge of that. But a certain inner feeling warns me that it is not
good for my cousin to continue to be my confidante, nor to be the
first to tell me so. I have often found myself in error over my argu-
ments, but never over the secret feelings on which they are
founded, and that makes me have more confidence in my instinct
than in my reason.
From this consideration, I have already found a pretext for tak-
ing back your letters that fear of surprise made me give to her. She
returned them to me with an oppression of the heart which my own
made me perceive and which convinced me that I had done what
was necessary. We did not have an explanation, but our expressions
took the place of one. Weeping, she embraced me. Saying nothing
to each other, we felt what little need the tender language of
friendship has of the assistance of words.
In regard to an address to substitute for hers, I first had thought
of Fanchon Anet, and she is indeed the safest intermediary we could
choose. But if that young woman is in a class lower than my cousin’s,
is that a reason for having less respect for her in what concerns vir-
tue? Is it not, on the contrary, to be feared that her less elevated sen-
timents may not make my example more dangerous for her, that
what was for one only the effort of a sublime friendship may be for
the other the first step to corruption, and that in abusing her grati-
tude I may be compelling virtue itself to serve as the instrument of
vice? Ah, is it not enough for me to be guilty without procuring
accomplices and without augmenting my faults with the weight
of another’s? Let us not consider it, my friend. I have thought of
another expedient, much less safe, in truth, but also less reprehens
i-
ble in that it compromises no one and involves us with no con-
fidant. It is to write me under a fictitious name—for example, Mon-
sieur du Bosquet—and to send the letter in an envelope addressed
to Regianino, which I shall take care to intercept. Thus Regianin
o
LETTER XVIII - FROM JULIE 207

himself will know nothing; at the most he will have only suspicions
which he would not dare confirm, for Lord Bomston, on whom his
fortune depends, has answered to me for his fidelity. While our cor-
respondence is continuing by this method, I shall see if we can re-
turn to the person whom we used during your trip to the Valais, or
someone else who may be permanent and safe.
Even if I did not know the state of your heart, I should perceive
by the prevailing humor of your correspondence that the life you
are leading is not to your liking. The letters of Monsieur Muralt,
which are complained of in France, were less severe than yours.*
Like a child who is out of temper with his tutors, you revenge your-
self for being obliged to study the world on the first people who
teach you about it. What surprises me most is that the thing which
began by disgusting you is that which predisposes all foreigners in
favor of the French, namely, their reception of strangers and the
general manners of their society, although by your own admission
you personally should be well pleased with them. I have not for-
gotten your distinction between Paris in particular and large cities
in general, but I see that, being unaware of what is applicable to
either one or the other, you criticize without consideration, before
knowing if it is slander or observation. Whatever it may be, I like
the French nation, and you do not oblige me by speaking ill of it.
I am indebted for the greater part of the education that we ac-
quired together to the fine books which come from France. If our
country is barbarous no longer, to whom but France are we obli-
gated? [20] My friend, if each people has its good and its bad qual-
ities, you should pay attention at least to the commendable facts as
well as the reproachable facts.
I shall tell you more: why do you waste in idle visits the time you
have left to spend where you are? Is Paris less of a theatre for talents
than London, and do foreigners make their way less easily there?
Believe me, all the English are not Lord Bomstons, and all the
French do not resemble these fine talkers who displease you so
much. Attempt something, try, make some experiments, were it only
to examine their manners thoroughly, and judge these people who
speak so well by their deeds. My cousin’s father says that you know
the constitution of the Empire and the interests of the princes. His
Lordship also finds that you have studied political principles and
the various systems of government rather well. I have got it in my

* Muralt was a Swiss traveler who in 1725 published his Lettres sur les Anglais
et les Francais et sur les voyages, which was generally unfavorable to the French.
[Translator’s note]
 208 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

head that the country in the world where merit is most respected is
that which is best for you and that you only need to be known to be
employed. As for religion, why should yours be more injurious to
you than another? Is not good sense security against intolerance and
fanaticism? Are people more bigoted in France than in Germany?
And who would prevent you from being able to follow the same
career that Monsieur de Saint-Saphorin did in Vienna? * If you con-
sider the end, must not the earliest attempts speed success? If you
compare the means, is it not even more honest to advance yourself by
your talents than by your friends? If you think . .. ah that seal!
- + . an even longer journey . . . I would like England better if it
was on this side of Paris.
With respect to this large city, should I dare mention an affecta-
tion that I notice in your letters? You who spoke to me of the
women of the Valais with so much pleasure, why do you say nothing
to me of Parisian women? Are these elegant and celebrated women
less worth the trouble to describe than a few simple and coarse
mountain women? Are you perhaps afraid of giving me some un-
easiness by a picture of the most seductive creatures in the universe?
Undeceive yourself, my friend. The worst you can do for my peace of
mind is not to speak of them at all, and whatever you may say
of
them, your silence in that respect is much more suspicious to
me
than your praises. [21]
I don’t know if it is worth the trouble to tell you that two suitors
came again to see me a few days ago as if by appointment at
the
occasion of the wedding. One from Yverdon, lodging and hunting
from chateau to chateau; the other from Germany by the Berne
coach. The former is a kind of a dandy, who speaks rather boldly
in order to have his repartee found witty by those who listen
only
to the manner of it. The other is a great timid simpleton, not with
that amiable timidity which arises from the fear of displeas
ing but
that which comes from the distress of a fool who knows
not what
to say and from the awkwardness of a libertine who does not
feel in
place near a virtuous girl. Knowing very positively my
father’s inten-
tions in regard to these two gentlemen, with pleasure I
took the lib-
erty he gave me to treat them according to my whim,
but I do not
think that this whim may allow her who inspired them
to come here
to tolerate them a long time. I hate them for presuming
to attack a
heart in which you reign, without weapons to dispute
it with you;
* Saint-Saphorin was a Swiss general who entered
the service of England and
became English minister to Vienna. [Translator’s
note]
4
LETTER XIX + TO JULIE 209

if they had some I should hate them still more, but where should
they acquire them, they or any other men in the whole world? No,
no, be tranquil, my amiable friend. Even if I should find a merit
equal to yours, if another like you should present himself, the first
would still be the only one heard. Do not be uneasy, then, about
these two types whom I hardly condescend to mention to you. What
pleasure I should have in measuring out to them two such per-
fectly equal portions of aversion, so that they might resolve to
leave together as they came and I might inform you of the departure
of both at once.[22]
Adieu, my too dear friend. I would not end so soon but I am
awaited, I am called away. I leave you regretfully, for I am cheer-
ful and I like to share my pleasures with you. What inspires and
increases them is that my mother has been better for a few days.
She felt strong enough to attend the wedding and to act as a mother
for her niece, or rather, her second daughter. Poor Claire wept for
joy to see her. Think how I felt, I who deserve to keep her so little
and am always fearful of losing her. In truth, she did the honors of
the celebration with as much grace as if she were in her most per-
fect health; it even seems that some remaining languor makes her
natural manners still more affecting. No, never was this incompara-
ble mother so good, so charming, so worthy of being adored! . . .
Do you know that several times she has asked Monsieur d’Orbe for
news of you? Although she does not speak to me about you, I am not
unaware that she likes you, and that if ever she were heard, our
mutual happiness would be her first concern. Ah! If your heart can
be sensible of this, what need it has to be so, and what debts it has
to pay!

+ LETTER XIX *

To Julie

WELL, MY JULIE, chide me, quarrel with me, whip me, and I shall
bear everything, but nonetheless I shall continue to tell you what I
think. With whom will I entrust all my sentiments if not with you
who enlighten them, and with whom would my heart be permitted
of
to speak if you refused to hear it? When I give you an account
 210 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

my observations and my judgments, it is so that you may correct

them, not so that you may approve them, and the more liable I am
to commit errors, the sooner must I inform you of them. If I censure
the evil customs which impress me in this large city, I do not excuse
myself because I write to you in confidence, for I never say anything
of a third party that I am not ready to say to his face, and in all that
which I have written to you about the Parisians, I merely repeated
what they say every day to themselves. They do not resent me for it;
they agree on a great many things. They complained of our Muralt,
I know. One sees, one feels how much he hates them, even in the
praises he gives them, and I am much mistaken if even in my ad-
verse criticism the contrary is not to be perceived. The esteem and
the gratitude which their kindnesses inspire in me only increases my
frankness; it cannot be useless to some people, and by the way in
which everyone endures the truth from my lips, I dare believe that
they deserve to listen to it and I to speak it. In this case, my Julie,
true censure is more honorable than true praise, for praise serves
only to corrupt those who enjoy it, and the most worthless are al-
ways the most greedy after it. But censure is useful and only the de-
serving are capable of enduring it. I tell you sincerely that I respect
the French as the only people who truly love mankind and who are
beneficent by nature. But for that very reason, I am less
disposed
to grant them that general admiration to which they lay
claim, even
for the faults that they acknowledge. If the French had no virtues
at all, I should say nothing about them; if they had no
vices at all,
they would not be human. They have too many praiseworthy
qual-
ities for indiscriminate praise.
As for the experiments which you mention, they are impract
ical,
because to carry them out I should be obliged to employ
means
which do not suit me and which you yourself have forbidd
en. Re-
publican austerity is not in fashion in this country; here more
flexible virtues are needed which can bow better than mine
to the
interests of friends or patrons. Merit is respected, I
agree; but here
the talents which lead to fame are not those
which lead to fortune,
and if I should have the misfortune to possess the latter,
would Julie
consent to become the wife of a parvenu? In
England, it is another
thing altogether, and though manners there
are perhaps still less
praiseworthy than in France, that does not prevent
one from being
able to rise to fortune by more honest methods,
because, the people
having more share in the government, public
esteem is there a
greater means of distinguishing oneself. You are
not unaware that
his Lordship’s project is to use this means to
my advantage and
LEITER XX + FROM JULIE 211

mine to justify his zeal. The place on earth where I am farthest

from you is that where I can do nothing which may bring me back
to you. Oh Julie! If it is difficult to obtain your hand, it is even more
so to deserve it, and that is the noble task which love imposes on me.
You relieve me of a great anxiety by giving me better news of your
mother. Before my departure, I saw you already so uneasy about
her that I did not dare tell you what I thought, but I found her thin,
changed, and I feared some dangerous sickness. Save her, because
she is dear to me, because my heart respects her, because her kind-
ness is my only hope, and above all because she is my Julie’s mother.
As for the two suitors, I shall own that I do not like that word,
even in jest. Yet the manner with which you speak to me of them
keeps me from fearing them, and I no longer hate those unfortunate
men since you believe you hate them. But I wonder at your simplic-
ity in thinking you are capable of hatred. Do you not see that it is
insulted love which you mistake for hate? The white dove murmurs
in this way when someone pursues its mate. No, Julie, no, incom-
parable girl, when you are able to hate something, I shall be able to
cease loving you.

P.S. How I pity you for being beset by these two importunate men!
For your own sake, hasten to send them away.

4 LETTER XX &

From Julie

MY FRIEND, I have given Monsieur d’Orbe a package which he is

charged to send to you at the address of Monsieur Silvestre, from
whom you will be able to receive it, but I warn you to wait until
you are alone and in your room to open it. You will find in the pack-
age a little trinket for your use.
It is a kind of amulet that lovers willingly wear. The manner of
using it is curious. You must contemplate it every morning for a
quarter of an hour until you feel yourself penetrated with a certain
tenderness. Then you press it to your eyes, your lips, and your heart;
that serves, it is said, as a preservative during the day against the
 22 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

noxious air of a country infected by gallantry. To these kinds of

talismans, people even attribute a very singular electric quality, but
one which acts only between faithful lovers. It is supposed to com-
municate to one the impression of the other’s kisses from a distance
of more than a hundred leagues. I do not guarantee the success of
the experiment; I simply know that it is your fault only if you do
not try it.
Calm yourself with regard to the two gallants, or suitors, call
them what you will, for from now on the title is unimportant to
the thing. They have left. Peace go with them. Since they are out of
my sight, I no longer hate them.

4 LETTER XXI &

To Julie

YOU HAVE desired it, Julie; I must, then, describe them for you,
these charming women of Paris. Vain girl! Your charms were lacking
this tribute. Notwithstanding all your pretended jealousy, your mod-
esty, and your love, I see more vanity than fear hidden under this
curiosity. Be that as it may, I shall be truthful; I can be so, and I
should be so with better will, even if I had more to praise. Would
they were a hundred times more charming! Would they had sufficient
allurements to render new honor to yours by the comparison!
You complained of my silence? Ah, good heavens, what should
I have told you? In reading this letter you will feel why I liked to
speak of your neighbors, the women of the Valais, and why I did
not speak at all of the women of this country. It is because the first
reminded me incessantly of you, and because the others . . . read
this, and then you will pass judgment on me. Besides, few people
think as I do about French ladies, if indeed in respect to them I am
not completely alone in my opinion. Fairness obliges me to warn you
of this, so that you may realize that I am representing them to you
not perhaps as they are but as I see them. Nevertheless, if I am
un-
just toward them, you will not fail to censure me again, and you
will
be more unjust than I, because the fault is entirely yours alone.
Let us begin with their appearance. That is what satisfies the
LETTER XXI + TO JULIE 213
greater part of the observers. If I imitate them in this, the women of
this country should have great cause to complain. They have an
exterior character as well as an exterior face, and as neither is much
more to their advantage than the other, one does them injury by
judging them only by that. At the most, they have a tolerable ap-
pearance and are generally rather ill-favored than good-looking; I
leave aside the exceptions. Slender rather than well-proportioned,
they do not have a good figure; thus they readily prefer fashions
which disguise it, and I find women of other countries rather simple
for trying hard to imitate these fashions made to hide defects which
they do not have.[23]
Their features are not very regular, but if they are not beautiful,
they have something in their countenance which makes up for
beauty and sometimes eclipses it. Their eyes are quick and brilliant
but nevertheless neither penetrating nor soft. Although they pre-
tend to animate them with the help of rouge, the expression they
acquire by this means has more of the fire of anger than that of
love. By nature they have sprightliness only, or if they sometimes
seem to ask for a tender sentiment, they never promise it.*[24]
I warned you that I am by no means of the ordinary opinion in
respect to the women of this country. People unanimously find that
they give the most enchanting welcome, that their graces are most
seductive, their coquetry most refined, their elegance sublime, and
their art of pleasing superlative. For my part, I find their welcome
shocking, their coquetry disgusting, their manners immodest. I
should imagine that one’s heart would be closed to all their ad-
vances, and I shall never be persuaded that they can speak of love
for a moment without showing themselves incapable equally of in-
spiring or feeling any.
On the other hand, report teaches one to be mistrustful of their
character; it represents them as frivolous, guileful, false, heedless,
flighty, as talking well but not thinking at all, feeling still less, and
thus wasting all their merit in idle chatter. All that seems to me to
be part of their outward appearance, like their hoop-petticoats and
their rouge. In Paris, one must acquire the fashionable vices, which
conceal their basic sense, reason, humanity, and good nature. They
are less indiscreet, less given to fidgeting than women among us,
less perhaps than women of any other country. They are more

* Speak for yourself, my dear philosopher. Why should others not be more for-
tunate? It is only a coquette who promises everyone what she ought to reserve
for one man only. [Rousseau]
 214 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

soundly educated and their education is of better service to their

judgment. In short, if they displease me by disfiguring all that char-
acterizes their sex, I esteem them for their resemblances to ours
which do us credit, and I find that they should be worthy men a hun-
dred times sooner than amiable women.
Conclusion: even if Julie had not existed, if my heart had been
able to allow some attachment other than that for which it was
created, I should never have taken my wife in Paris, still less my mis-
tress, but I should have readily chosen a friend there, and this treas-
ure might have consoled me, perhaps, for not finding the other two.*

4% LETTER XXII &

To Julie

SINCE I received your letter, I have gone every day to Monsieur Sil-
vestre’s to ask for the small package. It was always not yet come, and
devoured by a mortal impatience, seven times I made the trip use-
lessly. At last, the eighth time I received the package. Scarcely did I
have it in my hands than, without paying the postage, without in-
quiring what it was, without saying a word to anyone, I left in a
daze, and having only the thought to return home, I ran so precipi-
tously through streets I did not know that at the end of a half-hour,
looking for the rue de Tournon where I lodge, I found myself in the
marsh at the other end of Paris. I was obliged to take a hackney
coach to get back more promptly. That was the first time this hap-
pened to me in the morning. I only use them in the afternoons for
some visits, and then even with regret, for I have two very good legs
and I should be quite angry if a little more affluence in my fortune
made me neglect their use.
I was very nervous in my hackney coach with my package. I did
not want to open it except in my room; that was your command. Be-
sides, a sort of voluptuousness, which permits me to forget comfort

*I shall restrain myself from commenting upon this letter, but I doubt that a
judgment which allows to the women he observes qualities which they scorn, and
which denies them the only ones they value, will be very likely to please them.
[Rousseau]
 LETTER XXII + TO JULIE 215

in ordinary things, makes me seek it carefully in true pleasures.

In those I cannot bear any sort of distraction, and thus I wish to
have time and ease to savor all that comes to me from you. I held
that package, therefore, with an impatient curiosity which I could
not overcome. I endeavored to feel what it could contain through
the wrappings, and you would have said it was burning my hands
to see the continual transfer it was undergoing from one to the
other. It was not that by its size, its weight, the manner of your let-
ter, I did not have some suspicion of the truth, but how could I con-
ceive you to have found the artist and the opportunity? That is
what I still cannot guess. It is a miracle of love. The more it surpasses
my reason, the more it enchants my heart, and one of the pleasures
it gives me is that of understanding nothing of it.
At last I arrived at my lodgings, I flew up, I locked myself in my
room, I sat down out of breath, and I put a trembling hand on the
seal. Oh, the first effect of the talisman! I felt my heart palpitating
at each paper I removed, and I soon found myself so overcome that
I was forced to get my breath for a moment at the last wrapping
Poe ier On my juliel ."... the veil is tormaway . . . Tsee
you .. . I see your divine features! My lips and my heart pay them
first homage; my knees bend . . . adored charms, once more you
enchant my eyes. How immediate, how powerful is the magic effect
of these cherished features! No, it does not require a quarter of an
hour, as you claim, to feel this effect. One minute, one instant was
enough to tear a thousand ardent sighs from my breast and bring
back along with your image remembrance of my past happiness.
Why must it be that the joy of possessing so precious a treasure is
mingled with such cruel bitterness? With what anguish the portrait
reminded me of the times which are no more! Seeing it, I imagined
I was seeing you again; I imagined I found those delightful moments
- again, the memory of which now creates my life’s unhappiness, the
moments which Heaven gave me and took from me in its anger.
Alas, the next instant undeceives me. All the grief of absence is
rekindled and sharpened as the delusion which suspended it van-
ishes, and I am like those wretches whose torments are interrupted
only to make them more sensitive to them. Gods! What torrents of
passion my avid eyes absorb from this unexpected object! Oh how
it revives in my inmost heart all the impetuous emotions that your
presence used to call into being! Oh Julie, if it were true that it
might transmit to your senses the delirium and the illusion of mine.
. . . But why should it not be so? Why should not the impressions
which my soul sends forth with such rapidity not reach as far as
216 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

you? Ah dear friend! Wherever you may be, whatever you may be
doing at the moment I am writing this letter, at the moment when
your portrait is receiving all the homage your idolatrous lover ad-
dresses to your person, do you not feel your charming face bathed
with tears of love and sadness? Do you not feel your eyes, your
cheeks, your lips, your bosom caressed, pressed, overwhelmed by my
ardent kisses? Do you not feel yourself surrounded completely by the
fire from my burning lips! . . . Heavens, what do I hear? Someone
is coming . . . Ah let us lock up, let us conceal my treasure...
the importunate one! . . . Cursed be the cruel person who comes to
interrupt such sweet ecstasies! . . . May he never be in love . . . or
else may he live far from the one he loves![25]

4 LETTER XXIV &

From Julie

YES, YES, I see it well. Fortunate Julie is ever dear to you. The same
fire which once sparkled in your eyes glows in your last letter. In it
I found again all the passion which gives me courage, and mine is
excited again. Yes, my friend, fate separates us in vain. Let us press
our hearts together, let us by this communication preserve their nat-
ural warmth against the chill of absence and of despair, and let all
that which should loosen our attachment serve only to bind it in-
cessantly closer.
But admire my simplicity. Since I received that letter, I have ex-
perienced something of the enchanting effects which you mention,
and that jest about the talisman, although my own invention, has
nevertheless taken me in and appears to me now to be true. A hun-
dred times a day when I am alone, a trembling seizes me as if I felt
you near me. I imagine that you are holding my portrait, and I am
so foolish that I think I can feel the pressure of the caresses you
are giving it and the kisses you are bestowing on it. My lips imagine
they are receiving them; my tender heart imagines it is enjoying
them. Oh sweet illusions! Oh imagination, last resource of the un-
happy! Ah, if possible, be to us a reality! You are yet something to
those for whom happiness no longer exists.
LETTER XXVI + TO JULIE 217

As for the way I devised to have this portrait done, it is indeed a

contrivance of love, but believe me, if it were true that mine might
work miracles, it would not have chosen this one. Here is the ex-
planation for your bewilderment. Some time ago, we had here a
miniaturist who came from Italy. He had some letters from Lord
Bomston, who in giving them to him perhaps had in view what has
happened. Monsieur d’Orbe wanted to profit from this opportunity
to have a portrait of my cousin. I wished to have one also. She and
my mother wanted to have mine, and at my request the painter se-
cretly made a second copy. Then without troubling myself about the
copy or the original, I cunningly chose the best likeness of the three
to send to you. This was a deception over which I did not hesitate
much, for a little more or less resemblance hardly matters to my
mother and my cousin; but the homage you would pay to a face
other than mine would be a sort of infidelity, by so much the more
dangerous as my portrait would be better than I, and I do not want
you in any manner whatsoever to acquire a liking for charms I do
not possess. Moreover, if it had rested with me, I should have been
a little less negligently dressed, but I was not heard, and my father
himself wanted the portrait to remain such as it is. I beg you at least
to believe that except for the head-dress, that apparel was not
drawn from mine, that the painter did all as he pleased, and that he
adorned my person with works of his imagination.[26]

4¢ LETTER XXVI *&

To Julie

juie! Oh Julie! Oh you whom once I dared call mine, whose name
I now profane! The pen falls from my trembling hand; my tears
flood the paper. I have difficulty in tracing the first words of a letter
which ought never to be written. I can neither keep silent nor
speak! Come, respectable and dear image, come to purify and fortify
a heart debased by shame and broken by remorse. Sustain my failing
courage; give to my contrition the power to confess the involuntary
crime which your absence allowed me to commit.
What scorn you will have for me in my guilt, but much less than I
 218 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

have for myself! However low I shall be in your eyes, I am a hun-

dred times more so in my own, for in seeing myself such as I am,
what humiliates me most yet is to see you, to feel you in my inmost
heart, in a place henceforth so little worthy of you, and to think
that the memory of the truest pleasures of love was not able to pro-
tect my senses against a snare that had no lure and a crime that had
no appeal.
Such is the excess of my confusion that in appealing to your clem-
ency, I am even afraid to defile your eyes with these lines in which I
confess my heinous offense. Pure and chaste soul, forgive an account
which I should spare your modesty if it were not a means of atoning
for my ill-conduct. I am unworthy of your kindness, I know; I am
vile, base, contemptible, but at least I shall be neither hypocritical
nor deceitful, and I prefer that you deprive me of your heart and
my life rather than deceive you for a single moment. For fear of be-
ing tempted to seek excuses, which would only make me more crim-
inal, I shall confine myself to giving you an exact account of what
happened to me. It will be as sincere as my remorse; that is
all I shall permit myself to say in my defense.
I had made the acquaintance of some officers of the guards and
other young fellows among our countrymen in whom I found a
worthy character which I was sorry to see spoiled by the imitation of
I know not what false airs that were not suitable for them. In turn,
they scoffed to see me preserve in Paris the simplicity of the old Swiss
morals. They construed my precepts and my manners into indirect
censure of theirs, at which they were offended, and they resolved at
whatever cost to make me change my attitude. After several attempts
which did not succeed at all, they contrived a better one which suc-
ceeded only too well. Yesterday morning, they came to me to propose
supper at the home of the wife of a certain Colonel they mentioned,
who from the report of my good sense desired, they said, to make
my acquaintance. Foolish enough to be taken in by this idle story,
I represented to them the propriety of first paying her a call, but
they scoffed at my scruple, telling me that Swiss frankness did not
agree with so much formality and that those ceremonious manners
would only serve to give her an ill opinion of me. At nine o’clock,
therefore, we betook ourselves to the lady’s home. She came out to
receive us on the staircase, something which I had not yet observed
anywhere else. Entering, I saw old candles over the chimney which
had just been lit and throughout a certain air of preparation which
did not please me at all. The mistress of the house appeared pretty,
although a little past her prime; other women almost of the same
LETTER XXVI + TO JULIE 219

age and with a similar figure were with her. Their rather brilliant
dress was more gaudy than tasteful, but I had already observed that
in this country this is a sign by which one can in no way judge the
position of a woman.
The first civilities took place almost as usual; the custom of
society teaches one to cut them short or to turn them into pleasantry
before they become tiresome. It was not wholly as usual as soon as
the conversation became general and serious. I thought these ladies
seemed to have a repressed and constrained manner, as if this
serious tone were not familiar to them, and for the first time since
I had been in Paris, I saw women at a loss to support a rational con-
versation. In order to find an easy topic, they brought up their fam-
ily affairs, and as I was not acquainted with any of them, each one
spoke as she pleased. Never did I hear so much talk of the Colonel,
which astonished me in a country where the custom is to call people
by their name rather than by their rank, and where those who have
one of the latter ordinarily use other titles.
This affected dignity soon gave place to more natural behavior.
They began to chat in low voices, and unthinkingly assuming a
scarcely decent tone of familiarity, they whispered, they smiled as
they were looking at me, while the lady of the house was question-
ing me on the state of my heart in a certain bold manner hardly
suited to entice it. Supper was served, and the freedom of the table,
which seems to make no distinctions between persons but which im-
perceptibly puts everyone in his place, finally taught me what sort of
a place I was in. It was too late for me to back out. Therefore, put-
ting my confidence in my aversion, I decided to devote that eve-
ning to my function as an observer and resolved to use in studying
this type of women the only opportunity I might ever have for it. I
drew little profit from my observations; they were so insensible
of their present situation, so scarcely apprehensive for the future,
and except for the tricks of their profession, they were so stupid in
all respects that contempt soon effaced the pity I first entertained
for them. In speaking even of pleasure itself, they were, I saw, in-
capable of feeling any. They seemed to me excessively avid after all
that could tempt their avarice. Except in that respect, I heard from
their lips no word which came from the heart. I wondered how these
honest men could endure such disgusting company. A cruel punish-
ment to impose upon them, in my opinion, would be to condemn
them to keep such company as they themselves chose.
However, the supper was prolonged and became noisy. For want
of love, wine inflamed the guests. The talk was not tender but im-
 220 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

modest, and the women tried by disordering their dress to excite

the desires which should have caused that disorder. At first, all this
only had a contrary effect on me, and all their efforts to seduce me
served but to repel me. Sweet modesty, I said to myself, is the su-
preme voluptuousness of love! How a woman loses her charm at the
moment she renounces it! If they knew its power, what pains they
would take to preserve it, if not through virtue at least through
coquetry! But one does not counterfeit modesty. There is no ruse
more ridiculous than that of the woman who tries to affect it. What
a difference, I was thinking still, between the coarse impudence of
these creatures with their licentious ambiguities and those timid
and impassioned looks, those conversations full of modesty, grace,
and sentiment which ...I dared not finish; I was ashamed of
these unworthy comparisons . . . I reproached myself as if it were a
crime for the delightful memories which were pursuing me in spite
of myself . . . In what place was I daring to think of her . . . Alas!
Being unable to dispel your dear, dear image from my heart, I en-
deavored to veil it.
The noise, the talk I heard, the objects which presented them-
selves to my view, insensibly inflamed me. My two supper partners
did not cease giving me enticements which finally were pushed too
far to leave me any composure. I knew that my head was whirling. I
had been drinking my wine always strongly diluted. I put still more
water in it, and at last I determined to drink pure water. Only then
did I perceive that this pretended water was white wine, and that I
had been deceived during the whole meal. I made no complaints,
which would only have subjected me to raillery; I stopped drinking.
It was too late; the evil was done. Drunkenness did not delay in
depriving me of what little consciousness I had left. I was surprised,
in coming to my senses, to find myself in a secluded bedroom, in the
arms of one of these creatures, and at the same moment I knew the
despair of feeling myself as guilty as Icould be . . .
I have finished this frightful story. Let it no longer defile your
eyes nor my memory. Oh you from whom I await my judgment, I
beg for your severity, I deserve it. Whatever my punishment may
be, it will be less cruel to me than the memory of my crime.
LETTER XXVII - RESPONSE 221

4% LETTER XXVIII *&

Response

SET YOUR MIND at rest over the fear of having made me angry. Your
letter has caused me more sorrow than anger. It is not me, it is your-
self whom you have offended by licentiousness in which your heart
had no part at all. But I am more afflicted by this. I should prefer
to see you insult me rather than debase yourself, and the injury
you do to yourself is the only kind which I cannot forgive.
Looking only at the fault for which you are ashamed, you find
yourself much more guilty than you are, and I hardly see anything
but imprudence in this case for which to reproach you. But what
I blame you for proceeds from further back and has a deeper root
than you perceive, and my friendship for you is obliged to uncover
Le,
Your first error was to have taken a wrong path in entering the
world. The more you advance, the more you go astray, and I
tremble to observe that you are lost unless you retrace your steps.
You have allowed yourself to be imperceptibly led into the snare I
had feared. The gross enticements of vice could not first seduce you,
but evil company began by deceiving your reason in order to cor-
rupt your virtue and has already made the first trial of its maxims
on your morals.[27]
In spite of all your passion, you are the most easy-tempered of
men, and in spite of the maturity of your judgment, you allow your-
self to be so led by those with whom you associate that you cannot
keep company with people of your age without regressing and be-
coming a child again in their hands. Thus you degrade yourself in
thinking they are suitable for you, and you lower yourself by not
choosing friends more prudent than you.
I do not reproach you for having been inadvertently led into a
dishonest house, but I do reproach you for having been led there by
young officers whom you should not have known, or whom at least
you should not have permitted to direct your amusement. As for
your project of making them converts to your principles, I find in it
more zeal than prudence. If you are too serious to be their comrade,
 222 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

you are too young to be their tutor, and you ought to meddle with
reforming others only when you have nothing left to reform in
yourself.
A second fault, still more serious and much less pardonable, is to
have voluntarily spent the evening in a place so little worthy of you
and not to have fled the first instant you knew what sort of house
you were in. Your excuses on that score are pitiable. Jt was too late
to back out! As if there was some kind of decorum in such places,
or that decorum ought ever to outweigh virtue, or that it was ever
too late to stop oneself from doing evil! As for the confidence which
you placed in your aversion, I shall say nothing of it; the event has
shown you how well founded it was. Speak more sincerely to her
who can read your heart; it was shame that held you back. You
feared that they might make fun of you as you left. A moment of
jeering made you afraid, and you preferred to expose yourself to
remorse rather than raillery. Do you know what maxim you fol-
lowed in that case? That which first introduces vice into an inno-
cent soul, stifles the voice of conscience by public clamor, and re-
presses the resolution to do good by the fear of censure. By such a
maxim, one would overcome temptations yet yields to bad ex-
amples; he is ashamed of being virtuous and becomes brazen
through shame, and this evil shame corrupts more chaste hearts
than evil inclinations do. That is chiefly what you have to guard
yourself against, for whatever you do, the fear of the ridicule that
you pretend to scorn dominates you even in spite of yourself. You
would sooner face a hundred dangers than one jeer, and never has
so much timidity been seen united with so intrepid a heart.[28]
I do not know if your accommodating philosophy has already
adopted the maxims that are said to be established in large cities
for the toleration of such places, but I hope at least that you are
not among those who have sufficient contempt for themselves to per-
mit them to frequent them, under the pretext of I know not what
imaginary need, felt only by men of debauched lives, as if the two
sexes were in this respect of different natures and as if in absence or
celibacy the honest man had need of some resources which
the honest woman did not require. But if this error does not lead
you to prostitutes, I am indeed afraid that it will continue to de-
ceive your thoughts. Ah! If you are determined to be contemptible,
be so at least without pretext, and do not add lying to debauchery.
All these pretended needs do not have their source in nature,
but in the voluntary depravity of the senses. The fond illusions of
love are purified in a chaste heart and corrupt only a heart already
LETTER XXVIII. FROM JULIE 223

corrupted. On the contrary, chastity is sustained by itself; desires

constantly repressed become accustomed to remaining at rest, and
temptations are multiplied only by the habit of succumbing to them.
Friendship has twice made me overcome my reluctance to treat such
a subject; this will be the last time, for in what name should I hope
to obtain that influence over you which you have refused to virtue,
to love, and to reason?[29]
I ought to use with you all the frankness of friendship in the
critical situation you seem to me to be in, for fear that a second step
toward licentiousness might finally plunge you into it past all
hope before you might have the time to recollect yourself. But now
I cannot conceal from you, my friend, how much your prompt and
sincere confession has affected me, for I know how much the shame
of that avowal has cost you and consequently how much that of your
fault weighs upon your heart. An involuntary error is pardoned and
forgotten easily. But for the future, hold well to this maxim from
which I shall never swerve: he who can be deceived twice on these
occasions was not actually deceived the first time.
Adieu, my friend. Look after your health carefully, I beg you,
and bear in mind that there must remain no trace of a crime which
I have pardoned.[30]

&% LETTER XXVIII *

From Julie

ALL IS RUINED! All is discovered! I no longer find your letters in the

place where I had hidden them. They were still there yesterday eve-
ning. They could have been taken away only today. My mother
alone can have found them. If my father sees them, it means my
lifel Oh, what good would it be if he did not see them, if I must re-
nounce . . . Oh God! My mother sends for me. Where shall I fly?
How shall I bear her looks? Why can I not conceal myself in the
center of the earth! . . . My whole body trembles, and I am unable
to take a step . . . shame, humiliation, piercing reproaches . . . I
have deserved everything, I shall endure everything. But the grief,
the tears of a distressed mother . . . Oh my heart, how they pierce
224 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

it! . . . She is waiting for me; I can delay no longer . . . she will
want to know... it will be necessary to tell her all... Re
gianino will be dismissed. Write me no more until you hear further
- who knows if ever . . . Imight . . . what, lie? . . . lie to my
mother . . . Ah, if we must be saved by lying, adieu, we are de-
stroyed!
 ale
PART III

ole
 & LETTER I *&

From Madame d’Orbe

WHAT MISERY you cause those who love you! What tears have al-
ready been shed on your account in an unfortunate family whose
tranquillity you alone disturb! Be fearful of adding the anguish of
mourning to our tears. Be fearful lest the death of an afflicted
mother may be the last effect of the poison you have poured into
the heart of her daughter, and lest an extravagant love may
at length become the source of your eternal remorse. Friendship
made me endure your folly as long as a shadow of hope could nour-
ish it, but how can I tolerate a vain constancy which honor and
reason condemn and which, causing only unhappiness and grief,
deserves but the name of obstinacy?
You know in what manner the secret of your passions, concealed
so long from my aunt’s suspicions, was discovered to her by your
letters. How sensibly this tender and virtuous mother felt such a
blow. Less angry with you than with herself, she lays the blame only
on her blind negligence; she deplores her fatal delusion. Her most
cruel affliction arises from having had too high esteem for her
daughter, and her sorrow is for Julie a punishment a hundred times
worse than her reproaches.
The extreme dejection of my poor cousin cannot be imagined.
You must see her to realize it. Her heart seems stifled by grief, and
the violence of the sentiments which oppress her gives her a stunned
manner, more frightful than piercing cries. She remains day and
night on her knees at her mother’s bedside, with a mournful look
and her eyes fixed on the ground, keeping a profound silence. She
serves her with more attention and vivacity than ever, then imme-
diately relapses into a state of dejection which would cause one to
228 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

mistake her for another person. It is very evident that it is the sick-
ness of the mother which sustains the strength of the daughter, and
if the ardent desire to serve did not kindle her zeal, her dim eyes,
her paleness, her extreme despondency would make me apprehen-
sive that she herself had great need of all the attentions which she
gives her mother. My aunt perceives it too, and I see by the uneasi-
ness with which she privately recommends her daughter’s health to
my care how much her heart struggles against the constraint they
both impose upon themselves, and how much you should be hated
for disturbing so charming a union.
This constraint is augmented even more by the care of hiding it
from the eyes of the passionate father, from whom the mother,
trembling for the life of her daughter, wishes to hide this dangerous
secret. They make it a rule to keep their old familiarity in his pres-
ence, but if maternal tenderness takes advantage of this pretext with
pleasure, a confused daughter dares not yield her heart to caresses
which she believes feigned and which are as cruel to her as they
would be sweet if she dared have confidence in them. In receiving
those of her father, she looks toward her mother with an air so ten-
der and so humble that her heart seems to say to her through her
eyes, “Ah, would that I were still worthy of receiving as much from
youl”
Madame d’Etange has conversed with me privately several times,
and I have easily recognized by the mildness of her reprimands
and by the tone in which she spoke to me of you that Julie has made
great efforts to calm her too just indignation toward us, and that
she has spared no pains to justify us both at her own expense.
Even your letters convey, in the depiction of an excessive love, a sort
of excuse which has not escaped her; she reproaches you less for
abusing her confidence than she reproaches herself for her simpli-
city in granting it to you. She esteems you enough to believe that
no other man in your place would have resisted better than you;
she blames virtue itself for your faults. She understands now, she
says, that it is not an overly praised integrity which prevents an
honest man in love from corrupting a chaste girl if he can, and from
unscrupulously dishonoring a whole family to satisfy a moment of
ardor. But what use is it to go back over the past? It is now a matter
of concealing this odious mystery under an everlasting veil, of ef-
facing the slightest trace of it if possible, and of assisting the good-
ness of Heaven which has left no visible evidence. The secret is con-
fined to six safe people. The tranquillity of all whom you have
 LETTER I - FROM MADAME D’ORBE 229

loved, the life of a mother in despair, the honor of a respectable

house, your own virtue, all these still depend on you. All prescrib
e
your duty to you. You can make amends for the evil you
have
caused; you can make yourself worthy of Julie and justify her
fault
by renouncing her, and if your heart has not deceived me, nothing
but the grandeur of such a sacrifice can be equal to the love which
requires it. Relying on the esteem I always had for your sentime
nts
and on the strength which must be added to it by the tenderest
union that ever was, I have promised in your name all that
you must do. Dare to undeceive me if I have presumed too much
of
you, or be now what you ought to be. You must sacrifice either your
mistress or your love for each other, and show yourself either
the
most cowardly or the most virtuous of men.
This unfortunate mother resolved to write you; she had even
begun a letter. Oh God, what stabs her bitter complaints would
have given you! How her affecting reproaches would have torn your
heart! How her humble prayers would have pierced you with shame.
I tore to pieces this distressful letter that you could never have en-
dured. I could not bear this last degree of horror, to see a mother
humbled before her daughter’s seducer. You are at least worthy
enough that with you one does not use such means, designed
to soften monsters and kill a sensitive man.
If this were the first effort that love had demanded of you, I might
doubt its success and hesitate over the esteem you deserve, but the
sacrifice you have made to Julie’s honor by leaving this country is a
guarantee to me of that which you will make to her peace of mind
by breaking off this useless affair. The first efforts of virtue are al-
ways the most painful, and you will waste the advantage of an ef-
fort which has cost you so much by insisting on maintaining a futile
correspondence, the risks of which are terrible for your lover, with-
out the least compensation for either, a correspondence which
only fruitlessly prolongs the torments of both. Doubt it no longer:
this Julie who was so dear to you must be nothing to him she loved
so much. In vain do you dissemble your misfortunes; you lost her
the moment you parted from her. Or rather, Heaven took her from
you, even before she gave herself to you, for her father had prom-
ised her to another before his return, and you know only too well
that the word of this inflexible man is irrevocable. Whatever you
do, insurmountable fate opposes your desires, and you will never
possess her. The only choice left for you to make is either to hurl
her into an abyss of misery and shame, or to respect in her what
230 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

you have adored and to restore to her, in place of lost happiness, at

least the prudence, peace, and security of which your fatal affair de-
prives her.
How afflicted you would be, how consumed with regret you would
be, if you could gaze on the real state of our unhappy friend and
the self-abasement to which remorse and shame reduce her! How
dulled is her brightness! How languid are her graces! All her senti-
ments, so charming and so sweet, are sadly dissolving into the single
one which absorbs them. Even friendship is cooled by it; scarcely
does she still share the pleasure I enjoy when we meet, and her sick
heart no longer can feel anything but love and sorrow. Alas, what
has become of that fond and sensitive character, that pure taste for
virtuous things, that tender interest in the pains and pleasures of
others? I confess, she is still sweet, generous, compassionate; the
amiable habit of doing good cannot be effaced in her, but it is now
only a blind habit, an inclination without reflection. She does all
the same things, but she no longer does them with the same zeal.
Those sublime sentiments have grown weak, that divine flame has
cooled, and that angel is now no more than an ordinary woman.
Ah, what a soul you have seduced from virtue!

*© LETTER II +

To Madame d’Etange

PENETRATED with a sorrow which is to last as long as my life, I throw

myself at your feet, Madame, not to show you a repentance which
does not rest with my heart, but to atone for an involuntary crime
by renouncing all that could make my life a pleasure. Just as never
did human feelings approach those which your adorable daughter
inspired in me, never was there any sacrifice equal to that which I
shall make to the most respectable of mothers; but Julie has taught
me too well how one must sacrifice happiness to duty. She has too
courageously set an example for me at least once not to be capable
of imitating her. If my blood would suffice to remove your distress,
I should shed it in silence and complain only of giving you such a
feeble proof of my zeal. But to break the sweetest, the purest, the
LETTER Il - TO MADAME D’ETANGE 231

holiest tie that has ever united two hearts, ah, that is an effort which
the whole universe might not have obliged me to make, and which
you alone have the right to obtain!
Yes, I promise to live far from her as long as you require it; I shall
abstain from seeing her and from writing her. I swear it by your
precious life, so necessary to the preservation of hers. I submit, not
without fear but without a murmur, to all you deign to command
of her and of me. I shall say much more still: her happiness can con-
sole me for my misery, and I shall die content if you give her a
husband worthy of her. Ah, let him be found! And let him dare say
to me, “I shall be more capable of loving her than you!” Madame,
in vain will he have all I lack; if he does not have my heart he
has nothing for Julie. But I have only this honest and tender
heart. Alas! I have nothing more. Love, which unites everyone,
does not elevate the person; it elevates only the sentiments. Ah! If
I had dared to listen only to mine for you, how many times in speak-
ing to you might my lips have pronounced the sweet name of
mother?
Deign to rely upon oaths which will not be empty and a man who
is not false. If once I could deceive your esteem, I deceived myself
first. My inexperienced heart recognized the danger only when
there was no longer time to escape, and I had not yet learned from
your daughter that cruel art of conquering love with its own
weapons that she has since so well taught me. Banish your fears, I
implore you. Is there a person in the world to whom her peace of
mind, her happiness, her honor are more dear than to me? No,
my word and my heart are securities to you of the pledge I am tak-
ing in the name of my renowned friend as well as in my own. No in-
discretion will be committed, be sure of it, and I shall breathe my
last sigh without divulging to anyone what sorrow caused the end
calm that distress which consumes you and
of my life. Therefore,
with which mine is increased. Dry the tears which wring my heart,
ever
recover your health, restore to the most tender daughter who
lived the happiness she renounced for you, be yourself happy
through her, and live, finally, so that she may value life. Ah, in spite
cause for
of our love’s mistakes, to be Julie’s mother is still sufficient
happiness in life.
 232 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

+ LETTER III #

To Madame d’Orbe

(With the preceding letter enclosed.)

WELL, CRUEL ONE, here is my response. Burst into tears as
you read
it, if you know my heart and if yours is still sensitive. But above
all, overwhelm me no more with that unpitying esteem which I
so dearly purchase and with which you create the torment of
my
life.
Your barbarous hand, then, has dared to break these sweet
bonds,
formed under your eyes almost since childhood, which your friend-
ship seemed to share with so much pleasure? I am, therefor
e, as
wretched as you would have me and as I can be. Ah! Do you
under-
stand all the evil you are doing? Are you well aware that
you are
wringing my heart, that what you take from me is without
compen-
sation, and that it isa hundred times better to die than no
longer to
live for each other? Why do you speak to me of Julie’s
happiness?
Can there be any without the heart’s consent? Why
do you speak to
me of her mother’s danger? Ah, what is a mother’
s life, what is
my Own, yours, even hers, what is the existenc
e of the whole world
next to the delightful sentiment which united us?
Senseless and
fierce virtue! I obey its undeserving voice; I abhor
it while I
do everything for it. What use are its vain consolat
ions against the
distressful agonies of the soul? No, the sullen idol of
wretches, it
only increases their misery by depriving them of the
resources which
fortune offers them. Yet, I shall obey. I shall become,
if possible, in-
sensible and ferocious like yourself. I shall forget
everything in the
world that was dear to me. I will no longer
hear or pronounce
Julie’s name or yours. I will no longer be reminde
d unbearably of
them. A resentment, an inflexible rage embitters
me against so many
misfortunes, A harsh obstinacy will take the place
of my courage. It
has cost me too much to be sensitive; it is preferable to renou
nce
humanity.
LETTER IV + FROM MADAME D’ORBE 233

+ LETTER IV *&

From Madame d’Orbe

YOU HAVE written me a distressing letter, but there is so much love

and virtue in your conduct that it effaces the bitterness of your com-
plaints. You are too generous for anyone to have the spirit to quar-
rel with you. Whatever anger one permits to burst forth, when he
is capable of sacrificing himself in this way to the one he loves, he
deserves more praise than reproach, and in spite of your insults,
you were never so dear to me as you are now since I am so fully
aware of all you are worth.
Give thanks to that virtue which you think you hate, and which
does more for you than even your love. There is not one of us, not
even my aunt, whom you have not won over by this sacrifice, the
whole cost of which she knows. She could not read your letter with-
out becoming tender; she even had the weakness to allow her
daughter to see it, and the effort that poor Julie made to restrain
her sighs and her tears as she read it caused her to fallin a faint.
This tender mother, whom your letters had already powerfully
affected, is beginning to perceive from all she sees how much your
two hearts are above ordinary rules, and how much your love con-
tains a natural sympathy which neither time nor human efforts
could efface. She who has such great need of consolation would
readily console her daughter, if propriety did not hold her back, and
I see her too ready to become Julie’s confidante to fear she will not
pardon me for having been one. Propriety forsook her yesterday
per-
to the point of saying in Julie’s presence, a little indiscreetly,
she restraine d
haps, “Ah, if it rested only with me. . . .” * Although
that Julie im-
herself and did not finish, I saw by the ardent kiss
I am
pressed on her hand that she had understood only too well.
to her
even certain that she has been minded several times to speak
but, whether it was the danger of exposing her
inflexible husband,
was fear for
daughter to the fury of an angered father, or whether it
held her back, and her illness, her
herself, her timidity has always
this the last time you will
* Claire, in telling him this, are you less indiscreet? Is
be so? [Rousseau]
 234 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

pain increases so visibly that I am afraid she will be unable to exe-

cute her resolution before she has well formed it.
Be that as it may, in spite of the faults you have caused, that in-
tegrity of heart which is felt in your mutual love has given her such
an opinion of you that she confides in the promise you have both
made to discontinue your correspondence, and she has taken no pre-
caution to watch more closely over her daughter; indeed, if Julie
did not measure up to her confidence, she would no longer be
worthy of her solicitude, and it would be necessary to treat you
both severely if you were again capable of deceiving the best of
mothers and of taking advantage of the esteem she has for you.
I do not seek to rekindle in your heart a hope which I myself do
not entertain, but I would indicate to you, since it is true, how the
most virtuous course is also the most prudent, and how if your love
has any resource left, it is in the sacrifice that honor and reason im-
pose on you. Mother, relatives, friends—all are now for you, except
the father who by this method will be won over or nothing will be
able to do it. Whatever imprecation that a moment of despair may
have been able to dictate to you, you have a hundred times proved
to us that there is no road to happiness more sure than that of vir-
tue. If one succeeds, the happiness is purer, sounder, and sweeter
because of virtue; if one fails, virtue alone can be the compensa-
tion. Therefore, resume your courage, be a man, and be yourself
again. If I know your heart well, the most cruel way for you to lose
Julie would be to make yourself unworthy of obtaining her.

+’ LETTER V &

From Julie

SHE LIVES NO MORE. My eyes have seen hers close forever; my lips
have received her last sigh; my name was the last word she uttered,
her last look was fixed on me. No, it was not life that she seemed to
leave; too little had I known how to make it dear to her. It was
from
me alone that she was torn. She saw me without guidance and with-
out hope, overwhelmed by my misfortune and my faults; to die was
nothing to her, and her heart grieved only to abandon her daugh-
LETTER V - FROM JULIE 235

ter in this condition. She was only too right. What on earth did she
have to regret? Here below, what could be worth in her eyes the
immortal reward for her patience and her virtues which was await-
ing her in Heaven? What was left for her to do in the world except
to weep for my shame? Pure and chaste heart, worthy life, and in-
comparable mother, you live now in a place of glory and felicity.
You live, and I, given up to repentance and despair, deprived for-
ever of your solicitude, of your advice, of your sweet caresses, I am
dead to happiness, to peace, to innocence. I feel only your loss; I see
only my shame. My life is nothing but grief and sorrow. My
mother, my tender mother, alas, Iam much more dead than you!
My God! What delirium bewilders an unfortunate girl and
makes her forget her resolutions? ‘To whom have I just shed my
tears and vented my sighs? It is the cruel man who has caused them
with whom I entrust them! It is with him who has made my life
miserable that I dare to lament it! Yes, yes, barbarous one, share the
torments you make me suffer. You for whom I plunged a dagger
into a mother’s breast, grieve over the misfortunes which come to
me from you, and feel with me the horror of a matricide which was
your doing. In whose eyes dare I appear as contemptible as I am?
Before whom shall I debase myself at the bidding of my remorse?
Who else besides the accomplice of my crime can understand it suf-
ficiently? It is my most insupportable burden to be accused only by
my own heart, and to see attributed to the goodness of my disposi-
tion the impure tears that bitter repentance wrings from me. I saw,
shuddering I saw sorrow poison and hasten the last of my sad
mother’s days. In vain did her pity for me prevent her from admit-
ting it; in vain did she pretend to attribute the progress of her ill-
ness to the cause which had originally brought it on; in vain was
my cousin prevailed upon to hold to the same story. Nothing could
deceive my heart, torn with regret, and as my everlasting torment
I shall carry to the tomb the frightful idea of having shortened the
life of her to whom I owe mine.
Oh you whom Heaven in its anger created to make me miserable
and guilty, for the last time receive in your breast the tears you have
occasioned. I no longer come, as before, to share with you the griefs
which ought to be mutual. These are the sighs of a last adieu
which escape me in spite of myself. It is all over. The empire of love
is extinguished in a heart given up to despair alone. I am devoting
the rest of my life to mourning the best of mothers; I shall sacrifice
to her the passion which cost her her life. I should be only too happy
if it might cost me as much to conquer it, in order to atone for all
 236 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

that it has made her suffer. Ah, if her immortal soul penetrates to
my inmost heart, she knows well that the victim I am sacrificing to
her is not completely unworthy of her! Share an effort which you
have made necessary for me. If you have any respect left for
the memory of a bond so dear and so disastrous, by that I implore
you to fly from me forever, to write me no more, to sharpen my re-
morse no longer, to allow me to forget, if possible, what we were
to each other. May my eyes look upon you no more; may I never
more hear your name; may remembrance of you come no longer to
disturb my heart. I dare still speak in the name of a love which must
no longer be. To so many causes of grief, do not add that of seeing
her last wish defied. Adieu, then, for the last time, dear and only
. ah foolish girl . . . adieu forever.

& LETTER VI &

To Madame d’Orbe

AT LAST the veil is torn away. The long illusion is vanished. That
sweet hope has been extinguished. I have nothing left to feed an
eternal flame but a bitter yet delightful memory which sustains my
life and nourishes my torments with a vain consciousness of a hap-
piness which is no more.
Is it true, then, that I have tasted the supreme felicity? Am I in-
deed the same being who once was happy? Whoever can feel what I
am suffering, was he not born for eternal suffering? Whoever could
enjoy the blessings I have lost, can he lose them and still
live, and
can such opposite sentiments spring from the same heart? Days
of
pleasure and glory, no, they were not those of a mortal! They
were
too beautiful to have perished. A gentle ecstasy filled their whole
duration, and converged them like eternity into a point. There was
neither past nor future for me, and I tasted the delights of a thou-
sand centuries at once. Alas! They have disappeared like a flash
of
lightning! That eternity of happiness was but an instant of
my life.
Time has resumed its slow pace in my days of despair, and
weari-
ness measures out the unhappy remainder of my life in long
years.
In order to make them completely unbearable for me, the more
LETTER VI - TO MADAME D’ORBE 237

afflictions overwhelm me, the more I seem to lose all that was dear
to me. Madame, it is possible that you love me still, but other cares
call you, other duties occupy you. My complaints, which you used
to hear with interest, are now indiscreet. Julie! Julie herself is dis-
heartened and forsakes me. Sad remorse has driven love away. All
is changed for me; only my heart is ever the same, and thus my fate
is more frightful.
But what does it matter what I am and what I am to be. Julie is
suffering; is it the time to think of myself? Ah, it is her grief which
makes mine more bitter. Yes, I had rather she might cease loving me
and be happy. . . . Cease loving me! . . . does she hope for that?
. . . Never, never. In vain she forbids me to see her and write her.
It is not the torment which she removes; alas, it is the comforter!
Is the loss of a tender mother to deprive her of an even more tender
friend? Does she think she is alleviating her griefs by multiplying
them? Oh love! Can nature be revenged at your expense?
No, no. In vain she pretends to forget me. Will her tender heart
be able to separate itself from mine? Do I not retain it in spite of
her? Can we forget sentiments such as we have experienced, and
can we remember them without experiencing them still? Conquer-
ing love was the bane of her life; conquered love will only make it
more pitiable. She will spend her days in sorrow, tormented at once
by vain regrets and vain desires, unable ever to satisfy either love or
virtue.
Yet, do not think that by complaining of her delusions I am
exempting myself from respecting them. After so many sacrifices, it
is too late to learn to disobey. Since she commands, it is enough; she
will hear of me no more. Judge: is my fate not frightful? My great-
est despair is not in renouncing her. Ah! It is in her heart that my
most keen sorrows are, and I am more unhappy over her ill fortune
than over my own. You whom she loves more than everything and
who alone, next to me, are able to love her worthily, Claire, ami-
able Claire, you are the only blessing she has left. It is precious
enough to make the loss of all the others bearable for her. Com-
pensate her for the consolations of which she is deprived and for
those she refuses. Let a holy friendship make up at once for the
tenderness of a mother, for that of a lover, for the charms of all the
sentiments which ought to have made her happy. May she be so, if
it is possible, whatever the cost. May she recover the peace and the
tranquillity of which I have deprived her; I shall then be less sen-
sible of the torments she has given me. Since now I am nothing in
my own eyes, since it is my fate to spend my life in dying for her, let
 238 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

her consider me as already dead; I consent to it if this idea makes

her more tranquil. May she be able with you to recover her former
virtues, her former happiness! May she be able through your solic-
itude to be again all that she might have been without me!
Alas! She was but a girl, and no longer has a mother! This is the
loss which is not repaired and for which she can never be consoled
as long as she reproaches herself with it. Her disturbed conscience
calls for that tender and cherished mother, and in such cruel sorrow,
a horrible remorse is joined to her affliction. Oh Julie, ought you
to feel that frightful sentiment? Claire, you who were witness to the
illness and the last moments of that unfortunate mother, I beg you,
I implore you, tell me what I must believe. Tear out my heart if I
am guilty. If grief over our faults sent her to the tomb, we are both
monsters unworthy of existence. It were a crime even to dream of
such a fatal union; it were a crime to live. No, I dare believe that
a fire so pure cannot have produced such dark results. Love in-
spired in us sentiments too noble for us to commit the heinous
crimes of unnatural hearts. Heaven, could Heaven be unjust, and
could she who was able to sacrifice her happiness to her parents de-
serve to cost them their life?

t LETTER VII &

Response

HOW COULD I love you less when each day I esteem you more? How
could I lose my former feeling for you when each day you earn it
anew? No, my dear and worthy friend, for the rest of our lives we
shall be all that we were to each other since our early youth, and if
our mutual attachment is no longer strengthened, it is because it
can be strengthened no more. The whole difference is that I used to
love you as my brother, and now I love you as my child, for
although we are both younger than you and even were your pupils,
I consider you in some measure as ours. While teaching us to think,
you have learned from us to feel, and whatever your English phi-
losopher may say, this education is truly as good as the other. If it
4
LETTER VII + RESPONSE 239

is reason which constitutes the man, it is sentiment which guides

him.[31]
If the reproaches that my afflicted cousin makes herself over her
mother’s death were well-founded, this cruel memory would, I con-
fess, poison that of your love, and such a distressing idea should for-
ever extinguish it, but do not believe in her grief. It deceives her,
or rather, the imaginary cause with which she likes to increase it is
only a pretence to justify its excess. Her tender heart is always fear-
ful of not being sufficiently afflicted, and it is a kind of pleasure for
her to add to her anguish all that which can sharpen it. She deludes
herself, you may be sure; she is not sincere with herself. Ah! If she
sincerely thought she had shortened her mother’s life, could her
heart bear the frightful remorse? No, no, my friend, she would not
mourn her; she would have followed her. Madame d’Etange’s ill-
ness was well understood; it was a pleurisy from which she could
not recover, and we despaired of her life even before she had dis-
covered your correspondence.[32]
Quite far from adopting Julie’s black thoughts, you may be sure
that everything which one could expect on her part from human
assistance and heartfelt consolation contributed to retarding the
progress of her mother’s illness, and that certainly Julie’s tenderness
and her solicitude saved her mother for us longer than we would
have been able to otherwise. A hundred times my aunt herself told
me that her last days were the sweetest moments of her life and that
her daughter’s happiness was the only thing missing in her own.
If it is necessary to attribute her death to grief, this grief comes
from further back, and it is her husband alone who is to blame. Un-
steady and inconstant for a long time, he wasted the fire of his youth
on a thousand objects less worthy of inspiring affection than his
virtuous companion, and when age had brought him back to her, he
treated her with that inflexible severity with which unfaithful hus-
bands are accustomed to aggravate their faults. My poor cousin has
that
felt the effects of it. A vain obstinacy about his nobility and
rigidity of disposition which nothing softens have produced your
misfortunes and hers. Her mother, who always had some inclina-
tion for you and who fathomed her love when it was too late to ex-
tinguish it, had for a long time secretly endured the sorrow of not
or
being able to overcome either the inclinations of her daughter
her husband, and of being the original cause of an
the obstinacy of
evil which she could no longer remedy. When your intercepted let-
ters taught her to what point you had misused her confidence, she
240 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

was afraid of losing all by trying to save all, and of endangering

her daughter’s life in order to restore her honor. Several times
she sounded her husband unsuccessfully. Several times she resolved
to hazard an entire confidence and show him the full extent of his
duty; her terror and timidity always held her back. She hesitated
while she was able to talk; when she would have told him, it was
too late. Her strength failed her; she died with the fatal secret, and
I, who know the temper of that severe man without knowing to
what point natural sentiments might be able to moderate it, breathe
easily to see Julie’s life, at least, in safety.
She knows all this, but shall I tell you what I think about her ap-
parent remorse? Love is more ingenious than she. Pierced with grief
for her mother, she would willingly forget you, but in spite of her-
self, love troubles her conscience by forcing her to think of you.
Love wants her tears to be connected with the one she loves. She no
longer dares employ her thoughts directly with you; love forces her
to do so still, at least through her repentance. Love deceives her
with so much art that she prefers to suffer more so that you might
enter the reason for her grief. Your heart does not perhaps under-
stand these subterfuges of hers, but they are nonetheless natural,
for the love of each of you although equal in force is not similar in
effects. Yours is fiery and violent; hers is gentle and tender. Your
sentiments are breathed forth vehemently; hers turn back on her-
self and, penetrating the substance of her soul, insensibly alter and
change it. Love animates and supports your heart; it overwhelms
and humbles hers. All her energies are relaxed, her strength is gone,
her courage is extinguished, and her virtue no longer counts for
anything. All her heroic faculties are not annihilated but sus-
pended; a momentary crisis can restore them to full vigor or efface
them past all hope. If she takes one more step toward discourage-
ment, she is lost; but if her excellent soul is raised for one instant,
she will be greater, stronger, more virtuous than ever, and there
will be no further question of a relapse. Believe me, my amiable
friend, you must learn in this perilous situation to respect what you
loved. Any letter that comes to her from you, even were it against
your interest, can only be fatal to her. If you are persistent with her,
you will be able to triumph easily, but vainly you will think you
possess the same Julie. You will never more find her again.
LETTER IX - RESPONSE 24]

& LETTER VIII &

From Lord Bomston

I HAD acquired some rights over your heart, you were necessary to
me, and I was ready to come join you. What do my rights, my
needs, my eagerness matter to you? You have forgotten me; you no
longer deign to write me. I hear of your solitary and sullen life. I
fathom your secret designs: you are weary of living.
Die, then, young fool. Die, both fierce and cowardly man. But
know that in dying you leave in the heart of an honest man,
to whom you were dear, the grief of having served merely an in-
grate.

% LETTER IX *&

Response

COME, MY LORD. I thought I could no longer enjoy earthly pleas-

ures, but we shall see each other again. You cannot truly call me an
ingrate; your heart is not formed to meet with any, nor mine to be
one.

Note from Julie

It is time to renounce the errors of our youth and to abandon an
illusive hope. I shall never be yours. Restore to me, then, the free-
dom which I have pledged to you and of which my father will dis-
pose, or complete my misery by a refusal which will ruin us both
without being of any advantage to you.

Julie d’Etange.
 242 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER X &

From Baron d’Etange

(In which the preceding note was enclosed.)

IF SOME SENTIMENT of honor and of humanity can remain in the
heart of a deceiver, answer this note from a wretched girl whose
heart you have corrupted and who would live no more if I dared to
suspect that she had forgotten herself any further. I shall be little
surprised if the same philosophy which taught her to throw herself
at the first man she saw may teach her even to disobey her father.
Consider this, however. On every occasion, I like to use gentle and
kind methods, when I hope that they will suffice, but if I am willing
to use them with you, do not think that I do not know how a gen-
tleman’s honor is avenged when he is insulted by a man who is not
a gentleman.

t LETTER XI &

Response

SPARE YOURSELF vain threats, Monsieur, which do not frighten me

at all, and unjust reproaches which cannot humble me. Know that
between two persons of the same age, there is no deceiver other than
love, and that it will never be your right to disparage a man whom
your daughter honored with her esteem.
What sacrifice do you dare impose on me and by what authority
do you demand it? Is it to the author of all my misfortunes that I
must sacrifice my last hope? I will respect Julie’s father, but let him
condescend to be mine if I must learn to obey him. No, no, Mon-
sieur, whatever opinion you may have of your rights, they do not
oblige me for your sake to renounce pretensions so dear and so well
deserved by my heart. Since you cause the unhappiness of my life,
I owe you nothing but hatred, and your claims are without founda-
LETTER XI + RESPONSE 243

tion. But Julie has spoken; here is my consent. Ah! May she be al-
ways obeyed! Someone else will possess her, but I shall be more
worthy of her.
If your daughter had deigned to consult me about the limits of
your authority, do not doubt that I might not have taught her to
offer opposition to your unjust pretensions. Whatever the influence
which you abuse, my rights are more sacred than yours; the tie
which unites us marks the extent of paternal power, even before
human tribunals, and if you dare object to nature, it is you alone
who are defying its laws.
Nor do not urge that honor, so capricious and so delicate, which
you speak of avenging; no one offends it but yourself. Respect Julie’s
choice and your honor is secure, for my heart respects you despite
your insults—and despite your medieval ideas, an alliance with an
honorable man will never dishonor another. If my presumption of-
fends you, attack my life; I shall never defend it against you. More-
a gentle-
over, I am very little anxious to know in what consists
as for that of a virtuous man, it concerns me, I
man’s honor, but
my
am able to defend it, and I shall keep it pure and spotless until
last breath.
name, meditate
Go, barbarous father, scarcely worthy of so sweet a
submis-
the frightful destruction of your child, while a tender and
ss to your prejudi ces. Your re-
sive daughter sacrifices her happine
the injury you do me, and too
morse will one day avenge me for
hatred was no
late you will know that your blind and unnatural
be unhapp y, without doubt,
less disastrous to you than to me. I shall
in your inmost heart, how
but if ever the voice of nature rises up
sacrific ed your only
much more unhappy yet will you be for having
notions, a child unique in the world in beauty,
child to vain
its gifts, neglected
in merit, in virtue, to whom Heaven, lavish with
only to give a better father!

Note
(Enclosed in the preceding letter.)
herself, and to
I RESTORE to Julie d’Etange the right to dispose of
give her hand without consulting her heart.
S.G.*

the hero of this novel is always known,

is
* The name Saint-Preux, by which
as Part Three, Letter XIV explains . [Translator’s
actually only a pseudonym,
note]
 244 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

d& LETTER XII &

From Julie

1 WANTED to describe to you the scene which has just taken place and
which has produced the note that you have had to receive, but my
father timed it so exactly that it was finished only a moment before
the postman’s departure. His letter has no doubt arrived at the post
in time; it cannot be so for this one. Your resolution will be taken
and your answer sent even before this reaches you. Thus all detailed
explanations would be useless now. I have done my duty; you will
do yours. But fate overwhelms us; honor betrays us. We shall be
parted forever, and to complete the horror, I am going to be forced
into the arms of . . . Alas! I could have lived in yours! Oh duty,
what use is it? Oh Providence! . . . I must grieve and keep silent.
The pen falls from my hand. I have been unwell for a few days;
this morning’s interview has greatly disturbed me. . . my head
and my heart give me pain . . . I feel myself growing faint .
Will Heaven take no pity on my suffering? . . . I cannot support
myself . . . I am forced to go to bed and console myself with the
hope of never rising from it. Adieu, my only love. Adieu, for the
last time, dear and tender friend. Ah! If I am to live for you no
longer, have I not already ceased to live?

& LETTER XIII &

From Julie to Madame d’Orbe

IS IT TRUE, then, dear and cruel friend, that you have called me
back
to life and sorrow? I had a glimpse of the happy moment when I
would rejoin the tenderest of mothers; your inhuman solicitude
has detained me only so that I may grieve for her longer. But while
LETTER XIII - FROM JULIE TO MADAME D’ORBE 245

the desire to follow her tears me from this earth, regret over leaving
you holds me back. If I am consoled for having lived, it is by the
hope of not having escaped death entirely. They exist no longer,
these beauties of my face that my heart has bought so dearly. The
illness from which I am recovering has freed me from them. This
fortunate loss will abate the gross ardor of a man sufficiently de-
prived of delicacy to dare marry me without my consent. No longer
finding in me what pleased him, he will care little about the rest.
Without breaking my promise to my father, without offending the
friend to whom he owes his life, I shall be able to repulse that in-
truder; my lips will keep silent, but my face will speak for me. His
disgust will protect me from his tyranny, and he will find me too
ugly to deign to make me unhappy.
Ah, dear cousin! You knew a heart more constant and more ten-
der, which would not be so repulsed. His inclination did not con-
fine itself to my features and my person; it was me he loved and not
my face. We were united to each other in every part of our being,
and so long as Julie had lived, her beauty could have fled but love
might have always remained. Yet he could consent .. . the in-
grate! . . . but he had to, since I could demand it. Who would re-
tain by their word those who wish to withdraw their heart? Have I,
then, wished to withdraw mine? ... Have I done it? ... Oh
God! Must everything incessantly remind me of a time which is no
more and of a passion which must no longer be? In vain I tried to
tear that cherished image from my heart; I feel it too strongly at-
tached there. I tear at it without dislodging it, and my efforts to ef-
face so sweet a memory only engrave it more deeply.
Shall I dare tell you about a delirium of my fever which, far from
diminishing with it, torments me even more since my recovery? Yes,
you must know and pity the disordered mind of your unfortunate
friend, and give thanks to Heaven for having preserved your heart
from the horrible passion which brings on this disorder. In one
of the moments when I was most ill, during the violence of a
paroxysm, I thought I saw that unfortunate man by the side of my
bed, not such as he formerly delighted my eyes during the short
period of my life’s happiness, but pale, thin, wild, despair in his eyes.
He was on his knees; he took one of my hands, and without being
repelled by its condition, without fearing infection from so terrible
a disease, he covered it with kisses and tears. At the sight of him, I
felt that keen and delightful emotion which his unexpected ap-
pearance used to give me before. I wanted to rush to him; I was
 246 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

held back. You tore him from me, and what affected me most se-
verely were his groans that I thought I heard increase as he
withdrew.
I cannot describe to you the astonishing effect which this dream
produced in me. My fever was long and violent, I lost consciousness
for several days, and I often dreamed of him in my delirium. But
none of these dreams left such a profound impression on my imag-
ination as this last one. It is such that it is impossible for me to ef-
face it from my memory and from my mind. Every minute, every
instant it seems I see him in the same attitude; his manner, his
dress, his gestures, his sad look are again before my eyes. I believe I
feel his lips pressed on my hand, I feel it moistened by his tears, the
sound of his plaintive voice makes me tremble, I see him taken
away from me, I make an effort still to hold him back—this whole
imaginary scene recurs in my mind with more intensity than events
which really happened to me.
For a long time, I have hesitated to tell you this secret. Shame
keeps me from telling it to you by word of mouth, but far from be-
coming calm, my disturbance is only increased from day to day, and
I can no longer resist the need to confess my madness to you. Ah!
Let it get complete possession of me. Would that I could completely
lose my reason in this way, since the little I have left only serves
now to torment me!
I return to my dream. My cousin, laugh at me, if you will, for
my simplicity, but there is in this vision something indefinably
mysterious which distinguishes it from ordinary delirium. Is it a
presentiment of the death of the best of men? Is it a sign that he al-
ready lives no more? Does Heaven deign to guide me once at least,
and does it invite me to follow the one whom it made me love? Alas!
The command to die will be for me the first of its blessings.
In vain I am reminded of all those vain words with which phi-
losophy amuses people who feel nothing. They no longer awe me,
and I feel that I despise them. Spirits are invisible, I believe, but
would not two souls so intimately united be able to have an imme-
diate communication between them, independent of the body and
of the senses? Cannot one’s direct impression from the other be
transmitted to the brain, and cannot the other receive in turn the
sensations it has been sent? . . . Poor Julie, what folly! How cred-
ulous passion makes us, and how painfully a heart severely affected
relinquishes even errors that it perceives.
LETTER XIV - RESPONSE 247

t+ LETTER XIV *

Response

AH, UNHAPPY and sensitive girl, were you born, then, only to suffer?
In vain I would spare you from sorrow; you seem to seek it cease-
lessly, and the influences which determine your destiny are stronger
than all my solicitude. But to so many real causes for grief at least
do not add imaginary ones, and since my caution is more injurious
than useful to you, free yourself from an error which torments you.
Perhaps the melancholy truth will be even less cruel for you. Learn,
then, that your dream was not a dream, that it was not the phantom
of your friend which you saw but his person, and that that affecting
scene incessantly present to your imagination actually took place in
your room three days after you were most ill.
The night before, I had left you rather late, and Monsieur
d’Orbe, who was going to relieve me with you that night, was ready
to leave, when suddenly we saw that poor wretch enter abruptly and
throw himself at our feet in a pitiable condition. He had taken the
post-stage as soon as he received your last letter. Travelling day and
night, he made the trip in three days, and stopped only at the last
station to wait for night in order to enter the town. I confess to you,
to my shame, that I was less eager than Monsieur d’Orbe to embrace
him; without yet knowing the reason for his journey, I foresaw the
consequence. So many bitter memories, your danger, his own, the
discomposure in which I saw him—all marred so agreeable a sur-
prise, and I was too startled to make much over him. Nevertheless,
I embraced him with a heart-felt emotion that he shared and which
reciprocally displayed itself in this silent embrace, more eloquent
than cries and tears.
His first words were, “How is she? Ah, how is she? Am I to live or
die?” I understood then that he was informed of your illness, and
supposing he knew the nature of it as well, I spoke without precau-
tion other than to extenuate the danger. As soon as he knew that it
was smallpox, he cried out and became ill. Fatigue and want
of sleep, joined to the uneasiness of his mind, had thrown him into
248 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

such prostration that we were a long time in bringing him to him-

self. He could scarcely speak; we put him to bed.
Overcome by nature, he slept twelve hours successively, but with
so much agitation that such a sleep must have exhausted more than
restored his strength. The next day, a new difficulty: he absolutely
insisted on seeing you. I urged to him the danger of occasioning a
relapse in your illness; he offered to wait until there was no more
risk. But his presence alone was a terrible one; I tried to make him
feel it. He interrupted me sharply.
“Cease your cruel eloquence,” he said in a tone of indignation.
“You go too far in using it for my ruin. Do not hope to drive me
away again as you did when I went into my exile. I should come
from the ends of the earth a hundred times to see her for a single
instant. But I swear by my creator,” he added impetuously, “that
I shall not leave here without having seen her. Let us try for once
whether I shall move you with compassion or if you will make me
guilty of perjury.”
His resolution was taken. Monsieur d’Orbe was of the opinion
that we should seek the means of satisfying him, in order to be able
to send him back before his return was discovered, for he was not
known in the house except by Hanz alone, of whom I was sure, and
we had called him in front of our servants by a name other than
his own.* I promised him that he would see you the following
night, on condition that he would stay only an instant, that
he would not speak to you, and that he would leave again the next
day before daybreak. I demanded his word on it; then I was calm,
I left my husband with him, and I came back to you.
I found you perceptibly better; the eruption was complete. The
doctor restored my courage and hope. I laid my plan beforehand
with Babi, and since the paroxysm, although slight, had still left
you light-headed, I took this opportunity to dismiss everyone and
send word to my husband to bring his visitor, judging that before
your attack was over you would be less likely to recognize him. We
had all the difficulty in the world to send away your disconsolate
father, who stubbornly determined to sit up with you each night.
Finally, I told him angrily that he would not spare anyone the trou-
ble, that I was likewise determined to sit up, and that he was as-
sured, though he was your father, that his tenderness was no more
vigilant than mine. He left reluctantly; we remained alone. Mon-
sieur d’Orbe arrived at eleven o’clock and told me that he had left
*In Part Four it will be seen that this substituted name was Saint-Preux.
[Rousseau]
LETTER XIV - RESPONSE 249

your friend in the street. I went to fetch him. I took him by

the hand; he trembled like a leaf. Passing through the outer room,
his strength failed him; he breathed with difficulty and was forced
to sit down.
Then discerning a few objects by the faint gleam of a dis-
tant light, he said, with a profound sigh, “Yes, I recognize these
rooms. Once in my life I passed through them... at the same
hour . . . with the same secrecy . . . I was trembling then as now
- my heart beat the same way . . . Oh rash creature! I was only
mortal, and I dared enjoy . . . What am I going to see now in this
same refuge where everything breathes forth the voluptuousness
with which my heart was intoxicated? What shall I see in the same
person who constituted and shared my ecstasy? The image of
death, the display of sorrow, afflicted virtue, and dying beauty!”
Dear cousin, I shall spare your poor heart the details of that mov-
ing scene. He saw you and kept silent; he had promised it. But was
this silence? He fell on his knees; sobbing, he kissed the curtains of
your bed. He lifted up his hands and his eyes, he uttered muffled
groans, and he could scarcely contain his sorrow and his cries. With-
out seeing him, you mechanically put out one of your hands; he
seized it with a sort of furor. The fiery kisses which he pressed on
that sick hand awakened you sooner than all the noise and voices
around you. I saw that you had recognized him, and despite his re-
sistance and his complaints, I forced him from the room imme-
diately, hoping to elude the idea of so fleeting an apparition un-
der the pretext of delirium. But then, seeing that you said nothing
to me of it, I thought you had forgotten it; I forbade Babi to men-
tion it to you, and I know she has kept her word. A needless caution
which love has disconcerted, and which has only allowed a memory
to ferment which it is too late to efface!
He left as he had promised, and I made him swear that he would
not stop in the neighborhood. But, my dear, that is not all. I must,
moreover, finish telling you what you could not long fail to know.
Lord Bomston came through two days afterwards; he hurried to
catch up with your friend. He joined him at Dijon and found him
ill. The wretch had caught smallpox. He had kept it secret from
me that he had not had it before, and I had led him to you without
taking precautions. Being unable to cure your sickness, he deter-
mined to share it. Remembering the way he kissed your hand, I can-
not doubt that he inoculated himseif voluntarily. He could not have
been worse prepared to receive it, but it was the inoculation of love;
it was successful. The Father of life has preserved it for the tenderest
250 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

lover who ever was; he is recovered, and according to his Lordship’s

last letter, they are by this time set out again for Paris.
There, too amiable cousin, is something with which to banish the
melancholy terrors which alarmed you without cause. A long time
ago you renounced the person of your friend, and his life is safe.
Think only, then, of preserving your own and of performing with
good grace the sacrifice your heart has promised to paternal love.
Cease at last to be the plaything of a vain hope and to feed yourself
with shadows. You are in too much hurry to be proud of your ugli-
ness; be more humble, believe me. You have yet only too much
cause to be so. You have undergone a cruel attack, but your face has
been spared. What you mistake for scars are only inflammations
which will soon disappear. I was more ill-treated by the disease than
that, and yet you see that I am not too ugly still. My angel, you will
remain beautiful in spite of yourself. And will the indifferent Wol-
mar, whom three year’s absence could not cure of a love conceived in
a week, be cured of it when he sees you every hour? Oh, if your only
resource is in being disagreeable, how desperate is your condition!

% LETTER XV *&

From Julie

IT Is TOO MUCH, it is too much. Friend, you have conquered. I am

not proof against so much love; my resistance is exhausted. I have
exerted all my strength; my conscience gives me consoling evidence
of it. Let Heaven not call me to account for more than it has given
me. This sorrowful heart which you purchased so many times and
which cost yours so dear belongs to you without reservation; it was
yours from the first moment my eyes saw you. It will remain yours
until my last breath. You have deserved it too well to lose it, and I
am tired of serving an imaginary virtue at the expense of justice.
Yes, tender and generous lover, your Julie will! be yours forever;
she will love you always. I must, I will, I ought. I resign to you the
empire which love has given you; it will be taken from you no more.
In vain a deceitful voice murmurs in my inmost soul; it will no
longer delude me. What are the vain duties which it urges upon me
against those of forever loving the one whom Heaven has made me
LETTER XVI * RESPONSE 251

love? Is not my most sacred duty of all toward you? Have I

not promised everything to you alone? Was not the first vow of my
heart never to forget you, and is not your inviolable constancy a new
bond for mine? Ah! In the ecstasy of love with which I am restored
to you, my only regret is for having struggled against such dear and
legitimate sentiments. Nature, oh sweet nature, resume all your
rights! I abjure the cruel virtues which destroy them. Will the in-
clinations that nature has given me be more deceiving than reason
which so many times misleads me?
Respect these tender inclinations, my amiable friend. You are too
much indebted to them to hate them, but allow the dear and sweet
division of them; let not the rights of blood and friendship be ex-
tinguished by those of love. Do not think that to follow you I shall
ever abandon my father’s house. Do not expect me to reject the
bonds that a sacred authority imposes on me. The cruel loss of one
of my parents has taught me too well to be afraid of afflicting the
other. No, she whom he expects to be his whole comfort henceforth
will not grieve his heart, overwhelmed with sadness; I shall not de-
stroy both those who gave me life. No, no, I understand my crime
but cannot hate it. Duty, honor, virtue, all these considerations no
longer influence me, but yet I am not a monster. I am weak but not
unnatural. My resolution is taken; I will not grieve any of those I
love. Let a father enslaved by his promise and jealous of a vain
title dispose of my hand as he has pledged; let love alone dispose of
my heart; let my tears incessantly flow into the bosom of my tender
cousin. Let me be vile and unhappy, but let all who are dear to me
be happy and content if it is possible. May all three of you consti-
tute my only existence, and may your happiness make me forget my
misery and my despair.

4+ LETTER XVI &

Response

WE ARE REBORN, my Julie. All the true sentiments of our hearts re-
their courses. Nature has preserved our existence, and love
sume
restores us to life. Could you doubt it? Did you dare think you could
do,
take your heart away from me? No, I know it better than you
 252 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

that heart which Heaven created for mine. I feel them joined in a
common existence which they can lose only in death. Does it rest
with us to separate them, or even to desire to do so? Are they held
to each other by bonds which men have formed and which they can
break? No, no, Julie, if cruel fate denies us the sweet name of hus-
band and wife, nothing can take from us that of faithful lovers. It
will be the consolation of our melancholy lives, and we shall carry
it to the tomb.[33]
What have you told me? . . . What do you dare make me un-
derstand? . . . You, to be forced into the arms of another?.. .
Another to possess you? ...No longer to be mine? ... Or
rather, to complete my horror, not to be mine alone! I? Should I
suffer that frightful torment? . . . Should I see you survive your-
self? ... No. I prefer to lose you rather than share yous.
Would that Heaven had given me a courage equal to the passion
which shakes me! . . . Before you might be debased in that fatal
union, abhorred by love and condemned by honor, with my own
hand I should plunge a dagger into your breast. I should drain your
chaste heart of blood which infidelity might not taint. With this
pure blood I would mix that which burns in my veins with a fire
that nothing can extinguish. I would fall into your arms, I would
yield my last breath on your lips . . . I would receive yours . .
Julie dying! . . . Those eyes, so charming, dulled by the horrors
of death! .. . That breast, the throne of love, torn open by my
hand, gushing forth copious streams of blood and life . . . No,
live and suffer; endure the punishment for my cowardice. No, I
wish you lived no longer, but I do not love you enough to stab you.
Oh, if you knew the state of this heart oppressed with anguish!
Never did it burn with so holy a fire. Never were your innocence
and your virtue so dear to it. I ara a lover, I know how to love, I
feel it, but I am only a man, and it is beyond human strength to re-
nounce supreme felicity. One night, one single night has changed
my soul forever. Take from me that dangerous memory and I am
virtuous. But that fatal night reigns in my inmost heart and will
overshadow the rest of my life. Ah Julie! Adored object! If we must
be miserable forever, let us have one more hour of happiness and
then eternal regret!
Listen to the one who loves you. Why should we alone try to be
more prudent than all the rest of mankind, and with a childish
simplicity pursue the imaginary virtues which everyone talks about
and which no one practices? What! Shall we be better moralists than
those crowds of philosophers with which London and Paris are peo-
LETTER XVI « RESPONSE 253

pled, who all laugh at conjugal fidelity and consider adultery as a

game? Instances of it are not scandalous; it is not even permitted to
find fault with it, and all reasonable people would laugh here at
the man who through respect for marriage would resist the inclina-
tion of his heart. In fact, they say, is not an injury which consists
only in opinion no injury at all when it remains secret? What harm
does a husband receive from an infidelity of which he is unaware?
With what obligingness cannot a woman make up for her faults? *
What endearments does she not use to prevent or remove his sus-
picions? Deprived of an imaginary good, he actually lives more hap-
pily, and this supposed crime about which so much stir is made is
only one more thing which holds society together.
God forbid, oh dear friend of my heart, that I might wish to re-
assure yours by these shameful maxims. I abhor them without being
able to confute them, and my conscience answers them better than
my reason. Not that I am confident of a courage which I detest, nor
that I seek a virtue bought so dear, but I believe I am less guilty to
reproach myself for my faults than to strain to justify them, and I
consider as the height of crime the desire to stifle remorse.[34]
I have long ago forgotten those vain prospects of fortune which
have so grossly deluded me. Now I shall occupy myself exclusively
with the duties I owe Lord Bomston. He wishes to take me off to
Well, I
England; he pretends that I can be of service to him there.
shall follow him. But I shall steal away every year; I shall secretly
I shall see you.
come back near you. If I cannot speak to you, at least
will give
I shall at least kiss your footsteps; one look from your eyes
Forced to return, to console myself as I go
me life for ten months.
the steps which will bring me back to
from her I love, I shall count
will delude your unhappy lover. As
her. These frequent journeys
enjoying the
he sets out to see you, he will believe he is already
will enchant him as he re-
sight of you. The memory of his ecstasies
ly years will not be com-
turns. In spite of cruel fate, his melancho
not marked by pleasures ,
pletely wasted; there will be none which is
you will be repeated
and the short moments that he spends near
during his whole life.
A long time ago women of spirit
* And where had the simple Swiss seen this?
begin by boldly establishing their lovers in
assumed more imperious airs. They too, it is only as long
husba nd there
the house, and if they deign to permit the A woman who would
them with the respec t he owes them.
as he behaves toward she is ashamed of it
cause it to be though t that
conceal an illicit affair would would take notice of
able woman
and she would be dishonored; not one reason
her. [Rousseau]
 254 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

% LETTER XVII *&

From Madame d’Orbe

YOUR MISTRESS is no more, but I have recovered my friend, and you

have acquired one whose heart can give you a great deal more than
you have lost. Julie is married and worthy of making happy the
honest man who has just joined his lot to hers. After so many in-
discretions, give thanks to Heaven which has saved you both, her
from shame and you from the remorse of having dishonored her.
Respect her new condition; do not write her, she begs you. Wait
until she writes you; she will do so shortly. Now is the time when I
shall find out if you deserve the esteem I have entertained for you
and if your heart can feel a pure and disinterested friendship.

+’ LETTER XVIII *&

From Julie

YOU HAVE for so long been the confidant of all the secrets of
my
heart that it could no longer forsake such a sweet habit. In the most
important occasion of my life, it desires to open itself to you. Open
yours to it, my amiable friend.
Bound by an indissoluble tie to the fate of a husband, or rather
to the will of a father, I am entering a new way of life which
is to
end only with my death.[35] All is changed between us. Your heart
must necessarily change as well. Julie de Wolmar is no longer your
former Julie; the change of your sentiments for her is inevitab
le,
and the only choice left you is to give the credit for this change
to
vice or to virtue. I have in mind a passage from a writer whom
you
will not deny. “Love,” he said, “is deprived of its greatest charm
when honesty abandons it. To feel its whole value, the heart must
delight in it, and it must ennoble us by ennobling the one we love.
LETTER XVIII + FROM JULIE 255

Take away the idea of perfection, and you take away enthusiasm;
take away esteem, and love is nothing. How could a woman honor
a man who dishonors himself? How could he adore a woman who
has no fear of abandoning herself to a vile seducer? This way, mu-
tual contempt soon results, love is nothing for them but a shameful
relationship, and they lose honor without finding happiness.” *
This is our lesson my friend; it is you who have prescribed it. Were
our hearts ever more delightfully in love, and was honor ever as
dear to them as in the happy time when that letter was written?
Consider then to what we now would be led by guilty passions nour-
ished at the expense of the sweetest ecstasies which enchant the soul.
The horror of vice which is so natural to us both would soon ex-
tend to the partner of our guilt; we should hate each other for hav-
ing loved too much, and love would be extinguished in remorse. Is
it not better to purify so dear a sentiment to make it lasting? Is it
not better to save of it at least that part which can concur with in-
nocence? Is that not to save all of it that was most charming? Yes,
my good and worthy friend, in order to be forever in love, we must
renounce each other. Let us forget all the rest, and be the lover of
my soul. This idea is so sweet that it is the consolation for every-
thing.
I shall love you always, do not doubt it. The sentiment which at-
taches me to you is still so tender and so lively that another woman
would perhaps be alarmed by it; as for me, I knew one too different
to be wary of this one. I feel that its nature has changed, and at least
in this respect my past faults lay the foundation for my present secu-
rity. I know that exacting decorum and the external show of virtue
would demand still more and would not be content until you were
completely forgotten. I think I have a more certain rule and I abide
by it. I listen secretly to my conscience; it reproaches me for noth-
ing, and it never deceives a heart which sincerely consults it. If that
is not enough to justify me before the world, that is enough for my
own tranquillity. How has this happy change come about? I do not
know. What I do know is that I have ardently desired it. God alone
has done the rest. I should think that a soul once corrupted is so
forever, and no longer returns to good by itself, unless some unex-
pected revolution, some abrupt change of fortune and situation sud-
denly alters its connections and, with a violent shock, helps it to
recover a desire for good. All its habits being broken and all its pas-
sions modified in this general revolution, it sometimes recovers its

* See Part One, Letter XXIV. [Rousseau]

256 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

primitive character and becomes like a new creature recently formed

by nature’s hands. Then the memory of its former baseness can
serve as a deterrent against a relapse. Yesterday we were abject
and weak; today we are strong and high-minded. By thus closely
contemplating ourselves in two such different conditions, we be-
come more sensible of the value of that to which we have risen, and
we become more attentive to sustain ourselves there. My marriage
has made me experience something like what I am trying to explain
to you. This bond, so feared, delivers me from a servitude much
more fearful, and my husband becomes dearer to me for having
restored me to myself.
We were too united, you and I, for our union to be destroyed
by a change of this kind. If you are losing a tender mistress, you are
gaining a faithful friend, and whatever we said of it in our delusion,
I doubt that this change may be disadvantageous to you. Draw
from it the same resolution as I have, I implore you, to become bet-
ter and wiser and to refine the lessons of philosophy by Christian
morals. I shall never be happy unless you too are happy, and more
than ever I feel that there is no happiness without virtue. If you
love me truly, give me the sweet consolation of seeing that our
hearts are in accord in their return to virtue no less than they were
in their error.
Before I close, I have one favor left to ask of you. A cruel burden
weighs on my heart. Monsieur de Wolmar is ignorant of my past
conduct, but an unreserved frankness constitutes a part of the faith-
fulness I owe him. I should have already confessed everything
a hundred times; you alone have kept me back. Although I
know Monsieur de Wolmar’s discretion and moderation, to name
you is yet to compromise you, and I have not wanted to do it with-
out your consent. Would asking it of you displease you, or should I
have presumed too much of you or of myself in expecting to obtain
it? Consider, I beg you, how this reserve is inconsistent with inno-
cence, how each day it is more cruel for me, and how until I receive
your answer I shall not have an instant of tranquillity.
LETTER XIX + RESPONSE 257

& LETTER XIX &

Response

AND WILL you no longer be my Julie? Ah! Do not say that, worthy
and respectable woman. You are more mine than ever. You are she
who deserves the homages of the whole universe. You are she whom
I adored as I began to be sensible of true beauty; you are she whom
I shall not cease to adore, even after my death, if there still remains
in my soul some remembrance of the truly celestial charms which
enchanted it during my life. This courageous effort by which you
recover all your virtue only makes you more equal to yourself. No,
no, whatever torment I experience in feeling and saying it, never
were you more my Julie than at the moment you renounced me.
Alas! It is by losing you that I have found you again. But I, whose
heart shudders at the mere prospect of imitating you, I who am
tormented by a criminal passion which I can neither support nor
suppress, am I the man I thought I was? Was I worthy of inspiring
your affection? What right had I to trouble you with my complaints
and my despair? It was a great deal for me to presume to live for
you! Ah! What was I that I should love you?
Fool! As if I did not experience enough humiliation without
seeking more! Why should I think about the distinctions between
us that love made disappear? Love elevated me, it made me equal
to you, its flame sustained me, our hearts were blended, all their
sentiments were mutual, and mine shared the grandeur of yours.
Here I am, then, fallen back into all my baseness! Sweet hope which
fed my soul and deceived me for so long, are you extinguished, then,
never to return? Will she not be mine? Have I lost her forever? Is
she making another happy? . . . Oh rage! Oh hell’s torment! .
Faithless one! Ah! Ought you ever ... Pardon, pardon, Ma-
dame, take pity on my madness. Oh God! You said it only too
well, she is no more . . . she is no more, that tender Julie to whom
I could disclose all the emotions of my heart. What, would I com-
plain when I was unhappy? . . . Would she listen to me? But was
I unhappy? . . . What am I now, then? . . . No, I shall no longer
make you ashamed either of yourself or of me. It is over. We must
 258 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

renounce each other; we must part. Virtue itself has dictated the
order; your hand could write it. Let us forget each other . . . for-
get me, at least. I am resolved, I swear it; I shall speak no more to
you of myself.
May I dare speak still of you and preserve the only interest in the
world left for me—that of your happiness? In describing for me the
state of your mind, you said nothing to me of your present situation.
Ah! As the reward for a sacrifice which you must feel, deign to de-
liver me from this unbearable doubt. Julie, are you happy? If you
are, give me the only consolation to which I am susceptible in my
despair; if you are not, through pity deign to tell me. I shall be un-
happy, then, for a shorter time.
The more I reflect on the confession which you contemplate, the
less I can agree to it, and the same reason which always deprived
me of the courage to refuse you must make me inflexible in this
case. The subject is of the utmost importance, and I exhort you to
weigh my reasons well. First it seems to me that your extreme del-
icacy leads you into error in this matter, and I do not see on what
grounds the most rigid virtue could demand such a confession. No
engagement in the world can have a retroactive effect. You cannot
put yourself under obligation for the past, nor promise what you
no longer have the power to perform. Why should you owe an ac-
count to the one to whom you pledge yourself of the previous use
you made of your liberty and of a fidelity you did not promise to
him? Do not deceive yourself, Julie; it is not to
your husband, it is
to your friend that you have broken your word.Before your father’s
tyranny, Heaven and nature had united us. By forming other ties,
you have committed a crime that neither love nor honor perhaps
may pardon, and it is for me alone to reclaim the prize that Mon-
sieur de Wolmar has stolen from me.
If there are cases when duty can demand such a confession, it is
when the danger of a relapse obliges a prudent woman to take pre-
cautions for her security. But your letter has given me more insight
into your real sentiments than you think. In reading it, I felt in my
own heart how much yours would have abhorred, even in the midst
of love, the first hand experience of a criminal liaison, the horror
of which was removed by its distance.[36]
Believe me, virtuous Julie, beware a fruitless and unnecessary
zealousness. Keep a dangerous secret which nothing obliges you to
reveal, the discovery of which can destroy you and is of no use to
your husband. If he is worthy of this confession, his heart will be
saddened by it, and you will have afflicted him without reason. If
LETTER XX + FROM JULIE 209

he is not worthy, why will you give him a pretext for using you ill?
How do you know whether your virtue, which has sustained you
against the assaults of your heart, would likewise sustain you against
ever reappearing domestic griefs? Do not voluntarily make your
misfortunes worse, lest they become stronger than your courage and
lest through scruples you fall back into a condition worse than that
from which you have had difficulty in rising. Prudence is the basis
of all virtue; consult it, I implore you, in this most important oc-
casion of your life, and if this fatal secret weighs on you so cruelly,
at least wait to unburden yourself until time and the years give you
a more perfect knowledge of your husband and add to the effect
of your beauty in his heart the still more certain effect of the charms
of your character and the delightful habit of perceiving them. Fi-
nally, if these reasons, good as they are, do not persuade you, do not
close your ears to the voice which exposes them to you. Oh Julie,
listen to a man capable of some virtue, who deserves from you at
least some sacrifice in return for the one which he made to you
today.
I must finish this letter. I know I cannot keep myself from re-
suming a tone which you ought to hear no more. Julie, I must leave
you! So young still, must I already renounce happiness? Oh the
time which is to return no more! The time forever past, source of
eternal sorrow! Pleasures, transports, sweet ecstasies, delicious mo-
ments, celestial raptures! My love, my only love, honor and delight
of my life! Adieu, forever.

4% LETTER XX *

From Julie

YOU ASK ME if I am happy. This question affects me, and in asking it

you help me to answer it, for far indeed from trying to forget you
as you say I should, I own that if you should cease loving me I could
not be happy; but I am so in every respect, and my happiness lacks
nothing except yours. If in my previous letter I avoided speaking
of Monsieur de Wolmar, I did it through regard for you. I know
your sensitivity too well not to fear to sharpen your anguish, but
 260 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

your uneasiness over my situation obliging me to speak to you

about the man on whom it depends, I can speak to you of him only
in a manner worthy of him, as it befits his wife and a friend to the
truth.
Monsieur de Wolmar is almost fifty. His simple, regulated life
and the serenity of his passions have preserved in him a constitu-
tion so healthy and a manner so sprightly that he hardly appears to
be forty, and he has no traits of an advanced age except experience
and wisdom. His features are noble and kind, his manner of address
simple and open; his manners are more prudent than officious, and
he speaks little and with much good sense but without affecting
either preciseness or sententiousness. He is the same toward every-
one, he neither seeks out nor shuns anyone, and he never has other
than rational preferences.
In spite of his natural coolness, his heart, seconding my father’s
intentions, thought it felt that I was suited to him, and for the first
time in his life he formed an attachment. This moderate but lasting
affection is so well guided by decorum and is maintained with such
equilibrium that he had no need to change his behavior in chang-
ing his condition, and since his marriage he has kept the same man-
ners with me as he had before, without violating conjugal solem-
nity. I have never seen him either gay or sad, but always content; he
never speaks to me of himself, rarely of me. He does not seek me out,
but he is not angry when I seek his company, and he leaves me
rather unwillingly. He does not laugh; he is serious without dis-
posing others to be so. On the contrary, his serene manner of ad-
dress seems to invite me to sprightliness, and as the pleasures I en-
joy are the only ones to which he appears sensible, one of the duties
I owe him is to try to amuse myself. In short, he wants me to be
happy; he does not tell me so, but I see it, and is not to desire the
happiness of one’s wife to have obtained it?
With all the trouble that I have taken to observe him, I have not
been able to find passion of any kind in him except that which he
has for me. Yet this passion is so even and so temperate that one
would say that he loves only as much as he wishes to and that he
wishes to only as much as reason permits. He is actually what Lord
Bomston believes himself to be. In this respect, I find him much
superior to all our men of feeling whom we ourselves admire
so
much, for our hearts deceive us in a thousand ways and act only
ac-
cording to an always secret principle; but the reason has no other
end except that which is good, its rules are sure, clear,
practicable
4
LETTER XX + FROM JULIE 261

in the conduct of life, and never is it misled except in idle specula-

tions which are not intended for it.
Monsieur de Wolmar’s greatest delight is observation. He likes
to pass judgment on men’s characters and the actions he sees. He
judges them with a profound wisdom and the most perfect im-
partiality. If an enemy did him injury, he would examine the mo-
tives and the means of it with as much composure as if it was a mat-
ter of indifference. I do not know how he has heard of you, but he
has several times spoken of you to me with much esteem, and I
know him incapable of dissimulation. I thought I sometimes noticed
that he was observing me during these conversations, but there is
great likelihood that this supposed notice is only the secret reproach
of an alarmed conscience. Whatever it may be, I have done my duty
in this respect; neither fear nor shame has inspired an unjust reserve
in me, and I have done you justice with him, as I do him justice
with you.[37]
There, my good friend, is a short but faithful account of Mon-
sieur de Wolmar’s character, as well as I can know it since I have
been living with him. Such as he appeared to me the first day, so he
appears to me now without any alteration, which makes me hope
that I have observed him well and that I have nothing left to dis-
cover about him, for I do not imagine that he could show himself
otherwise except to his disadvantage.
On the basis of this description, you can anticipate your answer
yourself, and you must despise me a great deal not to believe me
happy with so much reason to be so.* What has long misled me
and what perhaps still misleads you is the thought that love is nec-
essary to form a happy marriage. My friend, that is an error; honor,
virtue, a certain conformity, not so much of stations and ages as of
characters and temperaments, are enough between two partners,
which does not prevent this union from resulting in a very tender
attachment which, though not precisely love, is no less sweet and
is only more lasting. Love is accompanied by a continual uneasi-
ness over jealousy or privation, little suited to marriage, which is a
state of enjoyment and peace. People do not marry in order to think
exclusively of each other, but in order to fulfill the duties of civil
society jointly, to govern the house prudently, to rear their children
well. Lovers never see anyone but themselves, they incessantly at-

* Apparently she had not yet discovered the fatal secret which torments her so
greatly in the sequel, or else she did not then wish to confide it to her friend.
[Rousseau]
262 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

tend only to themselves, and the only thing they are able to do is
love each other.[38]
As for Monsieur de Wolmar, no illusion predisposes us toward
each other; we see each other such as we are. The sentiment which
joins us is not the blind ecstasy of impassioned hearts but the im-
mutable and constant attachment of two respectable and reasonable
people who, being destined to spend the rest of their days together,
are content with their lot and try to make it pleasant for each other.
It seems that if we had been created expressly to be united, it could
not have been more successful. If he had a heart as tender as mine,
it would be impossible for so much sensitivity on both sides not to
come sometimes into collision and for quarrels not to result. If I
were as calm as he, too much coldness would reign between us and
would make our union less agreeable and less sweet. If he did not
love me at all, we should live together uneasily; if he loved me too
much, he would be troublesome to me. Each of us is precisely what
the other needs; he instructs me and I enliven him. We are of
greater value together, and it seems that we are destined to have
only a single mind between us, of which he is the understanding
and I the will. There is nothing, even to his somewhat advanced
age, which does not turn to mutual advantage, for with the passion
with which I was tormented, it is certain that if he had been
younger, I should have married him with more difficulty yet, and
that extreme repugnance had perhaps impeded the fortunate revo-
lution which has occurred within me.
My friend, Heaven guides the good intentions of fathers and rec-
ompenses the docility of children. God forbid that I should want to
insult you in your affliction. Nothing but my desire to reassure you
fully about my situation makes me add what I am going to say. If
with the feelings I had before for you and the knowledge I
have now, I were free again and mistress of my own choice of a hus-
band—I call upon God, who deigns to enlighten me and who reads
my inmost heart, to witness my sincerity—it is not you whom I
should choose, it is Monsieur de Wolmar.
It is perhaps important to your complete recovery that I tell you
all that remains in my heart. Monsieur de Wolmar is older than I.
If in order to punish me for my faults Heaven would deprive me of
the worthy husband whom I so little deserve, my firm resolution is
never to take another. If he has not had the good fortune to find a
chaste girl, he at least will leave behind a chaste widow. You know
me too well to believe that after having made this declaration
to
you I may ever retract it.[39]
 LETTER XXI - TO LORD BOMSTON 263

This is the last letter you will receive from me. I beg you also to
write me no more. However, since I shall never cease taking
the
most tender interest in you and since this sentiment is as pure as the
light which shines on me, I shall be very glad to have news
of you
now and then and to see you attain the good fortune you deserve.
From time to time you can write to Madame d’Orbe on the
occasions when you have some interesting event to inform us of. I
hope that the integrity of your soul will be always expressed in
your letters. Besides, my cousin is virtuous and prudent, and she
will communicate to me only what is fitting for me to see, suppress-
ing this correspondence if you were capable of misusing it.[40]
Adieu, my amiable friend. Adieu forever. So inflexible duty com-
mands. But you may believe that Julie’s heart is incapable of for-
getting him who was dear to it... My God! What am I doing?
.- . » You will see only too well by the condition of this paper. Ah!
Is it not permissible to dissolve in tenderness as one says the last
adieu to a friend?

4% LETTER XXI &

To Lord Bomston

YES, MY LORD, it is true. My soul is oppressed by the weight of life.

For a long time it has been a burden to me; I have lost all that
could make it dear and nothing is left but weariness. But I am told
that it is not permissible for me to dispose of my life without the
order from Him who gave it to me. I also know that it belongs to
you for more reasons than one. Your solicitude has twice saved my
life, and your kindness ceaselessly maintains it. I shall never dispose
of it until I am sure I may without committing a crime or as long as
the slightest hope remains of being able to use it in your service.
You said that I was necessary to you; why do you deceive me?
Since we have been in London, so far from thinking of employing
me in your concerns, you make me your only concern. What super-
fluous pains you are taking! My Lord, you know that I abhor crime
even more than life. I adore the Eternal Being, I owe you every-
thing, I am fond of you, and on this earth I am attached to you
264 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

alone. Friendship and duty can detain an unfortunate being here;

pretexts and sophistry will not chain him here at all. Enlighten
my understanding; speak to my heart. I am prepared to hear you,
but remember that my despair is not to be deluded.[41]
For a long time I have meditated this serious subject. You must
know this, for you are acquainted with my situation, and yet I am
alive. The more I reflect, the more I find that the question may be
reduced to this fundamental proposition: to seek happiness and
avoid misery in that which does not affect another is a natural right.
When our life is misery for us and is not a pleasure for anyone, it
is therefore permissible to free ourselves from it. If there is a self-
evident and absolute maxim in the world, I think it is this one, and
if anyone succeeded in subverting it, there is no human action
which might not be made a crime.[42]
You have deigned to open your heart to me. I am acquainted with
your troubles; you do not suffer less than I. Your misery is with-
out remedy in the same way as mine, and so much the more without
remedy as the laws of honor are more immutable than those of for-
tune. You bear it, I confess, with fortitude. Virtue sustains you;
furthermore, it redeems you. You entreat me to suffer; my Lord, I
dare entreat you to end our sufferings, and I leave you to judge
which of us is most dear to the other.
Why do we delay in taking a step that we must eventually take?
Shall we wait until age and years attach us basely to life after having
deprived us of its delights, and until with effort, ignominy, and sor-
row we drag along an infirm and broken body? We are at the age
when the soul’s vigor easily frees itself from its shackles and when
a man still knows how to die; later he lets himself be wrested from
life reluctantly. Let us profit from a time when the weariness of life
makes death desirable for us; let us be afraid that it may come with
its horrors at a moment when we shall no longer desire it. I remem-
ber the time when I asked Heaven for only an hour and when I
should have died despondent if I had not obtained it. Ah, what dif-
ficulty one has in breaking the ties which bind our hearts to the
world, and how wise it is to leave it as soon as they are broken! I
feel, my Lord, that we are both worthy of a purer habitation; vir-
tue points it out to us and fate invites us to seek it. May the friend-
ship which joins us unite us even at our last hour. Oh what pleas-
ure for two true friends voluntarily to end their days arm in arm,
to mingle their last breath, to give up their mutual soul at once!
What sorrow, what regret can poison their last moments? What
4
LETTER XXII - RESPONSE 265

are they leaving behind in going from the world? They are going
together; they are leaving nothing behind.

& LETTER XXII &

Response

YOUNG MAN, a blind passion distracts you. Be more discreet; do not

give counsel while you are asking for it. I have been acquainted
with misfortunes other than yours. I have a firm soul; I am English.
I know how to die, for I know how to live, to suffer like a man. I
have seen death near at hand, and I regard it with too much indif-
ference to go in search of it. Let us speak of you.
It is true, you were necessary to me; my soul needed yours. Your
attentions could be useful to me; your reason could enlighten me
in the most important affair of my life.* If I do not make use of it,
whom do you blame? What are you good for in your present state?
What services can I expect from you? A senseless sorrow makes you
stupid and unconcerned. You are not a man, you are nothing, and
if I did not consider what you could be, such as you are now I see
nothing in the world more abject.[43]
Listen to me, young madman. You are dear to me; I pity your er-
rors. If there remains the slightest sentiment of virtue in the bot-
tom of your heart, come, let me teach you to be reconciled to life.
Each time you are tempted to quit it, say to yourself, “Let me do
one more good deed before I die.” Then go seek some poor person
to aid, some unfortunate person to console, some oppressed person
to defend. Bring to me the wretches whom my manner of address
intimidates; fear to abuse neither my purse nor my credit. Take,
consume my wealth; make me rich. If this consideration restrains
you from suicide today, it will restrain you tomorrow; after tomor-
row, for all your life. If it does not restrain you, die; you are merely
worthless.

* A reference to Lord Bomston’s proposed marriage, which subsequent parts of

the novel will disclose. [Translator’s note]
266 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

% LETTER XXIII *

From Lord Bomston

I SHALL NOT be able, my dear friend, to greet you today as I had

hoped to, for I am detained for two more days at Kensington. The
way of the court is that one works very much there without doing
anything, and that all the affairs run in succession without being
terminated. The business which has kept me here for a week did
not require two hours, but since the most important concern of the
Ministers is always to have a busy air, they waste more time in put-
ting me off than they would have spent in dispatching my case. My
impatience, a little too evident, does not shorten these delays. You
know that the court hardly suits me; it has been still more intoler-
able for me since we have been together, and I had rather share
your melancholy a hundred times than be annoyed by the knaves
who populate this country.
However, in talking with these officious idlers, an idea has come
to me which concerns you, and I wait only for your consent to dis-
pose of you. I see that in combatting your grief you are suffering
both from misery and from resisting it. If you wish to live and be
cured, it is less to satisfy the demands of honor and reason than to
please your friends. My dear man, that is not enough. You must re-
sume the relish for life in order to fulfill its obligations adequately,
and with so much indifference about everything, you will never suc-
ceed in anything. We may both of us talk as we will, but reason
alone will not restore your reason. A multitude of new and striking
objects must withdraw you from that attention that your heart gives
only to the one object which occupies it. To recover yourself, you
must get outside yourself, and it is only in the excitement of an
active life that you can find serenity again.
For this purpose an opportunity is presented which is not to be
disregarded. It is a matter of a great, noble enterprise, such that
many ages will not see the like. It rests with you to be a spectator to
it and to contribute to it. You will see the greatest sight which man’s
eyes ever beheld; your penchant for observation will be satisfied.
Your duties will be honorable; they will require, along with the
4
LETTER XXV + FROM LORD BOMSTON 267

talents that you possess, only courage and health. You will encounter
in your duties more danger than confinement; they will only suit
you the better. Finally, your obligation will not be for very long. I
cannot tell you any more today because this project, on the point of
breaking into the open, is nevertheless still a secret which I am not
at liberty to disclose. I shall add only that if you neglect this for-
tunate and rare opportunity, you will probably never find it again
and will regret it, perhaps, your whole life.
I have ordered my servant, who brings you this letter, to find you
wherever you may be and not to return without your response, for
the affair is urgent and I must give my answer before leaving here.

&% LETTER XXIV *

Response

IT 1s DONE, my Lord. Dispose of me. I shall agree to anything. Until

I am worthy to serve you, at least I shall obey you.

& LETTER XXV &

From Lord Bomston

SINCE YOU APPROVE of the idea which has come to me, I will not de-
lay a moment in informing you that everything has just been con-
cluded and in explaining to you what it concerns, according to
the authority you gave me to speak for you.
You know that a squadron of five warships has just been fitted
out at Plymouth, and that it is ready to set sail. The man who is to
command it is Mr. George Anson, a skillful and valiant officer, my
old friend. It is destined for southern waters where it is to go
through the Straits of Le Maire and to return by the East Indies.
Thus, you see, it is a matter of no less than a world tour, an ex-
268 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

pedition which we estimate ought to last about three years. I could

have had you enlisted as a volunteer, but to give you more impor-
tance in the crew, I have had a title added, and you are on the list
in the capacity of engineer of landing forces, which suits you all the
better because, engineering being your first ambition, I know that
you have studied it since your childhood.
I expect to return to London tomorrow and present you to Mr.
Anson within two days. Meanwhile, think about your equipment
and about providing your instruments and books, for the embarka-
tion is at hand and they only await the order to depart. My dear
friend, I hope that God will bring you back from this long voyage
whole in body and heart and that at your return we shall rejoin
each other, never to part again.

t+ LETTER XXVI *&

To Madame d’Orbe

I AM LEAVING, dear and charming cousin, to make a tour of the

world. I am going to another hemisphere to seek the peace which I
could not enjoy in this one. Fool that I am! I am going to wander
in the universe without finding a place to rest my heart; I am going
to seek a refuge in the world where I may be far from you! But I
must respect the will of a friend, of a benefactor, of a father. With-
out hoping to be cured, I must at least try to be, since Julie and
virtue command it. In three hours I am going to be at the mercy of
the waves; in three days I shall no longer look on Europe; in three
months I shall be in unknown waters where everlasting storms
prevail; in three years perhaps . . . how frightful it would be to
see you no more! Alas! The greatest peril is in the bottom of my
heart, for whatever my fate may be, I have resolved, I swear that
you will see me worthy of appearing before your eyes or you will
never see me again.
Lord Bomston, who is returning to Rome, will deliver this letter
to you as he passes through and will give you a detailed account of
what concerns me. You know his heart, and you will easily guess
what he will not tell you. You knew mine; form a judgment also on
4
LETTER XXVI - TO MADAME D’ORBE 269

what I myself do not tell you. Ah, my Lord! Your eyes will see her
again!
Your friend, then, as well as yourself, has had the good fortune
to become a mother. She must now be so? . . . Inexorable Heaven!
. . . Oh my mother, why in its anger did it give youason?.. .
I must end, I know. Adieu, charming cousins. Adieu, in-
comparable beauties. Adieu, pure and celestial souls. Adieu, tender
and inseparable friends, women unique on the earth. Each of you
is the only object worthy of the other’s heart. May you constitute
each other’s happiness. Deign sometimes to call to mind an unfor-
tunate man who existed only to share with you all the sentiments of
his soul and who ceased to live at the moment he parted from you.
If ever ...I hear the signal and the sailors’ shouts; I see the
wind blowing and unfolding the sails. I must climb on board; I
must leave. Vast sea, immense sea, which perhaps is to engulf me in
its midst, would that I might find again on its waves the calm which
forsakes my troubled heart!
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PART IV

oe
 t+ LETTER I *&

From Madame de Wolmar

to Madame d’Orbe

HOW LONG you delay in returning! All this going and coming does
not please me at all. How many hours you lose in traveling to the
place where you ought always to stay, and what is worse, in going
from it! The thought of seeing each other for such a short time
spoils all the pleasure of being together. Do you not feel that thus
to be alternately at your house and at mine is not really to be any-
where, and can you not contrive some means by which you may be
at both at the same time?
What are we doing, dear cousin? What precious moments we are
losing when we have none left to waste! The years multiply, youth
begins to vanish, life slips away, the fleeting happiness which it of-
fers is in our possession, and we neglect to enjoy it! Do you remem-
ber the time when we were still girls, those early days so charming
and so sweet that no other time of life affords and that the heart
forgets with such difficulty? How many times, obliged to part for a
few days or even for a few hours, we used to say as we sadly em-
braced, “Ah! If ever we are our own mistresses, no one will see us
separated again.” We are now our own mistresses, and we spend
half of the year far from each other. What! Do we love each other
any less? Dear and tender friend, we are both aware how
time, habit, and your kindness have made our attachment stronger
and more indissoluble, and I can no longer live for an instant with-
out you. [44]
Ah! My dear, my poor heart has loved so much! It was exhausted
so early that it grew old before its time, and so many diverse af-
fections have so absorbed it that it has no room left for new attach-
274 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ments. You have seen me successively a girl, a friend, a mistress, a

wife, and a mother. You know how all these titles have been dear
to me! Some of these bonds are destroyed; others are relaxed. My
mother, my tender mother lives no more; I have only tears left to
give to her memory, and I do but half enjoy the sweetest sentiment
of nature. Love is extinguished forever, and that is one more place
that will not be filled. We have lost your worthy and good husband
whom I loved as the dear half of yourself, and who so well deserved
your tenderness and my friendship. If my sons were bigger, maternal
love would fill all these voids, but that love, like all others, needs to
be returned, and what return can a mother expect from a child of
four or five? Our children are dear to us long before they are aware
of it and love us in turn, and yet we have such great need of telling
someone who understands us how much we love them! My husband
understands me, but he does not respond enough to my liking. His
head is not turned by love as mine is; his tenderness for them is
too reasonable. I desire one more animated and more like my own.
I need a friend, a mother who is as foolish as I about my children
and her own. In short, motherhood makes friendship even more
necessary to me, for the pleasure of speaking incessantly about my
children without being wearisome. I feel that I doubly enjoy my
little Marcellin’s caresses when I see you sharing them. When I em-
brace your daughter, I imagine I am pressing you to my bosom.
We have said a hundred times, as we see our little babies playing
together, that our united hearts mix them, and we no longer know
to which one of us each of the three belongs.
That is not all; I have strong reasons for desiring you constantly
near me, and your absence is cruel for me in more than one respect.
Think of my aversion to all dissimulation and of this continual
reserve in which I have lived for almost six years with the man who
is most dear to me in the world. My odious secret oppresses me
more and more, and yet silence seems each day to become more in-
dispensable. The more honesty prompts me to reveal it, the more
prudence obliges me to keep it. Can you conceive what a frightful
state it is for a wife to carry mistrust, lying, and fear even into a hus-
band’s arms, not to dare open her heart to the one who possesses
her, and to conceal half her life from him in order to ensure the
tranquillity of the other? From whom, great God, must I conceal
my most secret thoughts and hide the recesses of a soul with which
he should have cause to be so content? From Monsieur de Wolmar,
from my husband, from the most worthy spouse with whom Heaven
could, have rewarded the virtue of a chaste girl. For having de-
LETTER I - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 275

ceived him once, I must deceive him every day and feel myself con-
stantly unworthy of all his kindness to me. My heart dares not ac-
cept any display of his esteem; his most tender caresses make me
blush, and all the marks of respect and consideration which he
gives me are interpreted by my conscience as opprobrium and
signs of contempt. It is very cruel to have to say to myself inces-
santly, “It is another than myself whom he is honoring. Ah, if he
knew me, he would not treat me in this way!’ No, I cannot bear
this frightful state; I am never alone with that respectable man than
I am ready to fall on my knees before him, confess my fault to him,
and die of sorrow and shame at his feet.
Nevertheless, the reasons which have restrained me from the
beginning each day acquire new force, and I do not have a motive
for speaking which is not a reason for keeping silent. In considering
the peaceable and pleasant state of my family, I cannot reflect with-
out fright that a single word can cause an irreparable disturbance
to it. After six years spent in so perfect a union, shall I disturb the
tranquillity of a husband so wise and so good, who has no other
will but that of his fortunate wife nor pleasure but that of seeing
order and peace reign in his house? Shall I with domestic troubles
sadden the old age of a father whom I see so content, so delighted
with the happiness of his daughter and his friend? Shall I render
these dear children, these charming children who give promise of
so much, liable to have merely a neglected or scandalous education,
to become the melancholy victims of their parents’ discord, between
a father inflamed with a just indignation, disturbed by jealousy,
and a mother wretched and guilty, always bathed in tears? I am ac-
quainted with a Monsieur de Wolmar who esteems his wife; how
do I know what he will be if he esteems her no longer? Perhaps he
is so temperate only because the passion which would dominate in
his character has not yet had room to develop. Perhaps he will be
as violent in the outburst of anger as he is gentle and calm as long
as he has no cause for irritation.
If I owe so much consideration to all those about me, do I not
also owe some to myself? Do six years of an honest and regular life
efface nothing of youth’s errors, and must I be still exposed
to punishment for a fault which I have lamented for so long? I
swear to you, my cousin, that I do not look upon the past without
aversion; it humiliates me to the point of despondency, and I am
too sensitive to the shame to endure the thought of it without fall-
ing back into a kind of despair. The time which has passed since
my marriage is what I must consider to reassure myself. My present
276 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

state inspires me with self-confidence of which importunate mem-

ories try to deprive me. I love to nourish in my heart the sentiments
of honor that I believe I find within myself again. The rank of wife
and mother elevates my soul and sustains me against remorse for
my former condition. When I see my children and their father
about me, it seems to me that everything breathes forth virtue;
they drive from my mind the very thought of my former faults.
Their innocence is the security for mine; they become more dear to
me by making me better, and I have so much horror for all that
violates honor that I can scarcely believe myself the same being who
formerly could forget it. I feel myself so far from what I was, so sure
of what I am, that I nearly consider what I have to declare as a con-
fession which does not concern me and which I am no longer
obliged to make.
That is the state of uncertainty and anxiety in which I constantly
waver during your absence. Do you know what will happen because
of it some day? My father is soon going to leave for Berne, resolved
not to return until after he has seen the end of that long law-suit,
the burden of which he does not wish to leave to us, nor does he rely
too much, I think, on our zeal to proceed with it. In the interval
between his departure and his return, I shall remain alone with
my husband, and I feel that it will be almost impossible for my fatal
secret not to escape me. When we have visitors, you know that Mon-
sieur de Wolmar often leaves the company and willingly takes soli-
tary strolls in the neighborhood. He chats with the peasants, he in-
quires into their situation, he examines the condition of their land,
and he helps them in case of need, both with his purse and with his
advice. But when we are alone, he strolls only with me; he seldom
leaves his wife and his children, and he lends himself to their little
games with such charming simplicity that then I feel for him some-
thing even more than usual tenderness. These tender moments are
so much the more dangerous to my reserve, as he himself furnishes
me the opportunities to disregard it, and he has a hundred times
held conversations with me which seemed to inspire me to confi-
dence. Sooner or later, I shall have to open my heart to him, I
know, but since you want harmony to prevail between us and the
confession made with all the precautions that prudence sanctions,
return and be away for shorter times, or I can no longer answer
for anything.
My sweet friend, I must conclude, but what remains to be said is
sufficiently important to be most painful for me. You are not only
necessary to me when J am with my children or with my husband,
LETTER I - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 277

but above all when I am alone with your poor Julie; solitude is dan-
gerous precisely because it is pleasant for me and because I often
seek it without intending to. It is not, you know, that my heart still
feels the effects of its old wounds; no, it is cured, I feel. I am very
sure of it; I dare believe myself virtuous. It is not the present that I
fear; it is the past which torments me. There are memories as fear-
ful as the original sensation. I grow tender in reminiscing, I am
ashamed to feel myself crying, and I only cry the more because
of it. These are tears of pity, of regret, of repentance; love has no
more share in them. Love is nothing to me now, but I lament the
misfortunes it has caused. I weep for the fate of a worthy man
whom indiscreetly nourished passions have deprived of tranquillity
and perhaps life. Alas! Without a doubt he has perished in that
long and perilous voyage which despair caused him to undertake.
If he lived, he would have sent us news of himself from the ends
of the earth. Almost four years have elapsed since his departure.
It is said that the squadron he was with has suffered a thousand dis-
asters, that it has lost three-quarters of its crew, that several vessels
have sunk, that no one knows what has become of the rest. He lives
no more, he lives no more. A secret presentiment tells me so. The
unfortunate man has not been spared any more than so many others.
The sea, illness, melancholy, which is much more cruel, have short-
ened his life. Thus all that glitters for a moment on the earth is
extinguished. My tormented conscience wanted only to reproach me
for the death of an honest man. Ah my dear! What a soul was his!
. . . How he could love! . . . He deserved to live . .. He will
present before the Supreme Judge a feeble soul, but one which is
sound and loves virtue . . . I endeavor in vain to drive away these
sad thoughts; every moment they return in spite of me. To banish
them, or to control them, your friend needs your help, and since I
cannot forget that unfortunate man, I prefer to talk with you about
him than to think of him by myself.
You see how many reasons increase my continual need to have
you with me! If you, who have been more prudent and more fortu-
nate, do not have the same reasons, does your heart feel the same
need any less? If it is indeed true that you do not wish to remarry,
having such little satisfaction with your family, what house can suit
you better than this one? As for me, I suffer to see you in your own,
for despite your dissimulation, I know your manner of living there
and am not fooled by the playful air which you have just displayed
for us at Clarens. You have reproached me many times for the
faults in my life, but I have a very great one for which to reproach
278 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

you in turn. It is that your grief is always confined and solitary. You
hide in order to grieve, as if you were ashamed to weep in front of
your friend. Claire, I do not like this. I am not unjust like you; I do
not disapprove of your grief. I do not want you to cease honoring
the memory of such a tender husband at the end of two years, or of
six, or of your whole life. But I blame you, after having spent your
best days in weeping with your Julie, for stealing from her the pleas-
ure of weeping in turn with you and of washing away with more
honorable tears the shame of those which she poured out into your
bosom. If you are vexed about your grief, ah, you do not know true
affliction! If you take a sort of pleasure in it, why do you not want
me to share it? Do you not know that the communion of hearts
imparts to sadness something indefinably sweet and affecting which
contentment does not have? And has not friendship been given espe-
cially to the wretched as the solace of their misery and the consola-
tion for their pains?
There, my dear, are the things you ought to take into considera-
tion, to which I must add that in proposing that you come live with
me, I am speaking in my husband’s name no less than in my own.
Several times he has appeared surprised, almost scandalized, that
two friends such as we do not live together; he assures me he has
told you so, and he is not a man to speak inadvertently. I do not
know what course you will take on the basis of my remonstrances; I
have reason to hope that it will be such as I desire. Be that as it may,
mine is resolved upon and I shall not change it. I have not forgotten
the time when you were willing to follow me to England. Incom-
parable friend, it is now my turn. You know my aversion for the
city, my preference for the country, for rustic occupations, and the
attachment that a three year stay has given me for my house at
Clarens. You are also aware of what trouble it is to move with a
whole family and how it would be to abuse my father’s good nature
to move him so often. Well, if you will not leave your household and
come govern mine, I am determined to take a house in Lausanne
where we shall all go to live with you. Everything requires it. My
heart, my duty, my happiness, the preservation of my honor, the
recovery of my reason, my condition, my husband, my children, my-
self{—I owe you everything. All the blessings I have come to me
from you; I see nothing which does not remind me of it, and with-
out you I am nothing. Come then, my beloved, my guardian angel.
Come preserve your work; come enjoy your beneficence. We have
but one family, just as we have but one heart with which to cherish
it. You will supervise the education of my sons; I shall supervise
LETTER Il * RESPONSE 279

that of your daughter. We shall share the duties of a mother, and

we shall double the pleasures. We shall lift our hearts together to the
One who purified mine through your solicitude, and having noth-
ing further to desire in this world, in the midst of innocence and
friendship we shall peacefully await the next.

4+ LETTER II &

Response

GOOD HEAVENS, cousin, what pleasure your letter has given mel! [45]
I had no sooner lost my husband than you filled the void he had left
in my heart. While he lived, he shared its affections with you;
when he was gone, I was yours alone, and as you observe with respect
to the agreement of maternal tenderness and friendship, my daugh-
ter herself was only one more bond between us. Since then, not only
have I resolved to spend the rest of my life with you, but I formed a
more extensive plan. So that our two families may constitute only
one, I intend one day, supposing all the circumstances suitable, to
marry my daughter to your eldest son, and the name of husband he
first took in jest seemed to me a happy omen of his taking it one day
in earnest.[46]
It remains for me to vindicate myself from the reproach of hid-
ing my misery and preferring to grieve far from you. I do not deny
it; that is the way I pass the better part of the time I spend here. I
never enter my house without finding in it traces of the one who
made it dear for me. I do not take a step, I do not stare at an object
without perceiving some sign of his tenderness and of the good-
ness of his heart. Would you wish mine to be unaffected? When I
am here, I feel only the loss I have sustained. When I am with you,
I see only what I have left. Can you consider your power over my
humor as my crime? If I weep in your absence and if I laugh in
your company, why is this difference? Little ingrate, it is because you
console me for everything, and because I can no longer grieve over
anything while I have you.[47]
What displeases me most about the business which detains me
here is the risk to your secret, always ready to escape your lips. Con-
280 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

sider, I implore you, that what persuades you to keep it is a strong

and substantial reason, and that what persuades you to reveal it is
only a blind sentiment. Our very suspicion that it is no longer a
secret for the one it concerns is an additional reason for declaring it
to him only with the greatest circumspection. Perhaps your hus-
band’s reserve is an example and a lesson for us, for in such matters
there is often a great difference between what one pretends not
to know and what one is forced to know. Wait, therefore, I urge
you, until we consider the matter once more. If your presentiments
were well-founded and your unfortunate friend lived no more, the
best course left to take would be to leave his story and his misfor-
tunes buried with him. If he lives, as I hope he does, the case may
be different, but this case still needs to arise. In any event, do you
not think you owe any respect to the last wishes of a wretched man,
all of whose misfortunes were your doing?
In respect to the dangers of solitude, I understand and I approve
of your fears, although I know them very ill-founded. Your past
faults make you fearful; I foresee so much the better for the present,
for you would be much less fearful if you had more cause to be so.
But I cannot approve of your terror over the fate of our poor friend.
Now that your affections have changed their nature, believe me, he
is not less dear to me than he is to you. Yet I have presentiments
completely contrary to yours, and more in accord with reason. Lord
Bomston has twice received news from him, and wrote me upon
receiving the second letter that he was in the South Seas, having al-
ready escaped the dangers you mention. You know this as well as I
and you afflict yourself as if you knew nothing of it. But what you
do not know and what I must tell you is that the ship he is on was
seen two months ago off the Canaries, making sail for Europe. That
is what my father heard from Holland and what he did not fail to
communicate to me, according to his custom of informing me of
public affairs much more precisely than of his own. My heart tells
me that we shall not be long before receiving news of our philoso-
pher, and that your tears will be dried, unless after having wept for
his death you do not weep that he is alive. But, thank God, you are
no longer at that point.
This is my answer. She who loves you proposes and shares the
sweet hope of an eternal reunion. You see that you have not formed
the plan for it either solely or first, and that the execution of it is
further along than you think. Therefore, have patience for this
summer, my sweet friend. It is better to be delayed in rejoining
each other than to have to part again.
LETTER UI - TO MADAME D’ORBE 281

Well, good Madame, have I kept my word, and is not my triumph

complete? Come, fall on your knees, kiss this letter respectfully,
and humbly acknowledge that at least once in her life Julie de Wol-
mar has been outdone in friendship.*

&% LETTER III *&

To Madame d’Orbe

MY COUSIN, my benefactress, my friend, I have come from the ends

of the earth, and I bring back a heart full of you. I have crossed
the equator four times. I have passed through the two hemispheres,
I have seen the four quarters of the world, I have put the distance
of its diameter between us, I have circled the entire globe, and I
have not been able to escape you for a moment. We may try as we
like to flee from what is dear to us; its image, quicker than the sea
and the winds, follows us to the end of the universe, and everywhere
we go we carry there what gives us life. I have suffered a great deal;
I have seen others suffer more. How many wretches I have seen die!
Alas, they set such a high price on life! And I, I have survived
them . . . Perhaps, in fact, I was less to be pitied; the miseries of
my companions affected me more than my own. I saw them entirely
miserable; they must have suffered more than I. I said to myself, “I
am wretched here, but there is a corner of the earth where I am
happy and peaceful.” And I was compensated beside the Lake of
Geneva for what I was enduring on the ocean. I have the good
fortune upon arriving to see my hopes fulfilled; Lord Bomston in-
forms me that you both are enjoying peace and health and that if
you in particular have lost the sweet title of wife, you retain that of
friend and mother, which must be enough for your happiness.
I am in too much of a hurry to send you this letter to give you at
present a detailed account of my voyage. I dare hope soon to have a
more convenient opportunity. I have spent almost four years in the

* How fortunate this good Swiss woman is to be gay as she is gay, without wit,
without ingenuity, without artifice! She is unconscious of the affectations which
are necessary among us for good humor to succeed. She does not know that we
do not have this good humor for ourselves but for others, and that we do not
laugh to laugh but to be applauded. [Rousseau]
282 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

long voyage I have just mentioned to you and have returned in the
same ship in which I had left, the only one of the squadron which
the commander has brought back.[48]
How shall I tell you of my recovery? It is from you that I must
learn to understand it. Do I return more free and more prudent
than I departed? I dare think so, and yet I cannot affirm it. The
same image reigns always in my heart; you know whether it is pos-
sible for it to be effaced. But her dominion is more worthy of her,
and if I am not deluding myself, she reigns in this unfortunate heart
just as she does in yours. Yes, my cousin, it seems to me that her
virtue has subdued me, that I am for her only the best and the most
tender friend ever, that I do no more than adore her as you your-
self adore her; or rather, it seems to me that my sentiments are not
weakened but rectified, and however carefully I examine myself, I
find them as pure as the object which inspires them. What more
can I say to you until I am put to the test by which I can learn to
judge myself? I am sincere and honest, I want to be what I must be,
but how can I answer for my heart with so many reasons to distrust
it? Am I in control of the past? Can I prevent a thousand passions
from formerly having devoured me? How shall my imagination
alone distinguish what is from what was? And how shall I picture
her as a friend whom I never saw except as a mistress? Whatever
you may think, perhaps, of the hidden motive for my eagerness to
see her, it is honest and reasonable; it deserves your approval. I an-
swer in advance for my intentions at least. Allow me to see you and
examine me yourself, or let me see Julie and I shall know myself.
I am to accompany Lord Bomston to Italy. Shall I travel close by
you and not see you? Do you think that can be? Ah! If you had the
cruelty to demand it, you would deserve not to be obeyed! But
why would you demand it? Are you not that same Claire, as good
and compassionate as you are virtuous and prudent, who has deigned
to love me since her most tender youth and who must love me much
more still, now that I owe her everything?* No, no, dear and charm-
ing friend, such a cruel refusal would be just neither from you nor
to me; it will not complete my misery. Once more, once more in my
life, I shall lay my heart at your feet. I shall see you; you will con-
sent to it. I shall see her; she will consent to it. You both know my
respect for her only too well. You know whether I am a man to
present myself to her if I felt myself unworthy of appearing before
* Why does he owe so much, then, to her who occasioned the misfortunes of
his life? Wretched questioner! He owes her the honor, the virtue, the tran-
quillity of the one he loves; he owes her everything. [Rousseau]
LETTER IV - FROM MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 283

her. She has for so long deplored the work of her charms; ah, let
her see for once the work of her virtue!

P.S. His Lordship is detained here for some time by business. If it

is permissible for me to see you, why should I not set out before him
in order to be with you sooner?

* LETTER IV &

From Monsieur de Wolmar

ALTHOUGH we are not yet acquainted, I am charged with writing to

you. The most prudent and the most cherished wife has just opened
her heart to her fortunate husband. He believes you worthy of hav-
ing been loved by her, and he offers you his house. Innocence and
peace prevail in it; there you will find friendship, hospitality, esteem,
and confidence. Consult your heart, and if there is nothing in it
which alarms you, come without fear. You will not depart without
leaving behind a friend.

Wolmar

P.S. Come, my friend, we await you eagerly. I should be pained if

you were to refuse us.

Julie
284 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

4 LETTER V &

From Madame d’Orbe

(In which the preceding was enclosed.)

WELCOME! A hundred times welcome, dear Saint-Preux, for I am
pretending that you have kept this name, at least in our society.*
I think this is sufficient to tell you that we do not intend to exclude
you from it, unless you exclude yourself. Seeing by the enclosed
letter that I have done more than you asked of me, you may learn
to have a little more confidence in your friends and no longer blame
their hearts for the griefs they share when reason forces them to
afflict you with them. Monsieur de Wolmar wants to see you; he
offers you his house, his friendship, his counsel. This is more than
requisite to calm all my apprehensions about your coming, and I
should offend myself if I could distrust you for a moment. Mon-
sieur de Wolmar does more; he intends to cure you, for he says
that neither Julie, nor he, nor you, nor I can be perfectly happy
without that. Although I expect much from his wisdom and more
from your virtue, I do not know if this undertaking will be a success.
What I do know is that with the wife he has, the trouble he pro-
poses to take is out of pure generosity for you.
Come then, my amiable friend, in the security of an honorable
heart, to satisfy the eagerness we all have to embrace you and see
you peaceful and content. Come to your country and among
your friends to rest from your voyages and forget all the hardships
you have suffered. The last time you saw me I was a serious matron
and my friend was dying; but now that she is well and I am single
again, here I am completely as gay and almost as pretty as before
my marriage. One thing at least which is quite certain is that I
have not changed toward you, and that you will tour the world
many times before finding in it someone who loves you as I do.

*It is the one she had given him before her servants during his preceding
visit. See Part Three, Letter XIV. [Rousseau]
LETTER VI +: TO LORD BOMSTON 285

t LETTER VI &

To Lord Bomston

I HAVE RISEN in the middle of the night to write you. I could not
find a moment’s rest. My excited, ecstatic heart cannot be contained
within me; it needs to be opened. You who have so often preserved
it from despair, be the dear confidant of the first pleasures it has
enjoyed for such a long time.
I have seen her, my Lord! My eyes have beheld her! I have heard
her voice; her hands have touched mine; she has recognized me;
she has shown joy at seeing me; she has called me her friend, her
dear friend; she has received me in her house. Happier than I
ever was in my life, I am lodging under the same roof with her,
and now as I am writing you, I am thirty steps from her.
My thoughts are too quick to be in order. They present them-
selves all at once; they impede each other. I must pause and catch
my breath, to try to put some order into my account.
After so long an absence, I had no sooner surrendered myself
to the first ecstasies of my heart in greeting you as my friend, my
deliverer, and my father, than you thought of taking a trip to Italy.
You made me desire it in the hope of finally relieving myself of the
burden of my uselessness to you. Unable to terminate immediately
the business which kept you in London, you proposed my leaving
first in order to have more time to wait for you here. I asked permis-
sion to come here; I obtained it, I left, and although Julie’s image
offered itself beforehand to my sight, while I was dreaming of meet-
ing her I felt regret at leaving you. My Lord, we are even; this senti-
ment alone has paid you for everything.
It is not necessary to tell you that during the whole trip I was
preoccupied only with the object of my journey, but one thing to
observe is that I began to see this same object, which had never left
my heart, from another point of view. Up to then, I had always
remembered Julie glowing as before with the charms of youth. I
had always seen her beautiful eyes enlivened with the fire that she
kindled in me. Her cherished features used to offer to my eyes only
the surety of my happiness; our love used to be so interwoven with
286 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

her person that I could not separate them. Now I was going to see
Julie married, Julie a mother, Julie indifferent! I was uneasy about
the changes that an eight year interval could make in her beauty.
She had had smallpox; she was changed by it, but to what degree?
My imagination stubbornly resisted marks on that lovely face, for as
soon as I saw a smallpox scar on it, it was no longer Julie’s. I thought
again of the meeting we would have, of the reception she would
give me. This first meeting presented itself to my imagination under
a thousand different forms, and that moment which was to pass by
so rapidly recurred a thousand times a day for me.
When I perceived the peaks of the mountains, my heart beat
violently and said to me, “She is there.” The same thing had hap-
pened to me on the sea at the sight of the European coast. The same
thing had happened to me before at Meillerie as I discovered
the house of the Baron d’Etange. The world is ever divided for me
into only two regions, where she is and where she is not. The first
is extended when I am going away and grows smaller in proportion
as I approach, like a place which I am never to reach. It is at present
confined by the walls of her room. Alas! That place alone is in-
habited; all the rest of the universe is empty.
The closer I came to Switzerland, the more excited I felt. The
instant when from the heights of the Jura I discovered the Lake
of Geneva was an instant of ecstasy and rapture. The sight of my
country, of that cherished country where torrents of pleasure had
flooded my heart; the Alpine air so wholesome and so pure; the
gentle breeze of the country, more fragrant than the perfumes of
the orient; that rich and fertile land, that matchless countryside,
the most beautiful ever beheld by human eyes; that charming place
to which I had found nothing equal in my tour of the world; the
aspect of a happy and free people; the mildness of the season, the
serenity of the weather; a thousand delightful memories which
aroused again all the sentiments I had enjoyed—all threw me into
ecstasies which I cannot describe and seemed to infuse me with all
the joy of my whole life at once.
In coming down toward the far side of the lake, I felt a new
sensation which I did not understand. It was a certain emotion of
fright which oppressed my heart and disturbed me in spite of my-
self. ‘This fright, the cause of which I could not discern, increased
as I drew near the town; it abated my eagerness to arrive, and finally
made such progress that I was as much disturbed about my speed
as I had been until then about my slowness. Entering Vevey, I ex-
perienced a sensation which was something less than agreeable.
LETTER VI - TO LORD BOMSTON 287

I was seized with a violent palpitation which prevented me from

breathing; I spoke in a changed and trembling voice. I had trouble
in making myself understood as I asked after Monsieur de Wolmar,
for I never dared to call his wife by name. I was told he lived at
Clarens. This news took a five hundred pound weight off my breast,
and considering the two leagues which I had left to travel as a res-
pite, I was delighted with what might at another time have made
me desolate, but I learned with real sorrow that Madame d’Orbe was
at Lausanne. I went into an inn to regain the strength which was
failing me. It was impossible for me to swallow a single bite; I
choked as I drank and could not empty a glass except with several
sips. My terror doubled when I saw the horses hitched to leave
again. I think that I should have given the whole world to have
seen a wheel broken on the way. Julie was no longer before my
eyes; my disturbed imagination presented only confused objects to
me. My soul was in a general tumult. I had experienced grief and
despair; I should have preferred them to this horrible state. In
short, I can say that I have never in my life experienced distress
more cruel than that in which I found myself during that short
journey, and I am convinced that I could not have endured it for a
whole day.
Upon arriving, I had the carriage stop at the gate, and feeling
myself in no condition to take a step, I sent the postilion to say that
a stranger was asking to speak to Monsieur de Wolmar. He was
strolling with his wife. They were informed, and they came round
another way, while, my eyes fixed on the main avenue, I waited in
mortal terror to see someone appear there.
Julie had no sooner seen me than she recognized me. Immediately,
seeing me, crying out, running, and throwing herself into my arms
were for her but a single act. At the sound of her voice, I felt my-
self tremble; I turned around, I saw her, I felt her. Oh my Lord!
Oh my friend! . . . I could not speak . . . Farewell dread, fare-
well terror, fright, fear of what people might say. Her look, her
cry, her gesture in a moment restored to me confidence, courage,
and strength. I received warmth and life from her arms; I sparkled
with joy in clasping her in mine. A sacred ecstasy kept us tightly
embraced in a long silence, and it was only after such a delightful
shock that our voices began to be confused and our eyes to inter-
mingle their tears. Monsieur de Wolmar was there, I knew; I looked
at him, but what was I capable of seeing? No, if the entire universe
had been united against me, if instruments of torture had sur-
rounded me, I should not have screened my heart from the least of
288 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

these caresses, tender beginnings of a pure and holy friendship

which we shall bear with us into Heaven!
This first impetuosity abated, Madame de Wolmar took me by
the hand and, turning toward her husband, said to him with a cer-
tain air of innocence and candor with which I felt myself affected,
“Although he is my former friend, I do not present him to you, I
receive him from you, and it is only honored by your friendship
that he will henceforward have mine.”
“If new friends have less ardor than old ones,’ he said as he em-
braced me, “they in turn will become old ones, and will not be
inferior in affection to the others.” I received his embraces, but my
heart had just been exhausted and I did nothing but receive them.
After this short scene, I observed in the corner of my eye that my
trunk had been taken down and my carriage sent away. Julie took
my arm and I went with them toward the house, almost overcome
with joy to see that they were determined I should be their guest.
It was then that, contemplating more calmly that adored face
which I had thought I would find disfigured, I saw with a bitter-
sweet surprise that she was actually more beautiful and more spark-
ling than ever. Her charming features are even improved; she has
put on a little more flesh, which only adds to her dazzling fairness.
The smallpox has left only some slight, almost imperceptible marks
on her cheeks. In place of that humble modesty which formerly
made her lower her eyes incessantly, one sees the security of virtue
in her chaste look, joined to sweetness and to sensitivity. Her coun-
tenance, not any less modest, is less timid. A freer air and franker
manners have succeeded that restrained behavior mixed with ten-
derness and shame, and if the sense of her fault made her more
affecting then, that of her purity makes her more celestial today.
We were scarcely in the parlor than she disappeared and re-
turned a moment later. She was not alone. Whom do you think
she brought with her? My Lord, her children! Her two children,
more beautiful than the day and bearing already in their child-
ish features the charm and attraction of their mother. What hap-
pened to me at that sight? That can neither be described nor un-
derstood; you must feel it. A thousand contrary emotions seized me
at once. A thousand cruel and delightful memories divided my
heart. Oh what a sight! Oh what regrets! I felt myself torn with
sorrow and transported with joy. I saw her who was so dear to me
multiplied, so to speak. Alas! I saw at the same instant the too con-
vincing proof that she was no longer anything to me, and my losses
seemed to be multiplied with her.
LETTER VI - TO LORD BOMSTON 289

She led them by the hand to me. “Here,” she said in a tone which
pierced my soul, “these are your friend’s children. They will one
day be your friends. Be theirs henceforward.”
Immediately these two little creatures pressed around me, took
my hands, and overwhelming me with their innocent caresses,
turned all my emotions into tenderness. I took them both in my
arms, and pressing them against my throbbing heart, I said with
a sigh, “Dear and charming children, you have a great task to per-
form. May you be able to resemble those from whom you re-
ceived your life. May you be able to imitate their virtues and by
yours one day console their unfortunate friends.”
Enchanted, Madame de Wolmar embraced me a second time and
seemed to desire to pay with her caresses for those I was bestowing
on her two sons. But what difference between the first embrace and
this one! I experienced it with surprise. It was a mother of a family
whom I was clasping. I saw her surrounded by her husband and
her children; this group was imposing. I found an air of dignity in
her countenance which had not impressed me at first. I felt my-
self forced to pay her a new kind of respect. Her familiarity was al-
most a burden to me; however beautiful she appeared to me, I
should have kissed the hem of her dress with better heart than I
kissed her cheek. From that instant, in short, I knew that she and
I were no longer the same, and I began in earnest to feel optimistic
about myself.
Taking me by the hand, Monsieur de Wolmar led me next into
the rooms which were prepared for me. Upon entering, he said to
me, “Here is your apartment. It is not that of a stranger. It will no
longer be another’s, for henceforth it will remain either empty
or occupied by you.”
You may judge if that compliment was agreeable for me! But I
still did not deserve it enough to hear it without confusion. Mon-
sieur de Wolmar saved me the embarrassment of a reply. He in-
vited me to walk around the garden. There he behaved so that I
found myself more at ease, and assuming the tone of a man informed
of my former errors but full of confidence in my integrity, he
spoke to me like a father to his child, and through his esteem for
me made it impossible for me to belie him. No, my Lord, he is not
mistaken; I shall not forget that I have his esteem and yours to
justify. But why must my heart shrink at his beneficence? Why must
a man whom I am bound to love be Julie’s husband?
This day seemed destined to put me to every kind of trial I could
undergo. After we had returned to Madame de Wolmar, her hus-
290 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

band was called away to give some order, and I was left alone with
her.
I found myself then in new perplexity, the most painful and the
least expected of all. What should I say to her? How should I begin?
Should I dare remind her of our former connection and of the time
so present to my mind? Should I permit her to think that I had
forgotten them or that I no longer cared about them? What torment
it was to treat as a stranger her whom I carry in my inmost heart!
But what baseness to abuse hospitality by speaking words to her
which she must hear no more! In this perplexity, I was put out of
countenance, color mounted to my face, I dared not speak nor lift
my eyes nor make the least movement, and I think I would have re-
mained in that distressed state until her husband’s return if she
had not extricated me from it. As for her, it appeared that this pri-
vate interview had in no way embarrassed her. She preserved the
same manner and the same behavior that she had before; she
continued to speak to me in the same tone, except that I thought I
perceived that she was trying to infuse it with still more gaiety
and freedom, joined with a look, not timid or tender but sweet
and affectionate, as if to encourage me to be reassured and emerge
from my constraint which she could not fail to notice.
She spoke to me of my long voyage; she wanted to know its de-
tails, especially those of the risks I had run, the suffering I had en-
dured, for she knew, she said, that she was bound in friendship to
make me some reparation for them.
“Ah Julie!” I said to her sadly, “I have been with you only for a
moment. Do you already want to send me back to the Indies?”
“No,” she said, laughing, “but I would go there in my turn.”
I told her that I had written you an account of my voyage, a
copy of which I brought to her. Then she eagerly asked me for
news of you. I spoke of you and could not do so without recounting
the suffering I had undergone and that which I had caused you. She
was affected; she began in a more serious tone to enter into her
own justification and to show me that she had had to do all that she
had done. Monsieur de Wolmar returned in the middle of her ex-
planation, and what astounded me was that she continued it in
his presence exactly as if he had not been there. He could not keep
himself from smiling as he discerned my astonishment.
After she had finished, he said to me, “You have seen an example
of the openness which prevails here. If you sincerely wish to be
virtuous, learn to imitate it. That is the only request and the only
4
LETTER VI - TO LORD BOMSTON 291

advice I have to give you. The first step toward vice is to shroud in-
nocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something
sooner or later has reason to conceal it. A single moral precept can
take the place of all the others. It is this one: never do or say any-
thing you do not want the whole world to see and hear. As for me, I
have always regarded as the most estimable of men that Roman
who wanted his house to be built in a way that people might see
everything that was done there.
“I have,” he continued, “two courses of action to propose to you.
Freely choose the one which will suit you best, but choose one or
the other.”
Then, taking his wife’s hand and mine, he said as he clasped
them together, “Our friendship now begins. Here is the dear bond.
May it be indissoluble. Embrace your sister and friend. Treat her
constantly as such. The more familiar you will be with her, the better
I shall think of you. But behave when alone as if I were present or
before me as if I were not. That is all I ask of you. If you prefer the
latter course, you can choose it without uneasiness, for since I re-
serve for myself the right to inform you of all that displeases me, as
long as I shall say nothing to you, you will be certain of not having
displeased me.”
Two hours before, this speech would have much embarrassed
me, but Monsieur de Wolmar was beginning to assume such great
authority over me that I was already almost accustomed to it. We
all three began again to chat peacefully, and each time I spoke to
Julie, I did not fail to call her Madame.
“Tell me frankly,” her husband finally said, interrupting me,
“in your conversation a little while ago, did you call her Madame?”
“No,” I said, a little disconcerted, “‘but decorum. . . .”
“Decorum,” he resumed, “is only the mask of vice. Where virtue
prevails, it is useless. I do not desire any. Call my wife Julie in my
presence, or Madame in private. It is indifferent to me.”
I began then to understand with what sort of man I had to deal,
and I resolved indeed to keep my heart always in a state to bear
his examination.
Exhausted with fatigue, my body had great need of refreshment
and my spirit of rest. I found both at the table. After so many years
of absence and of sorrow, after such long journeys, I said to myself
in a sort of rapture, “I am with Julie, I am looking at her, I am
speaking with her, I am at the table with her, she is looking at me
without uneasiness, she is welcoming me without fear, and nothing
292 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

is disturbing the pleasure we have in being together.” Sweet and

precious innocence, I had not enjoyed its charms before, and it is
only today that I have begun to exist without suffering!
At night as I retired, I passed before the master bedroom of
the house. I saw them enter it together. I sadly reached my own,
and that moment was not for me the most agreeable of the day.
There, my Lord, are the events of this first meeting, so passion-
ately desired and so cruelly feared. I have tried to collect myself
since I have been alone. I have forced myself to examine my heart,
but the excitement of the preceding day is still prolonged, and it is
impossible for me so soon to determine my true state. All that I
know very certainly is that if my sentiments for her have not
changed their nature, they have at least changed their form, that I
intend always to see a third person with us, and that I fear being
alone with her as much as I once desired it.
I expect to go to Lausanne in two or three days. I have yet
but half seen Julie since I have not seen her cousin, that amiable
and dear friend to whom I owe so much, who will ceaselessly share
with you my friendship, my solicitude, my gratitude, and all the
sentiments of which my heart has remained the master. At my
return, I shall not delay in telling you more. I need your advice,
and I will watch myself closely. I know my duty and will do it. How-
ever pleasant it is for me to stay in this house, I have resolved, I
swear, that if ever I perceive that I am too fond of it, I shall leave
immediately.

% LETTER VII *

From Madame de Wolmar to Madame d’Orbe

IF YOU HAD agreed to stay with us as we asked of you, you would have
had the pleasure of embracing your protégé before your departure.
He arrived the day before yesterday and wanted to go see you to-
day, but a kind of stiffness, the result of fatigue and his journey,
keeps him in his room, and he has been bled this morning.* Besides,
I had fully resolved, in order to punish you, not to let him leave so
* Why bled? Is that also the fashion in Switzerland? [Rousseau]
LETTER VII + MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 293

soon, and you must come here to see him, or I promise you that
you will not see him for a long time. Really it would be unthinkable
for him to see the inseparables separately!
In truth, my cousin, I know not what idle terrors had fascinated
my mind about his coming, and I am ashamed that I was opposed
to it with so much obstinacy. The more afraid I was to see him
again, the more sorry I should be today for not having seen him,
for his presence has destroyed the fears which still disturbed me and
which could have become legitimate by fixing my attention on him.
The attachment I feel to him is now so far from frightening me
that I believe if he were less dear to me I would distrust myself more,
but I love him as tenderly as ever, without loving him in the same
way. It is by comparing what I experience now at the sight of him
to what I formerly experienced that I derive the security of my
present state, and the difference of such opposite sentiments is per-
ceived in proportion to their vivacity.
As for him, although I recognized him the first instant, I have
found him greatly changed, and—what formerly I should hardly
have imagined possible—he seems to me in many respects changed
for the better. The first day he showed some signs of embarrass-
ment, and I myself had much difficulty in hiding mine from him.
But it was not long before he assumed the resolute tone and the
open manner which is in accord with his character. I had always
seen him timid and bashful; the dread of displeasing me, and per-
haps the secret shame of acting a part scarcely worthy of a man of
honor, gave him an indefinably servile and abased look before me,
which you have justifiably ridiculed more than once. In place of a
slavish submission, he now shows the respect of a friend who knows
how to honor what he esteems. He speaks honestly and with assur-
ance, he has no fear that his virtuous maxims may be contrary to
his interests, he fears neither to do himself injury nor to affront
me by praising what is praiseworthy, and one senses in everything
he says the confidence of an upright and self-confident man, who de-
rives from his own heart the approval which he formerly sought
only in my eyes. I find also that the customs of the world and ex-
perience have taken away his dogmatic and peremptory tone which
men contract in their study, that he is less prompt to pass judgment
on men since he has observed them a great deal, that he is less in a
hurry to establish general propositions since he has seen so many
exceptions, and that in general the love of the truth has cured him
of a systematic mind, with the result that he has become less brilliant
294 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

and more rational, and one learns much more from him now that
he is no longer so learned.
His person is also changed but not for the worse. His bearing is
more assured, his countenance is more open, and his manner is more
proud. He has brought back from his travels a certain martial air,
which becomes him all the more because his gestures, lively and
quick when he is animated, are otherwise more serious and sober
than formerly. He is a sailor whose attitude is calm and cool and
whose speech fiery and impetuous. Past thirty, his face is that of a
man in his prime and combines the dignity of a mature age with
the spirit of youth. His complexion is not recognizable; he is as
dark as a Moor and quite scarred by smallpox as well. My dear, I
must tell you everything: to look at these scars causes me some
uneasiness, and I often catch myself looking at them in spite of
myself.
I think I notice that if I examine him, he is no less attentive in
examining me. After such a long absence, it is natural for us to con-
template each other with a sort of curiosity, but if this curiosity
seems to retain anything of our old eagerness, what a difference
there is in its manner as well as in its motive! If our eyes meet less
often, we look at each other with more freedom. It seems that we
have a tacit agreement for examining each other alternately. Each
feels when it is the other’s turn, as it were, and in his turn averts
his eyes. Although the emotion may no longer be present, can we
see again without pleasure the person we loved so tenderly before
and love so purely now? Who knows whether vanity is not en-
deavoring to justify past mistakes? Who knows if, when passion
ceases to blind us, we both do not still like to say to ourselves that
we did not choose too badly? Be that as it may, I tell you again with-
out shame that I retain very sweet sentiments for him which will
last as long as I live. Far from reproaching myself for these senti-
ments, I congratulate myself for them; I should be ashamed not to
have them, as for a defect in my character and the mark of a wicked
heart. As for him, I dare believe that next to virtue he loves me best
in the world. I feel that he prides himself in my esteem; I pride my-
self in turn in his, and I shall deserve to keep it. Ah! If you saw
with what tenderness he caresses my children, if you knew what
pleasure he takes in speaking of you, cousin, you would recognize
how dear I still am to him.
That which doubles my confidence in the opinion that we both
have of him is that Monsieur de Wolmar shares it and that since
4
LETTER VII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 295

he has met him he thinks from his own observations fully as well
of our friend as we had told him he should. He has spoken to me
of him a great deal these past two evenings, congratulating himself
for the course he has taken and for struggling against my opposition.
“No,” he said to me yesterday, “we shall not leave so honest a
man in doubt about himself. We shall teach him to have more con-
fidence in his virtue, and perhaps one day we shall enjoy with more
benefit than you think the fruit of the trouble we are going to take.
As for the present, I must tell you that already his character pleases
me and that I esteem him above all for a reason which he hardly
suspects, that is, to see the reserve he has in front of me. The less
friendship he shows me, the more he inspires me to it. I could not
tell you how much I feared his embrace. That was the first trial that
I prepared for him. A second one is to take place, during which I
shall watch him.* After that I shall watch him no more.”
“As for this trial,’ I said to him, “it proves nothing else but the
openness of his character. For never before could he resolve him-
self to assume a submissive and compliant manner with my father,
although it was greatly to his interest and I had earnestly begged
him to do so. With sorrow I saw that he was depriving himself of
that single resource, but I could not resent him for being unable
to be hypocritical in any way.”
“This case is very different,” my husband replied. “Between your
father and him there is a natural antipathy based on the opposition
of their precepts. As for myself who have neither systems nor pre-
judices, I am sure that he has no natural aversion to me. No
man hates me. A man without passions cannot inspire aversion in
anyone. But I have stolen his property from him; he will not im-
mediately forgive me for it. He will love me more tenderly only
when he is perfectly convinced that the injury I have done him does
not prevent me from looking upon him with a favorable eye. If he
embraced me now, he would be a hypocrite; if he never embraced
me, he would be a monster.”
There, my Claire, is our situation, and I am beginning to think
that Heaven will bless the integrity of our hearts and the kind in-
tentions of my husband. But I am indeed kind to go into all this de-
tail; you do not deserve that I should take so much pleasure in talk-
ing with you. I have resolved to say nothing further, and if you
want to know more, come to learn it.
, but I shall
* The letter which concerns this second trial has been suppressed
take care to mention it at the proper time. [Rousseau]
296 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

P.S. Yet I must tell you more of what has taken place. You know
with what indulgence Monsieur de Wolmar received the delayed
confession that this unexpected return forced me to make. You saw
with what gentleness he could dry my tears and dispel my shame.
Whether I had told him nothing new, as you have rather reason-
ably surmised, or whether he was in fact affected by a measure
which nothing but repentance could dictate, not only has he con-
tinued to live with me as before, but he seems to have doubled his
solicitude, confidence, and esteem, and to wish to compensate me
with attention for the confusion which that confession cost me.
My cousin, you know my heart; judge the impression that such con-
duct makes on it! [49]

% LETTER VIII &

Response

WHAT CousIN! Has our traveler arrived and have I not yet seen him
at my feet laden with spoils from America? It is not he, I inform you,
whom I accuse of this delay, for I know that he suffers from it as
much as I, but I see that he has not forgotten his old role as a slave
as well as you say he has, and I complain less of his neglect than of
your tyranny. I too find you very kind to wish that a grave and
formal prude such as I should make the first advances, and that
abandoning all my affairs, I should run to kiss a black and pock-
marked face which has spent four years in the sun and seen the
land of spices! But you make me laugh above all when you are in a
hurry to scold for fear that I may scold first. I would like to know
why you attempt this? Quarreling is my talent; I take pleasure in
it, I acquit myself marvelously, and it becomes me very well. But
you, no one can be more awkward than you in quarreling, and it
becomes you not at all. On the other hand, if you knew how grace-
ful you are in being in error, how charming your confused manner
and your supplicating eye make you, instead of scolding, you would
spend your life asking pardon, if not through duty, at least through
coquetry. [50]
LETTER VIII +: RESPONSE 297

I come to the principal subject of your letter. You know that

when our friend wrote, I flew to you; the matter was serious. But
now if you knew what trouble that short absence from my home
has caused me and how much business I have all at once, you
would sense the impossibility of my abandoning my house again
without causing myself new inconveniences and putting myself un-
der an obligation to spend the winter here again, which is not my
intention nor yours. Is it not better to abstain from seeing each
other hastily for two or three days and rejoin each other six months
sooner? I also think that it will not be useless if I chat privately and
somewhat leisurely with our philosopher, either to probe and
strengthen his heart, or to give him some useful advice on the way
he is to conduct himself with your husband and even with you, for
I do not imagine you can speak to him quite freely on that subject,
and I see even by your letter that he needs advice. We have gotten
so much into the habit of governing him that in our own conscience
we are a little responsible for him, and until his reason is com-
pletely freed, we must make up for it. As for me, this is a trouble I
shall always take with pleasure, for he has paid such costly defer-
ence to my advice, which I shall never forget, and there is no man in
the world since my husband is no more whom I esteem and whom I
love as much as him. I also am reserving for his benefit the pleasure
of doing me some services here. I have a great many papers in dis-
order which he will help me to clear up and some intricate business
in which J shall in turn need his understanding and his solicitude.
Nevertheless, I expect to keep him only five or six days at most,
and perhaps I shall send him back to you the next day, for I have too
much vanity to wait until his impatience to return overtakes him
and too good an eye to delude myself.
Do not fail, then, as soon as he is well again, to send him to me,
that is to say, to allow him to come, or I shall not intend to joke
anymore. You know very well that if I laugh when I weep and yet
am not the less afflicted, I laugh also when I scold and am not the
less angry. If you are quite wise and do things with good grace, I
promise to send you with him a pretty little present which will
give you pleasure, and very great pleasure. But if you keep me wait-
ing impatiently, I warn you you will have nothing.

P.S. By the way, tell me does our sailor smoke? Does he swear? Does
he drink brandy? Does he carry a large cutlass? Does he really have
298 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

the look of a buccaneer? Good heavens, how curious I am to see

the manner a man has upon returning from the other side of the
earth!

do LETTER IX &

From Claire to Julie

WELL, COUSIN, here is your slave I am sending back to you. I made

him mine during this week, and he wore his fetters with such good
grace that one sees he is completely formed for captivity. Thank me
for not having kept him still another week; do not be annoyed, but
if I had kept him until he began to be tired of me, I should not
have sent him back so soon. I kept him, therefore, unscrupulously,
but I did scruple not to dare lodge him in my house. Sometimes I
am conscious of my proud soul which disdains servile decorum
and is so consistent with virtue. But in this case I was more re-
served, without knowing why, and all that is certain is that I am
more inclined to reproach than to applaud myself for this reserve.
But do you know why our friend stayed here so peaceably? First,
he was with me, and I maintain that is already enough cause to
make him patient. He spared me some worries and was of service
to me in my business; a friend does not weary of that. A third
reason that you have already guessed, although you pretend not
to perceive it, is that he spoke to me of you, and if we took the
time that this conversation lasted from all that which he spent
here, you would see that very little is left to place to my account.
But what a curious whim, to leave you in order to have the pleasure
of speaking of you! Not so curious as one would readily say. In
your presence he is constrained; he must watch himself incessantly.
The slightest indiscretion could become a crime, and in these dan-
gerous moments, honest hearts permit duty alone to be heard. But
when we are far from that which was dear to us, we permit ourselves
to dream of it again. If we stifle a sentiment which has become
criminal, why should we reproach ourselves for having had it while
it was not so? Can the sweet memory of a legitimate happiness ever
be a,crime? This, I think, is reasoning which would ill suit you but
LETTER IX + FROM CLAIRE TO JULIE 299

in which, after all, he may indulge himself. He began, as it were, to

run over the course of his former love. His early youth passed by a
second time in our conversations. He told me all his secrets again;
he recalled those happy times when he was permitted to love you;
he painted to my heart the delights of an innocent passion .. .
no doubt he embellished them!
He spoke very little of his present state in regard to you, and
what he did say to me about it contained more respect and admira-
tion than love, so that I see him returning much more reassured
about his heart than he was when he arrived. It is not that as soon
as you are concerned, one cannot perceive in the bottom of his
overly sensitive heart a certain tenderness which friendship alone,
though not less affected, still expresses in another manner; but for
a long time I have observed that no one can see you or think of
you coolly, and if to the general sentiment which the sight of you
inspires we add the sweeter sentiment that an ineradicable memory
must have left in him, we will find it difficult and perhaps impos-
sible that, even with the most severe virtue, he should be otherwise
than he is. I have questioned, observed, watched him well; I have
examined him as much as possible. I cannot read his soul; he him-
self reads it no better, but I can answer to you at least that he is
penetrated by the force of his duties and of yours, and that to
conceive the idea of Julie contemptible and corrupted would be
more horrible for him than that of his own annihilation. Cousin,
I have only one bit of advice to give you, and I beg you to pay at-
tention to it: avoid details about the past, and I answer to you for
the future.
As for the restitution you mentioned to me, you must think no
more of it. After having exhausted all imaginable reasons, I begged,
urged, conjured, pouted, kissed; I took his hands, I would have
fallen on my knees if he had let me do so, but he did not even lis-
ten to me. He carried his ill-humor and stubbornness to the point
of swearing that he would sooner consent to seeing you no more
than part with your portrait. Finally, in a fit of indignation, making
me touch it where it was fastened over his heart, he said to me with
such emotion that he could hardly breathe, “Here it is, here is this
portrait, the only comfort I have left, which you desire from me yet.
You may be sure that it will never be torn from me except with my
tite.” |
Believe me, cousin, let us be prudent and allow him to keep the
portrait. What does it basically matter to you if it stays with him?
So much the worse for him if he is obstinate about keeping it.
300 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

After having well opened and eased his heart, he seemed to me

tranquil enough for me to speak to him of his affairs. I found that
time and reason had not changed his plan and that he confined all
his ambition to spending his life in the service of Lord Bomston.
I could only approve a project so honorable, so suited to his charac-
ter, and so becoming the gratitude he owes to his Lordship’s un-
paralleled kindness. He told me you had been of the same opinion,
but that Monsieur de Wolmar had remained silent. An idea comes
into my head. From the rather singular conduct of your husband,
and from other indications, I suspect that he has some secret plan
for our friend which he is not disclosing. Let us leave him to him-
self and trust in his prudence. The way in which he is going about
it sufficiently proves that if my conjecture is correct, he is meditat-
ing nothing which is not advantageous to the one for whom he is
taking so much trouble. [51]
Admire my discretion. I have yet said nothing to you of the pres-
ent I am sending you and which promises you another soon. But
you have received it before opening my letter, and you who know
how much IJ idolize it and how much reason I have to do so, you
whose avarice was so anxious for this present, you will agree that
I give more than I had promised. Ah, the poor little one! At the mo-
ment you read this, she is already in your arms. She is more for-
tunate than her mother, but in two months I shall be more fortu-
nate than she, for I shall be more sensible of my happiness. Alas!
Dear cousin, do you not already have me entirely? Where you are,
where my daughter is, what part of me is still missing? There she
is, that charming child. Accept her as your own. I yield her to you,
I give her to you, I resign maternal authority into your hands. Cor-
rect my failings, charge yourself with the duties which to your think-
ing I fulfill so poorly. From today be the mother of the girl who is
to be your daughter-in-law, and to make her still more dear to me,
make another Julie of her if possible. [52]
Adieu, my beloved friend. Adieu, my dear inseparable one. You
may be sure that the time is drawing near and that the grapes will
not be gathered without me.
LETTER X + TO LORD BOMSTON 301

t% LETTER X &

To Lord Bomston

WHAT PLEASURES, known too late, I have enjoyed these past three
weeks! How sweet it is to pass one’s days in the midst of a tranquil
friendship, sheltered from the storm of impetuous passions! My
Lord, what a pleasant and affecting sight is that of a simple and
well regulated house in which order, peace, and innocence prevail,
in which without show, without pomp, everything is assembled
which is in conformity with the true end of man! The country, the
seclusion, the tranquillity, the season, the vast body of water which
is offered to my eyes, the wild aspect of the mountains—every-
thing here reminds me of my delightful Isle of Tinian. I see fulfilled
the ardent desires which I conceived so many times there. Here I
lead a life according to my inclinations; here I find a society agree-
able to my heart. Only two persons are wanting in this place for all
my happiness to be centered here, and I have hopes of seeing them
in it soon. [53]
Since the master and mistress of this house have fixed it as their
residence, they have put to use all that formerly served only for or-
nament; it is no longer a house made to be seen but to be lived in.
They have shut up long series of rooms to change the inconvenient
situation of the doors; they have cut up excessively large rooms to
have better distributed apartments. For old and rich furniture they
have substituted simple and comfortable things. Everything here is
pleasant and cheerful. Everything breathes an air of plenty and pro-
priety; nothing savors of pomp and luxury. There is not a single
room in which one may not recognize that he is in the country and
yet in which he may not find all the conveniences of the city. The
same changes are to be observed outside. The yard has been
enlarged at the expense of the coach houses. In the place of an old,
ramshackled billiard room, Monsieur and Madame de Wolmar have
put a fine wine press, and a dairy room where the clamorous pea-
cocks, which they have disposed of, used to stay. The garden was
too small for the needs of the kitchen; they have made a second one
out of the flower bed, but one so neat and so well arranged that the
302 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

flower bed thus transformed pleases the eye more than before. For
the mournful yews which used to cover the walls, they have substi-
tuted fine fruit trees. Instead of the useless horse chestnuts, young
black mulberry trees are beginning to give shade to the yard, and
they have planted two rows of walnut trees up to the road in place
of the old lindens which used to border the avenue. Everywhere
they have substituted the useful for the agreeable, and yet the agree-
able has almost always prevailed. For myself, at least, I find that the
noises of the yard, the crowing of the cocks, the lowing of the cattle,
the harnessing of the wagons, the meals in the fields, the return of
the workers, and the whole aspect of rural economy give this house
an appearance more rustic, more lively, more animated, more gay
than it had before in its gloomy dignity, and it has something in-
definable which savors of joy and well being. [54]
All idle subtleties are unknown in this house, and the great art
by which the master and mistress make their servants such as they
desire them to be is to appear to their people such as they are. Their
conduct is always frank and open because they have no fear that
their actions may belie their words. Since they do not have for them-
selves a set of morals different from that which they want to incul-
cate in others, they have no need of circumspection in their speech.
One word thoughtlessly let slip does not overturn the principles
they have striven to establish. They do not indiscreetly tell all their
affairs, but they openly proclaim all their maxims. At the table,
while strolling, in private, or before everyone, their language is al-
ways the same. Artlessly, they say what they think on every subject,
and without their having any individual in mind, each servant al-
ways finds some instruction in their discourse. Since the servants
never see their master do anything which is not upright, just, and
equitable, they do not consider justice as the tax upon the poor, as
the yoke of the wretched, as one of the miseries of their condition.
The care the master and mistress take never to let the workers come
in vain and lose days in order to beg payment for their work ac-
customs the servants to perceiving the value of time. Seeing the so-
licitude of the master and mistress to husband that of others, each
concludes that his own is precious to him and makes idleness
a greater crime. The servants’ confidence in their master’s integrity
gives force to their regulations which makes them observed and pre-
vents their being abused. They do not fear that in each week’s
gratuities the mistress may always find that it is the youngest or the
best looking who has been the most diligent. An old servant does
not fear that they may find some quibble to save increasing the
LETTER X - TO LORD BOMSTON 303

wages given him. No one hopes to profit from a disagreement be-

tween the master and the mistress to assert himself and obtain
from one what the other has refused. Those who are to be married
do not fear that there may be an obstacle placed in the way of their
settlement, in order to keep them longer, and that thus their good
service may do them injury. If some strange servant came to say to
the people of this house that masters and servants are in a veritable
state of war; that when the latter do the former all the injury that
they can they are only retaliating justly; that the masters being
usurpers, liars, and cheats, there is no wrong in treating them as
they treat the prince or the people or individuals and in secretly
returning them the injuries they do quite openly—he who would
speak in this way would not be understood by anyone. Here the mas-
ter is not even minded to combat or prevent such talk; to be
obliged to refute it is the concern only of those who give rise to it.
There is never either sullenness or discontent in obedience be-
cause there is neither haughtiness nor capriciousness in the com-
mand, because nothing is demanded which is not reasonable or ex-
pedient, and because the master and mistress sufficiently respect the
dignity of a man, even though he is a servant, so as to employ him
only with things that do not debase him. Moreover, nothing here is
considered base except vice, and all that is useful and justifiable is
considered honest and proper.
Even if no outside intrigues are allowed, no one is tempted to
have any. The servants know well that their most assured fortune
is attached to that of their master and that they will never want for
anything as long as the house is seen to prosper. In serving it, there-
fore, they are taking care of their own patrimony and increasing
it by making their service agreeable; this is to their greatest self-in-
terest. But this word is hardly in place in this case, for I have never
seen any establishment in which self-interest was so prudently di-
rected and in which it nevertheless was of less influence than in this
house. All is done through affection. One would say that these mer-
cenary souls are purified in entering this place of wisdom and har-
mony. One would say that a part of the intelligence of the master
and the sentiments of the mistress have passed into each of their
servants, so much does one find them judicious, kind, honest and
much above their station. To be esteemed, appreciated, wished well,
is their greatest ambition, and they consider the kind words said to
them as elsewhere others consider the presents given them.
There, my Lord, are my principal observations on the economy
of this house which concerns the servants and workers. As for the
304 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

manner in which Monsieur and Madame de Wolmar live and the

direction of the children, each of these topics well deserves a
separate letter. You know with what intention I began these ob-
servations, but in truth, the whole forms so enchanting a picture
that to love to contemplate it I need no other reason than the pleas-
ure I find in it.

4% LETTER XI &

To Lord Bomston

NO, MY LorRD, I do not contradict myself. One sees nothing in this

household which does not combine the agreeable and the useful,
but the useful occupations are not limited to pursuits which yield
a profit; they comprise, furthermore, every innocent and simple
amusement which nourishes the inclination for seclusion, work, and
temperance, and which preserves, in whoever applies himself to
them, a wholesome mind and a heart free from the disturbance of
the passions. If indolent idleness engenders only melancholy and
boredom, the delight of pleasant leisure is the result of a laborious
life. We work only to enjoy ourselves; this alternating of labor and
recreation is our true vocation. The repose which serves as relaxa-
tion from past labors and as encouragement to additional ones is no
less necessary to man than the labor itself.
After having admired the effect of the vigilance and the attention
of the most respectable mother in the ordering of her household, I
saw that of her recreation in a secluded place where she takes her
favorite walk and which she calls her Elysium.
For several days I had heard talk of this Elysium, about which
they made a kind of mystery before me. Finally, after dinner yes-
terday, the extreme heat making the outdoors and the indoors al-
most equally unbearable, Monsieur de Wolmar proposed to his wife
that she take a holiday that afternoon and, instead of withdrawing
as usual into her children’s room until evening, come with us to take
the air in the orchard. She agreed to it, and we went there together.
This place, although quite close to the house, is so hidden by a
shady walk which separates them that it is visible from no part of
the house. The dense foliage which surrounds it makes it impervious
4
LETTER XI - TO LORD BOMSTON 305

to the eye, and it is always carefully locked. I was no sooner inside

and turned around than, the door being hidden by alders and hazel
trees which permit only two narrow passageways on the sides, I no
longer saw by which way I had entered, and perceiving no door, I
found myself there as if fallen from the sky.
Entering this so-called orchard, I was struck by an agreeable sen-
sation of freshness which the thick foliage, the animated and vivid
greenness, the flowers scattered about on all sides, the murmuring
of a running brook, and the singing of a thousand birds brought to
my imagination at least as much as to my senses; but at the same
time I thought I saw the wildest, the most solitary place in nature,
and it seemed I was the first mortal who had ever penetrated into
this desert island. Surprised, impressed, ecstatic over a sight so little
expected, I remained motionless for a moment, and cried out with
involuntary enthusiasm, “Oh Tinian! Oh Juan Fernandez!* Julie,
the world’s end is at your threshold!”
“Many people think the same of it as you,” she said with a smile,
“but twenty paces more presently leads them back to Clarens. Let
us see if the spell will last longer for you. This is the same orchard
in which you formerly strolled and in which you have played with
my cousin. You know that the vegetation here was rather dry, the
trees rather sparse, affording insufficient shade, and that there was
no water. Now here it is fresh, green, filled out, improved, embel-
lished with flowers, and well watered. What do you think it cost me
to put it into its present state? For you must know that I am super-
intendent of it and that my husband leaves its entire direction to
me. ”
“In truth,” I said to her, “it cost you only neglect. This place is
charming, it is true, but uncultivated and wild. I see no marks of
human work. You have locked the door, water has come I know not
how, nature alone has done all the rest, and you yourself would
never be able to do as well.”
“Tt is true,” she said, “that nature has done everything, but under
my direction, and there is nothing here which I have not ordered.
Guess again.”
“Kirst,” lreplied;!"1 do not understand how, even with trouble
and money, you could supply the effects of time. Whe treesae 2ho
“As for those,” said Monsieur de Wolmar, “you will observe that
not many are very large, and those were already here. Besides, Julie
Anson.
* Desert islands in the South Seas, celebrated in the voyage of Admiral
[Rousseau]
306 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

had begun this long before her marriage, almost immediately after
her mother’s death, when she came here with her father to find sol-
itude.”
“Well,” I said, “since you insist that all these massy bowers, these
arbors, these sloping tufts, these well shaded thickets have grown in
seven or eight years and that art had a hand in it, I estimate that if
in an enclosure so vast you have done all this for two thou-
sand crowns, you have indeed economized.”
“You have guessed two thousand crowns too much,” she said. “It
cost me nothing.”
“What, nothing?”
“No, nothing, unless you count a dozen days work each year from
my gardener, as much from two or three of my servants, and some
from Monsieur de Wolmar himself who has not disdained some-
times to be my apprentice gardener.”
I understood nothing of this riddle, but Julie who until then had
held me back, said to me as she let me go, “Go farther within, and
you will understand. Adieu Tinian, adieu Juan Fernandez, adieu
all enchantment! In a moment you will be on your way back from
the world’s end.”
With ecstasy I began to wander through the orchard thus met-
amorphosed, and if I did not find any exotic plants or any of the
fruits of the Indies, I found those natural to the country, laid out
and combined in a way to produce a more cheerful and agreeable
effect. The turf, green and thick but short and close, was interwoven
with wild thyme, mint, sweet marjoram, and other fragrant herbs.
I saw a thousand dazzling wild flowers, among which my eye with
surprise distinguished some garden flowers, which seemed to grow
naturally with the others. I encountered here and there some shady
thickets, as impervious to the sun’s rays as if they were in the densest
forests; these thickets were composed of trees of the most flexible
wood, the branches of which had been made to bend round, hang
down to the ground, and take root, by a process similar to that
which mangrove trees follow naturally in America. In the more
open spots, here and there without order and without symmetry,
I saw roses, raspberries, currants, lilac bushes, hazel trees, elders,
syringa, broom, and trefoil, which embellished the ground by giving
it the appearance of lying fallow. I followed winding and irregular
walks bordered by these flowery thickets and covered with a thou-
sand garlands of woody vines, wild grape, hops, convolvulus, bryony,
clematis, and other plants of this kind, among which honeysuckle
and jasmine condescended to twine. These garlands seemed as if
LETTER XI * TO LORD BOMSTON 307

negligently scattered from one tree to the next, as I had sometimes

observed in forests, and formed above us a kind of drapery which
sheltered us from the sunlight, while under foot we had smooth,
comfortable, and dry walking upon a fine moss, with no sand, no
grass, and no rough shoots. [55]
All these little paths were bordered and crossed by a limpid and
clear stream, sometimes winding through the grass and the flowers
in almost imperceptible rivulets, sometimes running in larger
brooklets over a pure and speckled gravel which made the water
more transparent. I observed springs bubbling and rising from the
ground, and occasionally I saw deeper canals in which the calm and
peaceful water reflected objects to my eye. [56] A layer of earth, cov-
ered with an inch of gravel from the lake and strewn with shells,
forms the bed of the streams. These same streams, running at inter-
vals under some large tiles recovered with earth and grass at ground
level, form as many artificial springs where they issue forth. Some
rivulets are lifted by siphons above rugged places and bubble as they
cascade. The earth thus refreshed and moistened continually yields
new flowers and keeps the grass always green and beautiful.
The more I wandered through this pleasant refuge, the more I
felt increasing the delightful sensation which I had experienced
upon entering. However, curiosity kept me pressing on. I was more
eager to see the objects than to examine the impression they made
on me, and I preferred to give myself up to that charming contem-
plation without taking the trouble to reflect about it. But Madame
de Wolmar, drawing me from my reverie by taking me by the arm,
said to me, “All that you see is nothing but vegetable and inanimate
a melan-
nature, and whatever we may do, it always leaves behind
Come, see it animated and responsive. It is
choly idea of solitude.
”
then that at every instant of the day you will find a new attraction.
I said to her. “I hear a noisy and confus ed
“You anticipate me,”
an aviary.”
chirping, and I perceive a few birds. I suppose you have
“That is true,” she said. “Let us go near it.”
but there was
I did not yet dare say what I thought of the aviary,
ased me and did not seem
something in this idea which disple
to correspond with the rest.
m of the orchard,
We descended by a thousand turns to the botto
a pretty stream flow-
where I found all the water collected in
that had often been
ing gently between two rows of old willows
d a kind of vase
trimmed. Their hollow and half bare tops forme
oned, some tufts
from which came forth, by the process I have menti
d the branches
of honeysuckle, of which one part entwined aroun
308 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

and another dropped gracefully along the stream. Almost at the end
of the enclosure was a small pond, bordered with herbs, rushes, and
reeds, serving as a watering place for the aviary and as the last use
made of that water, so precious and so well husbanded.
Beyond this pond was a flat plot of ground which terminated, in
the angle of the enclosure, in a hillock covered with a multitude of
shrubby trees of all kinds; the smallest were toward the top, and they
increased in size as the ground sloped downward, which made the
tops almost on a level, or showed at least that one day they were to
be so. In front were a dozen trees still young but of a nature to be-
come very large, such as the beech, the elm, the ash, and the acacia.
These made up a copse on this side which served as a refuge for
that flock of birds, whose chirping I had heard from afar, and it was
in the shade of this foliage, as under a huge parasol, that I saw them
flying about, hopping up and down, singing, provoking each other,
and fighting, as if they had not perceived us. They flew away so
little at our approach that according to the notion which I had
had before, I first thought them locked up by a wire lattice,
but when we had reached the edge of the pond, I saw several de-
scend and approach us through a short passage which cut through
the flat part and connected the pond to the aviary. Then Monsieur
de Wolmar circled the pond and scattered on the passage two or
three handfuls of mixed seeds which he had in his pocket, and when
he had withdrawn, the birds flocked in and began to eat like
chickens, with such an air of familiarity that I plainly perceived that
they were trained to do this trick.
“That is charming!” I exclaimed. “Your use of the word aviary
had surprised me, but I understand now. I see that you mean
to have them as guests and not as prisoners.”
“Whom are you calling guests?” Julie answered. “It is we who
are theirs. Here they are the masters, and we pay them a tribute in
order to be admitted sometimes.”
“Very well,” I replied, “but how do these masters get possession
of this place? How is it that so many voluntary inhabitants are
collected in it? I have never heard of anyone attempting something
of this kind, and I should not have thought it could succeed if I did
not have the proof before my eyes.”
“Patience and time,” said Monsieur de Wolmar, “have performed
this miracle. These are the expedients which rich people scarcely
think of in their pleasures. Always in a hurry to enjoy themselves,
force and money are the only means they know. They have birds
in cages and friends at so much a month. If the servants ever came
LETTER XI - TO LORD BOMSTON 309

near this place, you would soon see the birds disappear, and if they
are presently here in great numbers, it is because some have always
been here. You cannot make them come when there are none in the
first place, but it is easy when there are some to attract more, by an-
ticipating all their needs, by never frightening them, by allowing
them to make their nests with security, and by not disturbing the
little ones in the nest, for by these means those who are here remain
and those who arrive unexpectedly stay too. This copse existed be-
fore, although it was separate from the orchard. Julie has only had
it enclosed by a quickset hedge, removed the one which separated it,
enlarged and embellished it with new plans. To the right and left
of the path which leads to it, you see two spaces filled with a con-
fused mixture of grass, straw, and all sorts of plants. Each year she
has sown here some corn, millet, sunflower seeds, hempseed, vetch,
and all the grain that birds generally like, and nothing is ever
reaped. Besides that, almost every day, summer and winter, she or I
bring them something to eat, and when we fail, Fanchon usually
supplies our place. They have water four steps away, as you see.
Madame de Wolmar carries her attention so far as to provide them
every spring with little heaps of horsehair, straw, wool, moss, and
other materials suitable for making nests. With the proximity of
materials, the abundance of provisions, and the great care which is
taken to keep all their enemies away,* the uninterrupted tranquil-
lity they enjoy induces them to lay their eggs in this convenient place,
where they want for nothing and where no one disturbs them. That
is how the habitation of the fathers becomes that of the children,
and how the populace thrives and multiplies.”
“Ah,” said Julie, “you no longer see anything! Each no longer
thinks beyond himself. But the inseparable mates, the zeal for do-
mestic duties, paternal and maternal tenderness—you have missed
all that. Two months ago you should have been here to give your
eyes to the most charming spectacle and your heart to the sweetest
sentiment of nature.”
“Madame,” I replied rather sadly, “you are a wife and mother.
These are the pleasures which are your privilege to know.”
Immediately Monsieur de Wolmar took me by the hand and said
as he clasped it, “You have friends, and these friends have children.
How could you be stranger to paternal affection?”
I looked at him; I looked at Julie. Both looked at each other and
gave me such an affecting regard that, embracing one after the

* Mice, owls, and above all, children. [Rousseau]

310 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

other, I said to them with tenderness, ‘““They are as dear to me as

they are to you.”
I do not know by what curious effect a single word can thus alter
a mind, but since that moment, Monsieur de Wolmar has appeared
to me to be another man, and I consider him less as the husband of
her whom I loved so much than as the father of two children for
whom I would give my life.
I wished to circle the pond in order to see this delightful refuge
and its little inhabitants from close by, but Madame de Wolmar
held me back. “No one,” she told me, “disturbs them in their dwell-
ing, and you are the very first of our guests whom I have brought
up to this point. There are four keys to the orchard, of which my
father and we each have one. Fanchon has the fourth, as superin-
tendent, and in order to bring my children here sometimes, a favor
the value of which is increased by the extreme circumspection re-
quired of them while they are here. Even Gustin never enters ex-
cept with one of the four. Once the two spring months are past in
which his work is useful, he hardly ever comes in anymore, and all
the rest is done among us.”
“Thus,” I said to her, “for fear that your birds may become your
slaves, you make yourselves theirs.”
“Those,” she replied, “are indeed the words of a tyrant who be-
lieves he is enjoying his liberty only while he is disturbing that of
others.”’
As we were leaving in order to return to the house, Monsieur de
Wolmar threw a handful of barley in the pond, and looking into it,
I saw some small fish. ‘Ah, ah!” I said immediately, “there are some
prisoners nevertheless.’
“Yes,” he said, “they are prisoners of war, whose lives have been
spared.”
“Without a doubt,” his wife added. “Some time ago, Fanchon
stole from the kitchen some little perch which she brought here
without my knowledge. I leave them here for fear of killing them if
I put them back into the lake, for it is better to confine some fish a
little narrowly than to offend an honest person.”
“You are right,” I replied, “and the fish are not too much to be
pitied for having escaped the pan at that price.”
“Well, what do you think of it?’ she said to me as we were re-
turning. ‘‘Are you still at the world’s end?”
“No,” I said. “Here I am completely out of the world, and you
have in fact transported me into Elysium.”
“The pompous name she has given this orchard,” Monsieur de
LETTER XI - TO LORD BOMSTON 311

Wolmar said, “truly deserves that raillery. Be modest in your praise

of her childish games, and know that they have never entrenched
in any way upon her duties as a mother.”
“I know,” I replied. “I am very sure of it, and yet her childish
games please me more in this way than the labors of men. Yet
there is one thing here,” I continued, “which I cannot understand.
It is that a place so different from what it was can become what it is
only with cultivation and care, yet nowhere do I see the slightest
trace of cultivation. All is green, fresh, vigorous, and the gardener’s
hand is nowhere to be seen. Nothing contradicts the notion of a
desert island which came to me upon entering, and I see no human
footsteps.”
“Ah!” said Monsieur de Wolmar, “it is because we have taken
great pains to efface them. J have often been witness to, sometimes
the accomplice of, this roguery. We have hay sown over all the cul-
tivated places, and the grass soon hides the traces of work. In winter
we have the sparse and dry places covered with a few layers of ma-
nure. The manure eats up the moss, revives the grass and the plants.
The trees themselves are not the worse for it, and in the summer it
no longer shows. In regard to the moss which covers some of the
paths, it was Lord Bomston who from England sent us the secret of
making it take root.
“These two sides,” he continued, ‘“‘were closed in by walls. The
walls have been hidden, not by trellises, but by thick shrubby
trees which make the boundaries of the place seem to be the begin-
ning of a wood. Strong quickset hedges grow on the two other sides,
made with maples, hawthorns, holly, privet, and other shrubby
trees mixed in, which take from them the appearance of hedges and
give them that of a coppice wood. You see nothing laid out in a line,
nothing made level. The carpenter’s line never entered this place.
Nature plants nothing by the line. The simulated irregularities of
the winding paths are artfully managed in order to prolong the
walk, hide the edges of the island, and enlarge its apparent size,
without creating inconvenient and excessively frequent turnings.” *
Considering all this, I found it rather curious that they should
take so much trouble to hide that very trouble which they had
taken. Would it not have been better to have taken none at all?
“In spite of all you have been told,” Julie answered me, “you are
judging the work by the effect, and you deceive yourself. All that
groves, so ridiculously
* Thus these are not like those of these small, fashionable
step must make
planned that one walks in zig-zag manner in them and at each
a pirouette. [Rousseau]
312 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

you see are wild or sturdy plants, which need only to be put into the
ground and which then come up by themselves. Besides, nature
seems to desire to hide from the eyes of men its real attractions, of
which they are too little aware and which they disfigure when they
are within reach. Nature flies from frequented places. It is on the
summits of mountains, in the depths of forests, on desert islands that
it displays its most affecting charms. Those who love nature and
cannot go seek it so far away are reduced to doing it violence, to
forcing it in some manner to come dwell with them, and all this
cannot be effected without a little illusion.”
At these words, a thought came to me which made them laugh.
“I picture to myself,” I said, “a rich man of Paris or London, master
of this house, bringing with him an architect who is paid dearly to
spoil nature. With what disdain he would enter this simple and
rude place! With what contempt he would have all these worthless
things torn out! The fine lines he would trace! The fine walks he
would cut open! Fine goose foot plants, fine trees shaped like par-
asols or fans! Fine, well carved trellises! Fine hedges, well designed,
well squared, well contoured! Beautiful grass plots of fine English
grass—round, square, crescent-shaped, oval! Fine yew trees, trimmed
in the shape of dragons, pagodas, grotesque figures, all sorts of mon-
sters! Fine bronze vases, fine stone fruit with which he would adorn
his garden! .. =*
‘When all that shall have been carried out,” said Monsieur de
Wolmar, “he shall have made a very fine place in which people will
hardly ever walk and from which they will always leave eagerly in
order to seek the country, a dismal place in which they will not
stroll but use as a thoroughfare to go take a stroll, whereas during
my rural excursions I often hurry to come back in order to walk
here.” [57]
“I have only a single objection to make in regard to your
Elysium,” I added, looking at Julie, “but one which will seem se-
rious to you. It is that it is a superfluous amusement. For what good
did you make a new place to walk, having on the other side of the
house some groves, so charming and so neglected?”
“It is true,” she said, a little embarrassed, “but I prefer this one.”
“If you had well considered your question before posing it,”
Monsieur de Wolmar interrupted, “it would be more than indis-

*I am persuaded that the time is coming when people will no longer want
anything which is found in the country in their gardens. They will allow there
no more plants or shrubs. They will want in it only porcelain flowers, china
figures, lattices, sand of all colors, and fine vases full of nothing. [Rousseau]
 LETTER XI - TO LORD BOMSTON 313

creet. Since her marriage, my wife has never set foot in the groves
you speak of. I know the reason although she has always kept it
secret from me. You who are not unaware of it, learn to respect
the
place where you are. It has been planted by virtuous hands.”
I had scarcely received this just reprimand when the little family
led by Fanchon entered as we were leaving. These three charmin
g
children embraced Monsieur and Madame de Wolmar. I had
my
share of their little caresses. Julie and I went back into the Elysium
a few steps with them; then we went to rejoin Monsieur de Wolmar
who was speaking to some workmen. On the way, she told me that
after she had become a mother, an idea came to her with respect to
this walk which had increased her zeal to embellish it.
“I had an eye,” she said to me, “to the amusement of my children
and to their health when they are older. The upkeep of this place
requires more care than labor. It is more a matter of giving a cer-
tain contour to the branches of the plants than of digging and work-
ing the ground. I intend some day to make gardeners of my little
ones. They will have as much exercise as is necessary to strengthen
their constitution, but not enough to weary it. Besides, what is too
much for their age will be done by others, and they will confine
themselves to the work which amuses them.
“I cannot tell you,” she added, ‘“‘what pleasure I enjoy in imagin-
ing my children busied in returning to me the little attentions I
bestow with such pleasure on them, and the joy of their ten-
der hearts in seeing their mother strolling with delight along the
shady walks formed by their hands.
“In truth, my friend,” she said with emotion in her voice, “days
spent this way suggest the happiness of the next life, and it is not
without reason that in thinking of it I have given the name Elysium
to this place.”
My Lord, this incomparable woman is as dear a mother as she is
a wife, as she is a friend, as she is a daughter, and, to the eternal tor-
ment of my heart, it is even thus that she was a mistress.
Enthusiastic about so delightful a place, I begged them that eve-
ning to think fit that during my stay with them Fanchon might con-
fide me her key and the duty of feeding the birds. Immediately Julie
sent a sack of grain to my room and gave me her own key. I do not
know why I accepted it with a kind of reluctance. It seemed to me
that I should have preferred to have Monsieur de Wolmar’s.
This morning I arose early, and with childish eagerness I went
to lock myself in the desert island. What agreeable thoughts I ex-
pected to carry into that solitary place where the sweet aspect of
314 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

nature alone was to drive from my memory all that artificial order
of society which has made me so unhappy. I was thinking that
everything which is to surround me is the work of her who was so
dear to me. I shall contemplate her all about me. I shall see noth-
ing which her hand may not have touched. I shall kiss the flowers
which her feet have pressed. With the dew I shall breathe an air that
she has breathed. The taste she has displayed in her amusements
will make all her charms present to me, and I shall find her every-
where as she is in my inmost heart.
Entering the Elysium with these intentions, I suddenly remem-
bered the last word Monsieur de Wolmar said to me yesterday al-
most in the same place. The memory of that single word im-
mediately changed the whole state of my mind. I thought I saw the
image of virtue where I was seeking that of pleasure. This image
was mingled in my mind with the features of Madame de Wolmar,
and for the first time since my return I saw Julie in my imagination
not such as she was for me and as I still like to picture her to my-
self, but such as she appears before my eyes every day. My Lord, I
thought I beheld that woman, so charming, so chaste, and so vir-
tuous, in the middle of that same group which surrounded her yes-
terday. I imagined around her those three amiable children, the
honorable and precious pledge of conjugal union and tender
friendship, giving her and receiving from her a thousand affecting
caresses. I saw at her side the grave Wolmar, that husband so cher-
ished, so fortunate, so worthy of being so. I thought I saw his pen-
etrating and judicious eye pierce to the bottom of my heart and
make me blush again. I thought I heard him utter reproaches too
well deserved and lessons too poorly attended. Last I saw Fanchon
Regard, the living proof of the triumph of virtue and human-
itarianism over the most ardent love. Ah! What guilty sentiment
could have reached Julie through this impervious guard? With what
indignation I should have suppressed the base ecstasies of a criminal
and poorly extinguished passion, and how contemptible I should
be if with a single sigh I should sully such an enchanting picture of
innocence and honesty! In my mind I went back over the conversa-
tion she had with me as we left; then my imagination, again with
her, considering the future that she contemplates with such de-
light, I saw that tender mother wiping the perspiration from her
children’s brows, kissing their ruddy cheeks, and devoting that heart,
made to love, to the sweetest sentiment of nature. There was noth-
ing, even to that name Elysium, which might not rectify the faults
of my imagination and bring a serenity to my soul preferable to
LETTER XII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 315

the disturbance of the most seductive passions. The name Elysium

was a symbol in some way of the soul of the one who had chosen it.
I reflected that with a disturbed conscience she would not have se-
lected that name. I said to myself that peace prevails in her inmost
heart just as in the refuge she has named.
I had promised myself a pleasant reverie. I had dreamed there
more agreeably than I had expected. I spent in the Elysium two
hours to which I prefer no other time in my life. Observing with
what charm and what rapidity they had slipped by, I found that
there is in the meditation of honest thoughts a sort of happiness
which wicked people have never known. It is that of being pleased
with oneself. If we reflected on this without presuppositions, I do
not know another pleasure which could equal that one. I feel at
least that whoever loves solitude as much as I must fear to do any-
thing which may make it a torment for him. Perhaps from the same
principles we could derive the key to the false judgments of men
in regard to the advantages of vice and of virtue. For the enjoyment
of virtue is wholly internal and is perceived only by the one who
feels it, but all the advantages of vice strike the eyes of others, and it
is only he who has them who may know what they cost him. [58]

&% LETTER XII *

From Madame de Wolmar to Madame d’Orbe

IT IS DECREED, dear friend, that you are to be at all times my protec-

tion against myself, and that after having delivered me with such
difficulty from the snares laid by my heart, you will defend me again
from those laid by my reason. After so many cruel ordeals, I am
learning to distrust reason’s errors as I do the passions which are
so often the cause of them. Would that I had always taken the same
precaution! If in the past I had relied less on my understanding, I
should have had to be less ashamed of my sentiments.
Do not let this preamble alarm you. I should be unworthy of
your friendship if I still had to consult it on this serious subject.
Crime was always a stranger to my heart, and I dare believe it more
and be-
distant than ever. Therefore, hear me calmly, my cousin,
316 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

lieve that I shall never need advice about doubts which honor alone
can resolve.
For the six years I have been living with Monsieur de Wolmar in
the most perfect union which could ever exist between two partners,
you know that he has never spoken to me either of his family or of
himself, and that having received him from a father as solicitous for
his daughter’s happiness as for the honor of his family, I have
shown no eagerness to know more of his affairs than he considered
proper to tell me. Content to be indebted to him for my father’s life,
my honor, my repose, my reason, my children, and all that which
can give me some value in my own eyes, I was convinced that what
I did not know of him did not belie what I did know, and I had no
need to know more in order to love, esteem, and honor him as much
as possible.
This morning at breakfast, he proposed our taking a walk before
the heat of the day; then, under the pretext, he said, of not gadding
about in the country in our morning dress, he led us into the groves,
and precisely, my dear, into the very grove where all the misfortunes
of my life began. Approaching this fatal spot, I felt my heart throb-
bing frightfully, and I should have refused to go in if shame had
not checked me and if the recollection of a word which was
spoken the other day in the Elysium had not made me fear the in-
terpretations of my refusal. I do not know whether the philosopher
was more tranquil, but some time. afterward, having by chance
glanced at him, I found him pale and changed, and I cannot tell
you what uneasiness all that caused me.
Entering the grove, I saw my husband cast a glance at me and
smile. He sat down between us, and after a moment of silence, tak-
ing us both by the hand, he said to us, “My children, I am begin-
ning to see that my plans will not be fruitless and that all three of us
may be united in a lasting attachment, capable of constituting our
common happiness and my consolation in the weariness of an ap-
proaching old age. But I know you both better than you know me.
It is only fair to make things equal, and although I have nothing
very interesting to impart to you, since you no longer keep any se-
cret from me, I will keep no more from you.”
Then he revealed to us the mystery of his birth which until now
had been known only by my father. When you know it, you will
comprehend just how far indifference and moderation can go in a
man capable of keeping such a secret from his wife for six years.
But this secret is nothing for him, and he thinks too little of it to
exert a great effort to conceal it.
LETTER XII + MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 317

“T shall not detain you,” he said to us, “over the events of my life.
It is less important to you to know my adventures than my charac-
ter. The former are simple, like the latter, and if you know what I
am you will easily understand what I was able to do. I have a nat-
urally tranquil mind and a cold heart. I am one of those men whom
people think they are truly insulting when they call them insen-
sible, that is, when they say they have no passion which diverts them
from following the true direction of mankind. Little susceptible of
pleasure and of grief, I even experience only very faintly that senti-
ment of self-interest and of humanitarianism which makes the
affections of others our own. If I feel pain in seeing good people suf-
fer, pity has no part in it, for I feel none in seeing the wicked suf-
fer. My only active principle is a natural love of order, and the well
contrived concurrence of the accidents of fortune and the action of
men pleases me exactly like beautiful symmetry in a picture or like
a well presented play in the theater. If I have any ruling passion, it
is that of observation. I like to read the hearts of men. Since my own
gives me few illusions, since I observe coolly and without self-in-
terest, and since long experience has given me some insight, I hardly
ever am mistaken in my judgments. This advantage is also the
whole recompense my self-love receives from my constant studies,
for I do not like to play a role but only to see others playing them.
Society is agreeable to me for the sake of contemplation, not as a
member of it. If I could alter the nature of my being and become a
living eye, I willingly would make this exchange. Thus my indif-
ference toward men does not make me at all independent of them.
Without caring about being observed, I need to observe them, and
though they are not dear to me they are necessary.
“The first two ranks of society which I had the opportunity to
observe were courtiers and valets, two classes of men less different
in essence than in appearance and so little worthy of being studied,
so easy to read, that I was bored with them at first glance. Leaving
the court where everything is immediately observable, I unknow-
ingly escaped a dangerous rebellion which was threatening and
which I should not have eluded otherwise. I changed my name and,
wishing to become acquainted with military men, I went to seek
a place in the service of a foreign prince. It was there that I had the
good fortune of being useful to your father who was forced by de-
spair over having killed his friend to expose himself rashly and
above his duty. The sensitive and grateful heart of that brave of-
ficer began from then on to give me a better opinion of human
nature. He attached himself to me with a friendship which it was
318 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

impossible for me not to return, and since that time we have not
ceased to form connections which become closer from day to day.
In my new state of mind, I learned that self-interest is not, as I had
believed, the only motive for human actions and that among the
multitude of prejudices which are opposed to virtue, there are also
some which are in favor of it. [59]
“Along with a true knowledge of men, of which idle philosophy
provides only the appearance, I found another advantage which I
had not expected. This was the opportunity to intensify, by an
active life, that love of order which I had received from nature and
to acquire a new relish for the good, by the pleasure of contributing
to it. This sentiment made me a little less contemplative, attached
me a little more to myself, and by a consequence rather natural to
this progress, I perceived that I was alone. Solitude, which was al-
ways tedious, became frightful for me, and I could hope no more
to avoid it for long. Without having lost my dispassionate nature,
I needed an attachment. The image of decrepitude without con-
solation afflicted me by anticipation, and, for the first time in my
life, I knew uneasiness and melancholy. I spoke of my anguish to
Baron d’Etange.
“You need not,’ he told me, ‘grow old as a bachelor. I myself,
after having lived almost independent even within the bonds of
marriage, feel that I need to become a husband and father again,
and I am going to retire into the bosom of my family. It only de-
pends on you to make it your own and restore to me the son I have
lost. I have an only daughter to be married. She is not with-
out merit. She has a sensitive heart, and love for her duty makes her
love all which is connected with it. She is neither a beauty nor a
prodigy of understanding, but come see her, and believe me, if you
feel nothing for her you will never feel anything for anyone in the
world.’
“I came, I saw you, Julie, and I found that your father had
spoken modestly of you. Your ecstasies, your joyful tears as you em-
braced him gave me the first, or rather, the only emotion I had ever
experienced in my life. If the impression was slight, it was unique,
and sentiments only need to be strong to produce a result in pro-
portion to those which oppose them. Three years absence did not
change the state of my heart. The state of yours did not escape me
at my return, and I must here give you vengeance for the confes-
sion which has cost you so much.”
Judge, my dear, with what extraordinary surprise I then learned
that all my secrets had been revealed to him before my wedding
LETTER XII + MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 319

and that he had married me without being unaware that I belonged

to another.
“This conduct was inexcusable,” Monsieur de Wolmar con-
tinued. “I offended delicacy, I sinned against prudence, I exposed
your honor and mine. I ought to have feared plunging both of us
irretrievably into misfortunes, but I loved you and loved only you.
Everything else was a matter of indifference to me. How can one
repress even the most feeble passion when it is without counter-
balance? That is the disadvantage of cool and tranquil tempers.
All goes well as long as their insensibility protects them from temp-
tations, but if one happens to attain them, they are conquered as
soon as attacked, and reason, which governs while it rules alone,
never has the power to resist the slightest effort. I was tempted only
once, and I succumbed. If the intoxication of any other passion had
made me waver again, I should have fallen at every false step. It is
only passionate souls who are capable of struggling and conquering.
All great efforts, all sublime actions are their doing. Cold reason
has never achieved anything illustrious, and we triumph over pas-
sions only by opposing one to another. When the passion of virtue
comes to the fore, it alone dominates and keeps all the rest in a state
of equilibrium. That is how the truly wise man is formed, who is
not sheltered from passions any more than another man is but who
alone is capable of subduing them with themselves, as a pilot sails
by adverse winds.
“You see that I am not claiming to extenuate my fault. Had it
been one, I should have infallibly committed it, but, Julie, I under-
stood you and did not commit a crime when I married you. I felt
that all the happiness I could enjoy depended on you alone and
that if someone was capable of making you happy, it was I. I knew
that innocence and peace were necessary to your heart, that the love
with which it was preoccupied would never provide it with them,
and that only the horror of crime could drive love from it. I saw
that your soul was in an extreme dejection from which it would
emerge only by a new struggle and that it would be by feeling how
estimable you could still be that you would learn to become so.
“Your heart was exhausted by love. Therefore, I considered as
nothing the disparity of our ages which took from me the right of
pretending to a sentiment which he who was the object of it could
not enjoy and which was impossible for any other to obtain com-
pletely. On the contrary, seeing in a life more than half elapsed
that I had felt a single inclination, I concluded that it would be last-
ing and I pleased myself with the thought of preserving it for the
320 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

rest of my days. In my long searches, I have never found anything

which equalled you. I thought that what you would not effect, noth-
ing else in the world could. I ventured to rely on your virtue, and I
married you. The secret you kept from me did not surprise me. I
knew your reasons, and I saw in your prudent conduct why you kept
it so long. Out of regard for you, I copied your reserve and did not
want to deprive you of the honor of one day freely making me a
confession which every instant I saw on the tip of your tongue. I
have been mistaken in nothing. You have given me all that I had
promised myself from you. When I intended to choose a wife, I
desired to have a companion who was amiable, prudent, and happy.
The first two conditions are fulfilled. My child, I hope we shall
not be disappointed in the third.”
At these words, in spite of all my efforts to interrupt him only
with my tears, I could not keep myself from embracing him as I
cried out, “My dear husband! Oh, the best and most beloved of
men! ‘Tell me what my happiness lacks, if not to promote yours, and
to be more deserving. . . .”
“You are as happy as you can be,” he said, interrupting me. “You
deserve to be so, but it is time to enjoy that happiness in
peace which up to now has cost you much anxiety. If your faith-
fulness might have been enough for me, all would have been ac-
complished from the moment you promised it to me. I wanted it,
moreover, to be easy and agreeable for you, and to make it so we
have both worked together without speaking of it to each other.
Julie, we have succeeded, better than you think, perhaps. The only
fault I find in you is that you have not been able to regain the self-
confidence you owe yourself and that you undervalue yourself. Ex-
treme modesty has its dangers as well as pride. Just as a rashness
which carries us beyond our moral forces makes them ineffectual, a
fright which keeps us from relying on them makes them use-
less. True prudence consists in knowing them thoroughly and act-
ing up to them. You have acquired new force by changing your posi-
tion. You are no longer that unfortunate girl who deplored her
frailty as she yielded to it. You are the most virtuous of women, who
knows no other laws than those of duty and honor and in whom the
excessively vivid memory of her faults is the only fault left to be
reproached. Instead of taking injurious precautions against your-
self again, you should learn, then, to have self-confidence, in order
to be able to rely more upon yourself. Discard unfair mistrust, ca-
pable sometimes of reviving the sentiments which occasioned it. Con-
gratulate yourself, rather, for having been able to choose an hon-
LETTER XII + MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 321

orable man at an age when it is so easy to be deluded, and for hav-

ing formerly taken a lover whom today you can have as a friend
before your husband’s very eyes. Your liaison was no sooner known to
me than I judged you, one by the other. I saw what a delusive en-
thusiasm had led you both astray. It acts only on sensitive souls. It
ruins them sometimes, but it is through an attraction that seduces
only them. I judged that the same inclination which had formed
your attachment would break it as soon as it became criminal, and
that vice could enter hearts like yours but not take root there.
“Since then, I have understood that the bonds which prevailed
between you did not need to be broken, that your mutual attach-
ment had so many praiseworthy things about it that it ought rather
to be regulated than destroyed, and that neither of you could for-
get the other without losing much of his worth. I knew that great
struggles only stir up strong passions, and that if violent efforts exer-
cise the mind, they cost it torments, the duration of which is capable
of destroying it. I used Julie’s gentleness to temper their severity.
“I nourished her friendship for you,” he said to Saint-Preux. “I
took from it what was left but not wanted, and I think I have pre-
served you a greater share of her affections, perhaps, than she might
have allowed you if I had left her to herself. My success encouraged
me, and I determined to attempt your cure as I had brought about
hers, for I esteem you, and in spite of vicious prejudices, I have al-
ways observed that there was nothing good which one cannot obtain
from sensitive souls with confidence and sincerity. I have observed
you, you have not deceived me, you will not deceive me, and al-
though you are not yet what you ought to be, I see you better than
you think you are and am more satisfied with you than you are with
yourself. I know that my conduct has a curious appearance and is
opposed to all ordinary maxims, but maxims become less general
in proportion as we read hearts better, and Julie’s husband is not
to act like any other man.
“My children,” he said to us in a tone all the more affecting as it
came from a dispassionate man, “stay as you are, and we shall all
be content. The danger consists only in opinion. Have no fear of
yourselves and you will have nothing to fear. Think only of the
present and I answer to you for the future. I cannot tell you more
today, but if my plans are carried out and if my hope does not be-
tray me, our destinies will be better fulfilled, and you will both be
happier than if you had belonged to each other.”
Getting up, he embraced us and desired us to embrace each other
too, in that place . . . in that very place where once before . . .
322 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

Claire, oh good Claire, how much you have always loved me! I made
no resistance to it. Alas! How wrong I should have been to
make any! This kiss was nothing like the one which had made the
grove fearful for me. I congratulated myself sadly for it, and I knew
that my heart was more altered than I had dared believe it until
then.
As we returned to the road to the house, my husband took me by
the hand and, pointing to that grove we had just left, he said, laugh-
ing, “Julie, fear that refuge no longer. It has just been profaned.”
You will not believe me, cousin, but I swear to you that he has
some supernatural gift for reading one’s inmost heart. May Heaven
allow him it forever! With so much cause to despise me, it is no
doubt to this art that I am indebted for his indulgence.
You do not yet see in this any occasion for advice. Patience, my
angel, I am coming to it, but the conversation I have just related
to you was necessary for understanding the rest.
As we returned, my husband, who has been expected for a long
time at Etange, told me that he proposed leaving tomorrow to go
there, that he would see you on his way, and that he would
stay there five or six days. Without saying all that I was thinking of
such an ill-timed departure, I pointed out that it did not seem to me
sufficiently necessary to oblige Monsieur de Wolmar to leave a guest
whom he himself had invited into his house.
“Do you want me,” he replied, “to use ceremony with him, to in-
form him that he is not in his own home? I like the hospitality of
the people of the Valais. I hope that he finds their sincerity here
and that he allows us to use their freedom.”
Seeing that he would not listen to me, I took another course and
tried to persuade our guest to make this trip with him. “You will
find,” I said to him, “a place which has its beauties, even those
which you prefer. You will visit my patrimony and that of my
ancestors. The interest you take in me does not permit me to believe
that you may be indifferent to this sight.”
I had my mouth open to add that this chateau resembled Lord
Bomston’s which ... but fortunately I had time to bite my
tongue. He answered quite simply that I was right and that he
would do what would please me. But Monsieur de Wolmar, who
seemed determined to drive me to the limit, replied that he was to
do what pleased himself.
‘Which do you prefer, to go or to stay?” he asked.
“To stay,” he said without hesitating.
LETTER XII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 323

“Well, stay,”” my husband replied, clasping his hand. “You are an

honest and true man. I am very content with that answer.”
There was no way of disputing this point much before the third
person who was listening to us. I kept silent but could not hide my
concern well enough for my husband not to perceive it.
“What then,” he resumed with an air of discontent, during a mo-
ment when Saint-Preux was at a distance from us, “shall I have
pleaded your cause against yourself in vain, and will Madame de
Wolmar be content with a virtue that needs to choose its oppor-
tunities? As for me, I am more demanding. I wish to owe my wife’s
fidelity to her heart and not to chance, and it is not enough for me
if she keeps her faith. I am offended if she is in doubt about it.”
Then he led us into his study where I all but fell in a faint to see
him take from a drawer, along with copies of some of our friend’s
accounts that I had given him, the very originals of all the letters
that I thought I had once seen Babi burn in my mother’s room.
“Here,” he said to me, showing them to us, “is the foundation of
my security. If they deceive me, it would be foolish to rely on any-
thing which concerns human nature. I consign my wife and my
honor in trust to her who, unmarried and seduced, could prefer an
act of beneficence to a single and sure tryst. I entrust Julie as wife
and mother to the man who, at perfect liberty to satisfy his desires,
was capable of respecting Julie as mistress and unmarried girl. If
either of you despises himself enough to think I am wrong, say so,
and I retract it immediately.”
Cousin, do you think it was easy to dare answer these words?
However, I found a moment in the afternoon to take my husband
aside, and without entering into arguments which it was not per-
missible for me to urge very far, I confined myself to asking him to
delay his departure two days. They were granted to me imme-
diately; I am using them to send you this letter by express mes-
senger and to wait for your answer, to know what I must do.
I know that I have only to beg my husband not to leave at all,
and he who never refused me anything will not refuse me such a
slight favor. But, my dear, I perceive that he takes pleasure in the
confidence he puts in me, and I fear losing a part of his esteem, if
he thinks that I have occasion for more reserve than he is allowing
me. I know likewise that I have only to say a word to Saint-Preux
and he will not hesitate to accompany him. But will my husband be
thus misled, and can I take this step without preserving an air of
authority over Saint-Preux, which might seem to allow him in turn
 324 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

some sort of privilege? Besides, I am afraid that he will infer from

this precaution only that I feel it necessary, and this means, which
seemed at first the best, is perhaps the most dangerous. After all, I
am not unaware that no consideration can be weighed with a real
danger, but does this danger in fact exist? That is precisely the
doubt you must resolve.
The more I will probe the present state of my soul, the more I
find in it to reassure myself. My heart is pure, my conscience is calm,
I feel neither uneasiness nor fear, and for all that takes place within
me, my sincerity toward my husband costs me no effort. Not that
certain involuntary memories do not sometimes give me a tender
feeling from which I had rather be exempt, but these memories
are far indeed from being produced by the sight of him who caused
them; they seem to me more infrequent since his return, and how-
ever sweet it is for me to see him, by what singularity I know not, it
is sweeter for me to think of him. In short, I find that I do not have
the same need for virtue’s assistance to be composed in his pres-
ence, and that even if the horror of crime did not exist, it would
be very difficult to revive the sentiments that it has destroyed.
But, my angel, is it enough that my heart reassures me when
reason ought to alarm me? I have lost the right to rely upon myself.
Who will guarantee me that my confidence is not another illusion
of vice? How can I trust in sentiments which have so many times
deceived me? Does not crime always spring from the pride that
scorns temptation, and is not to defy the dangers to which we have
succumbed to wish to succumb again?
Weigh all these considerations, my cousin. You will see that if
they are trifling in themselves, they are serious enough in their ob-
ject to deserve consideration. Deliver me, then, from the uncer-
tainty in which they have thrown me. Indicate to me how I must
behave in this delicate case, for my past errors have affected
my judgment and made me fearful about deciding on anything.
Whatever you think of yourself, your mind is calm and tranquil,
I am sure. Objects present themselves to it such as they are, but
mine, ever agitated like a moving wave, confounds and disfigures
them. I no longer dare trust in anything I see or feel, and notwith-
standing so many long years of repentance, I am experiencing with
sorrow that the weight of an old fault is a burden we must carry all
our life.
LETTER XIII - RESPONSE 325

4 LETTER XIII *&

Response

POOR cousIN! What torments you create for yourself continually

when you have so many reasons to live in peace! All thy misfor-
tunes come from thyself, oh Israel! If you followed your own rules,
if in matters of sentiment you listened only to your inner voice, and
if your heart silenced your reason, you would give yourself up with-
out scruple to the security which it inspires in you, and you would
not force yourself, against the testimony of your own heart, to fear
a danger which can only arise from it.
I understand you, I understand you well, my Julie. Surer of your-
self than you pretend to be, you wish to humiliate yourself with
your past faults under the pretext of preventing new ones, and your
scruples are much less precautions for the future than self-imposed
punishment for the rashness which once ruined you. You are com-
paring the times, do you think? Compare also the situations, and
remember that then I reproached you for your confidence as now I
reproach you for your fright.
You are mistaken, my dear child. We do not thus mislead our-
selves. If we can try to forget our situation by not thinking of it,
we see it such as it is as soon as we will consider it, and we can
no more conceal our virtues from ourselves than our vices. Your
gentleness and your devotion have given you an inclination toward
humility. Distrust this dangerous virtue which only excites self
love by concentrating on it, and believe that the noble openness of
an upright soul is preferable to the pride of humble ones. If mod-
eration is necessary for prudence, it is necessary also in the precau-
tions prudence inspires, lest the solicitude ignominious to virtue
should debase the soul and make an imaginary danger a real one to
it through alarming us. Do you not see that after having been raised
from a fall, you must hold yourself upright, and that to lean to
the side opposite that on which you fell is the way to fall again?
Cousin, you loved as Eloise did. Now, like her, you are pious, may
it please God with more success! In truth, if I were less acquainted
with your natural timidity, your terrors would be capable of fright-
 326 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ening me in my turn, and if I were as scrupulous as you, through

my fears for you you would cause me to tremble for myself. [60]
Could you, without displeasing Monsieur de Wolmar, punish
yourself for a vanity which you never had and prevent a danger
which no longer exists? Stay alone with the philosopher, take
against him all the superfluous precautions which formerly would
have been so necessary, and impose upon yourself the same reserve
that you would if even with your virtue you could still distrust your
heart and his. Avoid too affectionate conversations, tender mem-
ories of the past; interrupt or forestall excessively long private
talks; surround yourself constantly with your children; remain
alone with him very seldom in your room, in the Elysium, or in the
grove, despite its profanation. Above all, take these measures with
so natural a manner that they seem a result of chance and that he
may not imagine for a moment that you fear him. You like boat
rides; you deprive yourself of them for the sake of your husband
who fears the water and for your children whom you do not wish
to hazard on it. Take advantage of the time of this absence to in-
dulge yourself in this amusement, leaving your children in Fan-
chon’s care. That is the way to give yourself up securely to the
sweet effusions of friendship and peacefully to enjoy a long private
talk under the protection of the boatmen, who see without hearing
and from whom you cannot go far before you are aware of what
you are doing.
Another idea comes to me which would make many people laugh
but which will please you, I am sure. It is to keep a journal faith-
fully during your husband’s absence, to be shown to him at his re-
turn, and to think of the journal during all the conversations which
are to be set down in it. In truth, I do not believe that such an ex-
pedient would be useful to many women, but an open soul, inca-
pable of bad faith, has many resources against vice which others al-
ways lack. Nothing is despicable which endeavors to safeguard
purity, and it is the little precautions which secure great virtues.
Besides, since your husband is to see me on his way, he will tell
me, I hope, the real reasons for his trip, and if I do not find them
sound, either I shall dissuade him from finishing his journey, or at
all events, I shall do what he has refused to do. You may count on
that. Meanwhile, I think this is more than necessary to fortify you
against a week’s trial. Go, my Julie, I know you too well not to
answer for you as much as and more than for myself. You will al-
ways be what you must and what you desire to be. If you would only
LETTER XIII - RESPONSE 327

trust yourself to the honesty of your soul, you would run no more
risk whatever, for I have no faith in unforeseen defeats. Vainly we
cover with the empty name of frailties the faults which are always
voluntary. Never does a woman surrender when she has not desired
to surrender, and if I thought such a fate might be awaiting you—
believe me, believe in my tender friendship, believe in all the senti-
ments which can arise in your poor Claire’s heart—I should take
too lively an interest in protecting you to abandon you to yourself
alone.
What Monsieur de Wolmar has declared to you about the knowl-
edge he had before your marriage scarcely surprises me. You know
that I always surmised it, and I shall tell you, moreover, that my
suspicions were not confined to Babi’s indiscretions. I have never
been able to believe that an upright and true man like your father,
who at the very least had suspicions himself, would resolve to de-
ceive his son-in-law and his friend. If he compelled you so forcefully
to secrecy, it was because the manner of revealing it would come
from him very differently than from you, and because he doubt-
less wished to give it a turn less likely to repel Monsieur de Wolmar
than the one he was assured you would not fail to give it yourself.
But I must send you back your messenger. We shall talk of all this
more leisurely in a month from now.
Adieu, little cousin. I have preached enough to the preacher. Re-
sume your old occupation, and for good reason. I feel very uneasy
over not yet being with you. I put all my affairs in disorder by hurry-
ing to conclude them and hardly know what I am doing. Ah
Chaillot, Chaillot! . . . If I were less foolish . . . but I hope always
to be so.

P.S. By the way, I forgot to pay my respects to Your Highness. Tell

me, I beg you, is my lord your husband atteman, knes, or boyar?
As for me, I shall think I am swearing if I must call you Madame
Boyar* Oh, poor child! You who have so often lamented being
born a gentlewoman, here you are quite by chance the wife of a
prince! Between us, however, for a lady of such high quality, I find
your fears a little common. Do you not know that little scruples suit
only mean persons, and that people laugh at a child of a fine family
who pretends to be the son of his father?
two names are in fact
* Madame d’Orbe is apparently unaware that the first
but a boyar is only a mere noblema n. [Roussea u]
distinguished titles,
328 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

t LETTER XIV *

From Monsieur de Wolmar to Madame d’Orbe

I AM LEAVING for Etange, little cousin. I had intended to come see

you on the way, but a delay which you have caused forces me to
make more haste, and I prefer to lay over at Lausanne on the way
back, in order to spend a few hours more with you. Also, I have to
consult you on several matters, which it is well to mention to you
beforehand, so that you may have time to reflect on them before
giving me your opinion.
I did not wish to explain to you my project with regard to the
young man before his stay had confirmed the good opinion I had
conceived of him. I already believe myself sufficiently assured about
him to confide to you, between ourselves, that this project is to
entrust him with the education of my children. I am not unaware
that these important concerns are the principal duty of a father, but
when it will be time to undertake it I shall be too old to fulfill it,
and naturally tranquil and contemplative, I always had too little
spirit to be able to govern that of youth. Besides, for the reason
which is known to you,* Julie would not without uneasiness see me
assume an office in which I should have difficulty acquitting myself
to her liking. I have a thousand other reasons. Your sex is not suited
for these duties, and their mother will busy herself wholly in rear-
ing her Henriette properly. For your part, I allot you the manage-
ment of the household, on the plan which you will find established
and which you have approved. My part will be to behold three
worthy people concur to promote the happiness of the house and to
enjoy in my old age a repose for which I will be indebted to them.
I have always observed that my wife would have an extreme aver-
sion to entrusting her children to mercenary hands, and I could not
blame her scruples. The respectable capacity of tutor requires so
many talents which one would not be able to remunerate, so many
virtues which have no price, that it is useless to seek one with money.
It is only from a man of genius that we may hope to find the talents

* The reader does not yet know this reason, but I beg him not to become
impatient. [Rousseau]
LETTER XIV + MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 329

of a teacher; it is only in a very tender friend that we may find a

heart inspired with a father’s zeal, and genius is hardly for sale, at-
tachment still less.
Your friend has seemed to me to unite within him all the proper
qualities, and if I have well understood his disposition, I do not
imagine a greater happiness for him than that of making those
cherished children contribute to that of their mother. The only ob-
stacle which I can foresee is in his affection for Lord Bomston which
will not easily permit him to detach himself from so dear a friend,
to whom he has such great obligations, unless Edward himself re-
quires it. We are expecting that extraordinary man soon, and as
you have much influence over his mind, if he does not belie the idea
you have given me of him, I may commit the business in regard to
him to your management.
Now you have, little cousin, the key to my whole behavior, which
can only appear very curious without this explanation, and which,
I hope, will henceforth have Julie’s approval and yours. The advan-
tage of having a wife like mine has made me attempt expedients
which would have been impracticable with another. Though I leave
her in full confidence with her former lover, under the guard of her
virtue only, I should be mad to establish that lover in my house be-
fore assuring myself that he had forever ceased to be one, and how
could I be assured of it if I had a wife on whom I might depend any
less? [61]
I think I am well acquainted with both their strength; I am ex-
posing them only to trials which they can support, for prudence
does not consist in taking all sorts of precautions indiscriminately
but in choosing those which are useful and neglecting the super-
fluous ones. The week during which I am going to leave them to-
gether will perhaps be enough to teach them to distinguish their
true sentiments and to recognize what they really are to each other.
The more they see each other alone, the more they will easily find
out their mistake by comparing what they will feel with what they
formerly would have felt in a similar situation. Besides, it is impor-
tant to them to accustom themselves safely to endure the familiarity
in which they will necessarily live if my plans are fulfilled. I see
by Julie’s conduct that she has received advice from you that she
could not refuse to follow without doing herself injury. What pleas-
ure I should take in giving her this proof that I am sensible of her
whole worth, if she were a woman with whom a husband might
make a merit of her faith! But even if she had gained nothing over
her heart, her virtue would still be the same. It would cost
330 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

her dearer but would not be less triumphant. Instead, if now she
has still some inward uneasiness left to endure, it can only arise from
the tenderness of a conversation of reminiscence that she will be
only too capable of anticipating and will always avoid. Thus you
see that you must not judge my conduct in this by ordinary rules,
but by the projects which inspire it in me, and by the unique charac-
ter of her for whom I am anxious.
Adieu, little cousin, until my return. Although I have not made
all these explanations to Julie, I do not demand that you keep
them secret from her. I have a maxim not to interpose secrets be-
tween friends. Thus I commit these to your discretion; make such
use of them as prudence and friendship direct you. I know that you
will do nothing but what is best and most honorable.

& LETTER XV *&

To Lord Bomston

MoNSsIEUR DE WorMak left yesterday for Etange, and I can scarcely

believe the melancholy state his departure has left me in. I believe
that the absence of his wife would afflict me less than his. I feel my-
self more constrained than in his very presence. A gloomy silence
reigns in the bottom of my heart; a secret fright stifles its murmur,
and less troubled by desires than by fears, I am experiencing the
horrors of the crime without being exposed to its temptations.
Do you know, my Lord, where my mind is reassured and for-
sakes its unworthy fears? In the presence of Madame de Wolmar.
As soon as I approach her, the sight of her calms my uneasiness; her
looks purify my heart. Such is the influence of hers that it always
seems to inspire others with a sense of her innocence and the tran-
quillity which is the result of it. Unfortunately for me, her system
of life does not allow her to devote the whole day to the society of
her friends, and in the moments that I am forced to spend out of her
company, I should suffer less if I were farther from her.
What contributes even more to nourish the melancholy with
which I feel myself oppressed is a word that she said to me yester-
day after her husband’s departure. Although until that instant she
LETTER XV + TO LORD BOMSTON 331

had kept up her spirits rather well, for a long time her eyes followed
him with a tearful look that I first attributed only to the departure
of that fortunate husband, but I understood by her conversation
that these tears had still another cause which was unknown to me.
“You have seen how we live,” she said to me, “and you
know whether he is dear to me. Yet do not believe that the senti-
ment which unites me to him, as tender as and more forceful than
love, may also have its weaknesses. If it pains us when the
sweet habit of living together is interrupted, the firm hope of resum-
ing it soon consoles us. So permanent a state leaves few vicissitudes
to fear, and in an absence of a few days, we feel the pain of so short
an interval less than the pleasure of envisaging the end of it. The
sadness you read in my eyes comes from a more serious cause, and
although it concerns Monsieur de Wolmar, it is not his departure
which causes it.
“My dear friend,” she added in an affecting tone, “there is no
true happiness on earth. I have the most honest and the most gentle
of men for a husband. A mutual inclination is joined to the duty
which binds us together. He has no desires other than mine. I have
children which give and promise only pleasure to their mother.
There never was a friend more tender, more virtuous, or more
amiable than the one my heart adores, and I am going to spend my
days with her. You yourself help to make them dear to me by so
well justifying my esteem and my sentiments for you. A long and
troublesome law suit, nearly finished, will soon bring back the best
of fathers into our arms. We are prosperous. Order and peace pre-
vail in our house. Our servants are zealous and faithful, our neigh-
bors show us every kind of affections, and we enjoy the goodwill of
the public. Assisted in everything by heaven, by fortune, and by
men, I see all things conspiring to my happiness. Yet, a secret sor-
row, a single sorrow poisons it, and I am not happy.”
She said these last words with a sigh which pierced my soul and in
which, I saw only too well, I had no part. She is not happy, I said to
myself, sighing in turn, and it is no longer I who am an obstacle to
her happiness.
This gloomy idea instantly disordered all my thoughts and dis-
turbed the tranquillity I was beginning to enjoy. Unable to endure
the intolerable doubt in which these words had thrown me, I urged
her so much to finish opening her heart to me that finally she
it
poured that fatal secret into mine, and she permits me to reveal
to you. But here it is time for a walk. Madame de Wolmar is pres-
ently leaving the women’s quarters to walk with her children; she
332 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

has just sent word to me. I attend her, my Lord; I leave you for the
present and will resume in another letter the subject broken off
in this one.

&% LETTER XVI *

From Madame de Wolmar to Her Husband

I AM EXPECTING You Tuesday as you informed me, and you will find
everything disposed according to your desires. Call on Madame
d’Orbe on your way back. She will tell you what has taken place
during your absence; I prefer that you learn it from her rather than
from me.
Wolmar, it is true that I believe myself worthy of your esteem,
but your conduct is not the most proper, and you sport cruelly with
your wife’s virtue.

% LETTER XVII &

To Lord Bomston

I MUST GIVE YOU an account, my Lord, of a danger we incurred a

few days ago and from which we fortunately were delivered with a
good fright and a little fatigue. This indeed is worth a separate let-
ter; in reading it you will feel what induces me to write you about
it.
You know that Madame de Wolmar’s house is not far from the
lake and that she likes rides on the water. Three days ago, the idle-
ness in which her husband’s absence leaves us and the beauty of the
evening made us plan one of these outings for the next day. At
sunrise we betook ourselves to the shore. We took a boat with nets
for fishing, three oarsmen, and a servant, and we set out with some
provisions for dinner. I had taken a rifle to shoot at besolets,* but

* A bird of passage on the Lake of Geneva. The besolet is not good to eat.
[Rousseau]
‘
LETTER XVII - TO LORD BOMSTON 333

she made me ashamed to kill birds to no purpose and for the sole
pleasure of doing mischief. I amused myself, therefore, from time
to time in bringing in some whimbrels, greenshanks, curlews, and
sandpipers,* and I only shot once from very far at a grebe, which
I missed.
We spent an hour or two fishing five hundred feet from shore.
The fishing was good, but with the exception of a trout which had
received a blow from an oar, Julie had them all thrown back in the
water. “These are animals,” she said, “which are suffering. Let us
free them and enjoy their pleasure in escaping the peril:
This freeing process was carried out slowly, reluctantly, and not
without some protests, and I readily saw that our people would
have enjoyed the fish they had taken better than the moral principle
which saved their life.
Next we went out into the open water; then with the vivacity of
a young man which it is time for me to check, having put myself
at the master oar, I steered so much toward the middle of the lake
that we soon found ourselves more than a league from shore.t+
There I explained to Julie all the parts of the superb horizon which
surrounded us. [62]
While we were agreeably amusing ourselves in thus surveying the
neighboring coasts, a rising gale, which pushed us obliquely toward
the opposite shore, began to blow, and when we thought to tack
about the resistance was so strong that it was no longer possible for
our frail boat to overcome it. Soon the waves became terrible; we
had to make for the Savoy shore and try to land at the village of
Meillerie, which was opposite us and which is almost the only place
on that side where the shore affords a convenient landing. But hav-
ing changed, the wind gathered strength, made our boatmen’s ef-
forts useless, and made us drift lower along a line of steep rocks
where there was no more shelter to be found.
We all took the oars, and almost at the same instant I had the
grief of seeing Julie seized with sickness, weak and fainting at the
edge of the boat. Fortunately, she was used to the water, and this
condition did not last. Nevertheless, our efforts increased with our
danger; the heat of the sun, the fatigue and perspiration put us all
out of breath and exhausted us excessively. Then, recovering all her
courage, Julie revived our spirits with her compassionate kindness.
Indiscriminately, she wiped all our brows, and mixing some water

* Various kind’ of Lake of Geneva birds, all very good to eat. [Rousseau]
+ How is that? Opposite Clarens, the lake is hardly two leagues wide. [Rousseau]
334 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

in a jar of wine, for fear of intoxication, she presented it alternately

to the most exhausted. No, never did your lovely friend shine with
such a lively luster as in this moment when the heat and the activity
had given a greater glow to her complexion, and what added most
to her charms was that we saw so well by her tender behavior that
all her solicitude came less from fear for herself than from pity for
us. For an instant, two planks being partly opened in an impact
which wet us all, she thought the boat broken to pieces, and in an
exclamation from this tender mother, I distinctly heard these
words: “Oh my children, must I see you no more?”’
As for myself, whose imagination always exceeds the peril, al-
though I knew the real state of the danger, I expected to see the
boat swallowed up at any moment, that affecting beauty struggling
in the midst of the waves, and the pallor of death dulling the roses
of her cheeks.
Finally, by dint of labor we reached Meillerie, and after having
battled more than an hour at ten feet from shore, we succeeded in
getting to land. In landing, all fatigue was forgotten. Julie took
it upon herself to express gratitude for all the pains each one of us
had taken and, just as in the thick of the danger she had thought
only of us, on land she seemed to think that we had saved no one
but her.
We dined with the appetite one acquires from vigorous labor. The
trout was served. Julie, who likes trout very much, ate very little of
it, and I perceived that to make amends to the boatmen for the re-
gret over their sacrifice, she did not desire me to eat much of it my-
self. My Lord, you have said it a thousand times: in little as well as
in great matters, that loving soul is always to be seen.
After dinner, the water still rough and the boat in need of re-
pair, I proposed taking a walk. julie objected to the wind and the
sun and thought of my weariness. I had my views; thus I answered
all her objections. “I am,” I told her, “accustomed since child-
hood to laborious exercises. Far from being harmful to my health,
they strengthen it, and my recent voyage has made me much more
robust still. As to the sun and the wind, you have your straw hat; we
shall have shelter from the woods. It is only a matter of climbing
between some rocks, and you who do not like flat country will will-
ingly bear the fatigue of it.”
She consented to what I wanted, and we left while our people
were at dinner.
You know that after my exile in the Valais ten years ago, I came
LETTER XVII - TO LORD BOMSTON 335

back to Meillerie to wait for my permission to return. It was there

that I spent such melancholy and such delightful days, preoccupied
solely with her, and it is from there that I wrote her that letter with
which she was so affected. I had always desired to revisit the isolated
retreat which served me as a refuge in the middle of the ice, where
my heart took pleasure in communing imaginatively with what it
held most dear in the world. The opportunity to visit this cherished
spot, in a more pleasant season and with her whose image formerly
dwelled there with me, was the secret motive for my walk. I was
pleased to show her the old memorials of such a constant and such
an unfortunate passion.
We reached the place after an hour’s walk over winding and
cool paths which, ascending imperceptibly between the trees and
the rocks, were not otherwise inconvenient except in their length.
Approaching and recognizing my former signs, I was prepared to
find myself ill, but I overcame it, I hid my distress, and we arrived.
This solitary place formed a retreat, wild and deserted but full of
those kinds of beauties which please only sensitive souls and appear
horrible to the others. A torrent caused by the thawing snows rolled
in a muddy stream twenty feet from us and noisily carried along
sep-
dirt, sand, and stones. Behind us a chain of inaccessible crags
arated the flat place where we were from that part of the Alps called
the glaciers, because of the enormous peaks of ice which, incessantly
world.*
increasing, have covered them since the beginning of the
firs afforded us a gloomy shade. A large
To the right, forests of black
below us that im-
wood of oak was to the left beyond the torrent,
of the Alps
mense body of water that the lake forms in the midst
Vaud region, and the peak
separated us from the rich shores of the
of the majestic Jura crowned the landscape.
small piece
In the middle of these great and superb objects, the
of a cheerf ul and
of ground where we were displayed the charms
rocks and rolled
sylvan refuge; some streams filtered through the
fruit trees bent their
over the green in crystal rivulets. Some wild
was covere d with grass
heads over ours; the moist and fresh earth
to the things which
and flowers. As I compared such a pleasant place
surrounded it, it seemed that this deserted spot should have been
lovers who alone had escaped the general
the refuge of two
confusion of nature.
half hour after sunset their summits are
* These mountains are so high that a
creates on these white peaks a beau-
still lit by the sun’s rays, the red of which
which is seen from very far away. [Rousseau]
tiful rose color
 336 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

When we had reached this refuge and I had contemplated it for

some time, I said to Julie, looking at her with a moistened
eye, “What! Does your heart say nothing to you here, and do you
not feel some secret emotion at the sight of a place so full of you?”
Then, without waiting for her answer, I led her toward the
rock
and showed her her initials engraved in a thousand places and sev-
eral verses from Petrarch and Tasso relative to my situation as I
cut
them. Observing them myself after such a long time, I felt
how much the sight of things can powerfully rekindle the violent
sentiments with which we were once shaken near those very things.
I said to her, with a little vehemence, “Oh Julie, eternal delight of
my heart! These are the spots where the most faithful lover in the
world once sighed for you. This is the place where your dear image
constituted his happiness and made way for that which he finally
received from your person. Then, neither these fruits nor this shade
was to be seen. The green grass and the flowers did not carpet these
little fields. The courses of these streams did not divide them.
The chirping of these birds was not to be heard. Only the fierce
hawk, the ominous raven, and the terrible eagle of the Alps made
these caverns resound with their shrieks. Great icicles hung from
all these rocks; festoons of snow were the only ornament of these
trees. Everything here betokened the rigors of winter and the hor-
ror of the frost. Only the fires of my heart made this place bearable
for me, and I spent whole days here thinking of you. There is the
stone on which I sat to contemplate your happy home in the dis-
tance. On that one I wrote the letter which touched your heart.
These sharp pebbles served me as tools to engrave your initials.
Here I crossed the frozen torrent to recover one of your letters that
a burst of wind had carried away. There I came to reread and kiss
a
thousand times the last one you had written me. There is the brink
where with an avid and gloomy eye I measured the depth of these
abysses. Lastly, it was here that before my sad departure I came
to
grieve for you as you lay dying and to swear not to survive
you.
You, too constantly loved, oh you, for whom I was born! Must I find
myself with you again in the same places and regret the time I spent
there in sighing over your absence? . . .”
I was going to continue, but Julie, who, seeing me approach the
edge, had been frightened and had seized my hand, clasped it with-
out saying a word, looked at me tenderly, and with difficulty held
back a sigh. Then suddenly averting her eyes and pulling me by the
arm, she said in an emotional voice, “Let us go, my friend.
The air
of this place is not good for me.”
LETTER XVII - TO LORD BOMSTON 337

Sighing, but without answering her, I went with her, and I left
this retreat forever, as sadly as I should have left Julie herself.
Slowly returning to the dock after a little wandering, we separated.
She wanted to remain alone, and I continued to walk, not knowing
too well where I was going. At my return, the boat was not yet ready
nor the water calm; in a melancholy state, we ate supper, our eyes
lowered, our looks pensive, eating little and speaking still less. After
supper, we were seated on the beach waiting for the time to depart.
The moon gradually rose, the water became calmer, and Julie pro-
posed that we leave. I gave her my hand to get into the boat, and
sitting beside her, I no longer thought of letting go of her hand. We
kept a profound silence. The even and measured sound of the oars
put me into a reverie. The rather gay song of the snipes,* recalling
to me the pleasures of another time, saddened me instead of making
me gay. Little by little I felt the melancholy with which I was over-
come increasing. A serene sky, the soft rays of the moon, the silver
shimmering of the glistening water around us, the concurrence
of the most pleasant sensations, the very presence of that cherished
person—nothing could turn my heart from a thousand sad reflec-
tions. I began by remembering a similar outing made once before
with her during the rapture of our early love. All the delightful
sentiments which then filled my soul were recalled to my mind, in
order to afflict me; all the events of our youth, our studies, our con-
versations, our letters, our trysts, our pleasures,

Et tanta fede, e si dolci memorie,

Et si lungo costume!
METASTASIO

And so much trust, such sweet memories,

And such long habit!

those hundreds of little things which brought back the image of my

past happiness—all returned to take a place in my memory in order
to increase my present sorrow. It is over, I said to myself; those times,
those happy times are no more. They have disappeared forever. Alas,
they will return no more, and yet we live, we are together, and our
hearts are ever joined! It seemed to me that I should have borne

* The Lake of Geneva snipe is not the bird called in France by the same name.
The more lively and animated song of ours on summer nights gives the lake
an air of life and freshness which makes its shores even more delightful.
[Rousseau]
 338 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

her death or her absence more patiently, and that I had suffered
less the whole time I had spent parted from her. When far away I
was aggrieved, the hope of seeing her again solaced my heart; I
flattered myself that an instant in her presence would efface all my
miseries. At least I used to envisage, out of all possible situations,
one less cruel than my own. But to find myself with her, to see her,
to touch her, to speak to her, to love her, to adore her, and almost
possessing her again, to feel her lost forever to me, that was what
threw me into a fit of furor and rage which by degrees disturbed
me to the point of despair. Soon I began to turn over deadly proj-
ects in my mind, and in a fit of passion, which I shudder to think
of, I was violently tempted to hurl her with me into the waves and
to end my life and my long torments in her arms. This horrible
temptation finally became so strong that I was obliged to let go her
hand suddenly and go to the bow of the boat.
There my lively agitation began to take another course. A gentler
sentiment little by little wound its way into my soul; tenderness
overcame despair. I began to shed copious tears, and this state, com-
pared to the one I had emerged from, was not without some pleas-
ures. I wept hard and long and was comforted. When I found my-
self composed, I returned near Julie. I took her hand again. She
was holding her handkerchief; I felt it very damp. “Ah,” I said to
her softly, “I see that our hearts have never ceased to hear each
other!” ;
“It is true,” she said in a changed voice, “but let this be the last
time that they will speak in this manner.”
We began then to talk calmly, and at the end of an hour’s rowing,
we arrived without another accident. When we had come in, I per-
ceived by the light that her eyes were red and quite swollen; she
must not have found mine in better condition. After the fatigue
of this day, she had great need of rest; she retired and I went to bed.
There, my friend, are the details of a day in which, without ex-
ception, I have felt the most lively emotions of my life. I hope that
they will constitute the crisis which will restore me completely to
myself. Moreover, I must tell you that this adventure has convinced
me, more than all arguments, of man’s free will and of the value
of
virtue. How many people succumb to feeble temptations? As for
Julie—my eyes saw it and my heart felt it—that day she underwent
the greatest struggle that a human soul could have sustained; yet
she was victorious. But what have I done to be so different from
her? Oh Edward! When seduced by your mistress you were capable
‘
LETTER XVII + TO LORD BOMSTON 339

of triumphing over both your desires and hers, were you only
mortal? Without you, I would have been lost, perhaps. A hundred
times during that dangerous day, the thought of your virtue restored
my own to me.
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PART V
wl
 +’ LETTER I &

From Lord Bomston*

EMERGE from childhood, friend. Awake. Do not give up your whole

life to the long sleep of the reason. Time slips by; you have none
left except in which to become wise. After thirty, it is time to think
of oneself; begin, then, to reflect within yourself, and be a man once
before you die. [63]
Your passions, by which you were enslaved for a long time, have
left you virtuous. This is all your glory; it is great, without a doubt,
but be less proud of it. Your very strength is the result of your frailty.
Do you know what has always made you love virtue? In your eyes it
has taken on the form of that lovely woman who typifies it so well,
and so dear an image could hardly let you lose the inclination for
it. But will you never love virtue for its own sake, and will you not
court the good of your own accord, as Julie has done? Idly enthusias-
tic about her virtues, will you incessantly limit yourself to admiring
them without ever imitating them? You speak warmly of the man-
ner in which she fulfills her duties as a wife and mother, but when
by her example will you fulfill your duties as a man and friend? A
woman has triumphed over herself, and a philosopher has difficulty
in conquering his passions! Do you wish, then, always to be a mere
prater like the others and limit yourself to writing good books in-
stead of doing good deeds? Take care, my friend; an air of softness
and languor still prevails in your letters, which displeases me and
which is much more a vestige of your passion than a result of your
character. I hate weakness in anyone, and I do not like to find it
in my friend. There is no virtue without fortitude, and the road to
* This letter seems to have been written before the preceding was received.
[Rousseau]
344 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

vice is cowardice. Do you really dare rely upon yourself with a heart
lacking courage? Wretch! If Julie were frail, you would succumb
tomorrow and would be only a vile adulterer. But there you are,
left alone with her; learn to understand her, and be ashamed of
yourself.
I hope soon to be able to come join you. You know for what pur-
pose this trip to Italy is designed. Twelve years of mistakes and
troubles make me suspicious of myself. To resist marriage, my own
abilities could suffice; to choose a wife I need a friend’s eyes, and I
take pleasure in making everything mutual between us, gratitude
as well as affection. However, do not deceive yourself; before ac-
cording you my confidence, I shall find out if you are worthy of it
and if you deserve to return to me the services I have rendered
you. I know your heart; I am satisfied with it. That is not enough.
It is your judgment I need in a choice over which reason alone
must preside and in which mine may deceive me. [64]
My affairs will keep me no longer than two weeks more in Lon-
don. I shall set out for our army in Flanders with which I expect to
stay again as long, so that you are hardly to expect me before the
end of next month or the beginning of October. Write me no
more at London but under the enclosed address in care of the army.
Continue your descriptions; notwithstanding the sorry tone of
your letters, they affect and instruct me. They inspire me with
plans for retirement and peace agreeable to my maxims and my
age. Above all, allay the uneasiness you have caused me concerning
Madame de Wolmar. If she is dissatisfied, who is to dare aspire to
happiness? After the detailed account she has given you, I cannot
conceive what her happiness lacks.

&% LETTER II &

To Lord Bomston

YES, MY LORD, I assure you with transports of joy that the scene at
Meillerie has been the crisis of my folly and my misfortunes. Mon-
sieur de Wolmar’s explanations have wholly reassured me on the
true state of my heart. This excessively feeble heart is cured, as
completely as it can be, and I prefer the sadness of fancied regret
LETTER III - TO LORD BOMSTON 345

to the fear of being continually tempted by the crime. Since the re-
turn of this worthy friend, I have no longer hesitated in giving him
that dear title, the whole value of which you have made me feel so
well. It is the least I owe to anyone who helps to restore me to vir-
tue. Peace is in the bottom of my soul as in the place where I am
living. I begin to find myself without uneasiness, to live here as if
in my own home, and if I do not have the complete authority of a
master in it, I feel even more pleasure in considering myself as a
child of the house. The simplicity and the equality which I see reign
here have an attraction which affects me and which I cannot help
but respect. I spend serene days amid practical reason and sensitive
virtue. In the company of this happy pair, their influence prevails
over me and imperceptibly affects me, and my heart is put gradually
into harmony with theirs, as one’s voice insensibly takes on the tone
of those with whom he is speaking. [65] Content with their lot,
they enjoy it peacefully; content with their fortune, they do not
labor to increase it for their children but to leave them, along
with the inheritance they themselves have received, an estate in good
condition, affectionate servants, the love of labor, order, modera-
tion, and all that which can make sweet and charming for men of
sense the enjoyment of a moderate wealth, as prudently conserved
as it was honestly acquired.

4 LETTER III *

To Lord Bomston

WE HAVE had guests these past few days. They left yesterday, and we
renewed a society between us three, so much the more charming as
there is nothing, even in the bottom of our hearts, which we wish
to hide from each other. What pleasure I am enjoying in assuming a
new character which makes me worthy of your confidence! I do not
receive one mark of esteem from Julie and her husband that I do
not say to myself with a certain pride in my soul: at last I shall dare
appear before him. It is through your assistance, it is under your
eyes that I hope to do honor to my present condition by means of
my past faults. If extinguished passion hurls the mind into a state
346 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

of dejection, subdued passion adds to the consciousness of its victory

a new elevation and a more lively attachment to all that is great
and fine. Should we wish to lose the fruit of a sacrifice which has
cost us so dear? No, my Lord, I feel that by your example my heart
will profit from all the ardent sentiments it has conquered. I feel
that it was necessary to have been what I was in order to become
what I wish to be. [66]
My Lord, we expect you from day to day, and this should be my
last letter. But I understand what prolongs your stay with the army,
and I tremble over it. Julie is no less uneasy; she begs you to send
us news of yourself more often and implores you, as you expose your
person, to consider how prodigal you are of your friends’ tranquil-
lity. As for me, I have nothing to say to you. Do your duty; advice of
timidity can no more come from my heart than come near yours.
My dear Bomston, I know too well that the only death worthy of
your life would be to spill your blood for the glory of your country,
but do you owe no account of your life to him who only preserved
his for your sake?

# LETTER IV *

From Lord Bomston

I SEE by your last two letters that I have missed one preceding them,
apparently the first you wrote me in care of the army, in which was
the explanation of Madame de Wolmar’s secret uneasiness. I have
not received this letter, and I imagine it could be in the mail of a
courier who has been taken. Repeat for me, then, what it contained;
I am at a loss to imagine what it is, and my heart is uneasy, for again
I say, if happiness and peace are not in Julie’s soul, where will their
haven be on this earth?
Reassure her about the risks to which she believes me exposed;
we have to do with an enemy too skillful to let us pursue him. With
a handful of men, he renders all our forces useless and every-
where deprives us of the means of attacking him. Yet, as we are con-
fident, we could well raise difficulties which the best generals could
not surmount and in the end force the French to fight us. I foresee
LETTER V - TO LORD BOMSTON
347

that we shall pay dearly for our first success and that the
battle won
at Dettingen will cause us to lose one in Flanders. [67]
Be that as it may, I wish to see the maneuvers of the rest
of this
campaign, and I have resolved to remain with the army
until it
goes into winter quarters. We shall all gain by this delay. The
sea-
son being too far advanced to cross the mountains, you and
I shall
spend the winter where you are, and we shall not go to Italy until
the beginning of spring. Tell Monsieur and Madame de Wolmar
that I am making this new arrangement to have more time to
en-
joy the affecting spectacle which you describe so well, and to see
Madame d’Orbe established with them. Continue to write me,
my
dear friend, with the same solicitude, and you will give me more
pleasure than ever. My equipment has been taken, and I have no
books, but I read your letters.

+ LETTER V &

To Lord Bomston

WHAT JOY you give me by announcing that we shall spend the

winter at Clarens! But how dearly you make me pay for it by pro-
longing your stay with the army! What displeases me above all is
to perceive clearly that even before our separation, your resolution
to follow the campaign was already taken and that you did not wish
to mention it to me. My Lord, I know the reason for this secrecy and
cannot thank you for it. Did you despise me enough to believe that I
might find it good to survive you, or have you known me so mean
that I might prefer some attachments to the honor of dying with
my friend? If it was not proper for me to follow you, you should
have left me in London; that would have offended me less than
sending me here.
It is clear from your last letter that one of mine was indeed lost,
and this loss must have made the two succeeding letters quite ob-
scure in many respects, but the explanations necessary to make them
intelligible will come in time. What presently is most urgent is to
extricate you from your uneasiness over the secret grief of Ma-
dame de Wolmar.
348 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I shall not tell you again the exact conversation that I had with
her after her husband’s departure. Many things have happened
since which have made me forget part of it, and we resumed it so
many times during his absence that I shall content myself with a
summary, in order to avoid repetitions.
She told me, therefore, that this very husband who did every-
thing to make her happy was the sole author of all her grief, and
the more sincere their mutual attachment was the more cause it
gave her to suffer. Would you think so, my Lord? That man, so wise,
so reasonable, so far from every kind of vice, so little subject to
human passions, knows nothing of that faith which gives value to
virtue and, in the innocence of an irreproachable life, he bears in
the bottom of his heart the dreadful tranquillity of the unbeliever.
The reflection which arises from this contrast increases Julie’s sor-
row, and it seems that she would sooner pardon him for disregard-
ing his Creator if he had more reasons to fear Him or more pride
to defy Him. If a guilty man were to appease his conscience at the
expense of his reason, if the pride of thinking differently from the
vulgar were to inspire a dogmatic person to disbelieve—those errors
at least are conceivable, but, Julie maintains, sighing, for a man so
honest and so little vain of his understanding to be an unbeliever is
very difficult to understand!
You must be informed of the character of this pair, you must pic-
ture them taken up with their family and living for each other
apart from the rest of the universe, you must know the harmony
which prevails between them in everything else, in order to con-
ceive how their difference on this single point is capable of trou-
bling its charms. Monsieur de Wolmar, brought up in the Greek
Church, was not able to bear the absurdity of such a ridiculous cult.
His understanding, too superior to the silly yoke which people
tried to impose on him, soon shook it off contemptuously, and at
once rejecting all that came to him from so doubtful an authority,
forced into impiety, he became an atheist.
Afterwards, having always lived in a Catholic country, he did
not learn to conceive a better opinion of the Christian faith by that
which is professed there. He saw no other religion than that which
was in the interest of its ministers. He saw that even there religion
consisted entirely of vain pretences, disguised a little more subtly
by words which meant nothing; he perceived that all the honest
people were unanimously of his opinion and scarcely hid the fact,
that the clergy themselves, a little more discreet, mocked in private
4
LETTER V - TO LORD BOMSTON 349

what they taught in public, and he has often assured me that, after
much time and research, in his life he found only three priests who
believed in God.* Wishing to be sincerely enlightened about these
matters, he buried himself in the obscurity of metaphysics, in which
a man has no other guides but the systems he brings to it, and saw
everywhere only doubts and contradictions. When at last he came
among Christians, he came too late; his faith had already been
closed to the truth, and his reason was no longer open to convic-
tion. All that which people proved to him destroyed rather than
established any sentiment, and he ended by fighting every kind of
dogma impartially, ceasing to be an atheist only to become a skep-
tic.
Such is the husband which Heaven destined for that Julie in
whom you are acquainted with such a simple faith and such a sweet
piety; but you must have lived as close to her as her cousin and I
have to know how much her tender soul is naturally inclined to
devotion. One would say that, nothing on earth being equal to
the need to love with which she is devoured, her excess of sensibility
is forced to ascend to its source. Hers is not a loving heart like
Saint Theresa’s, which deceives itself and will mistake its object.
Hers is a truly inexhaustible heart which neither love nor friendship
could consume and which carries its superabundant affections to
the only Being worthy of accepting them. Love of God does not
detach her from His creatures; it does not make her severe or sharp.
All her attachments, proceeding from the same cause, one being
enlivened by the other, become more charming and sweet, and for
my part, I think she would be less devout if she loved her father,
her husband, her children, her cousin, and myself less ten-
derly. [68]
Conceive, my Lord, what torment it is to live in seclusion with
the one who shares our existence and not be able to share the hope
which makes it dear to us! To be unable either to join him in bless-
ing God’s works or speak of the happy future which His goodness
promises us! To see him, as he does good, insensible to all that

*God forbid that I should wish to approve these severe and rash assertions;
I only affirm that there are people who make them and whose indiscretion is
only too often sanctioned by the conduct of the clergy of all countries and all
sects. But my purpose in this note is far from basely protecting myself; here,
quite clearly, is my own feeling on this matter. It is that no true believer could
be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate, and if the law inflicted
the death penalty upon atheists, I would begin by having those burnt as such
who would come to denounce another. [Rousseau]
350 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

makes it pleasant, and, by the most curious inconsistency, think like

an atheist and act like a Christian! Imagine Julie walking with her
husband, one admiring in the rich and brilliant ornamentation that
the earth displays the work and the gifts of the Creator of the uni-
verse, the other seeing in all that only a fortuitous combination
in which nothing is connected except by a blind force. Imagine
two partners sincerely united, not daring for fear of mutually trou-
bling each other to indulge themselves, the one in the reflections, the
other in the sentiments which the objects surrounding them inspire,
and bound by their very attachment to the duty of restraining them-
selves incessantly. Julie and I almost never take a walk that some
impressive and picturesque sight does not remind her of these
grievous ideas.
“Alas!” she says tenderly, “the spectacle of nature, so lively, so
animated for us, is dead in the eyes of the unfortunate Wolmar,
and in this great harmony of creation, in which everything speaks of
God with such a sweet voice, he perceives only an eternal silence.”
You who know Julie, you who know how much this communi-
cative soul loves to impart its sentiments, conceive what she would
suffer from this constraint, even if it had no other ill consequence
than such a sad division between those to whom everything ought
to be common. But more dreary ideas are raised along with those
she already has. In vain she tries to reject these involuntary terrors;
they return to disturb her at every moment. What horror for a
tender wife to think of the Supreme Being avenging His unac-
knowledged divinity, to think that the happiness of him who con-
stitutes her own is to end with his life, and to behold merely a rep-
robate in the father of her children! At this frightful thought, all
her sweetness barely protects her from despair, and religion, which
makes her husband’s unbelief bitter for her, alone gives her the
strength to bear it. “If Heaven,” she often says, “refuses me the
conversion of this honest man, I have only one more favor to ask,
that is, to die first.”
Such, my Lord, is the extremely just cause of her secret sorrow;
such is the inner affliction which seems to burden her conscience
with the callousness of another and becomes only more cruel for
her by the care she expends to conceal it. [69]
Whatever trouble his wife takes to disguise her sadness from
him, Wolmar feels and shares it; one does not deceive an eye as
sharp as his. He is only more aware of her grief when she stifles it.
He told me he had been several times tempted to give in in ap-
4
LETTER V - TO LORD BOMSTON 351

pearance, and in order to calm her to feign sentiments which he

did not have, but such baseness of soul is too far beneath him. In-
stead of imposing on Julie, that dissimulation would only have
been a new torment for her. The sincerity, the openness, the union
of hearts which is the consolation for so many misfortunes would
be eclipsed between them. Is it by making his wife esteem him less
that he could calm her fears? Instead of deceiving her, he tells her
sincerely what he thinks, but he says it in so simple a manner, with
such little contempt for common opinions and so little of that
ironic pride of strong-minded men, that these melancholy confes-
sions afflict Julie much more than they anger her, and that, unable
to inspire her sentiments and her hopes in her husband, she tries
more assiduously to gather around him those transitory delights to
which he confines his happiness. “Ah!” she says sadly, “if the un-
fortunate man has his paradise in this world, let us at least make it
as sweet for him as possible!”*
The veil of sadness with which this difference of sentiments covers
their union proves Julie’s invincible influence better than anything
else, through the consolations with which this sadness is tempered
and which she alone in the world perhaps would be capable of join-
ing to it. All their arguments, all their discussions on this important
matter, far from giving rise to bitterness, to contempt, or to
quarrels, always end in some tender scene which only endears
them more to each other.
Yesterday, the conversation having fixed on this subject, which
often comes up when we three are alone, we lit upon the origin of
evil, and I endeavored to point out not only that there was no
absolute and general evil in the chain of being but that even partic-
ular evil was a great deal slighter than it seems at first glance, and
that, on the whole, it was much surpassed by particular and in-
dividual good. I cited his own example to Monsieur de Wolmar,
and penetrated with a sense of the happiness of his situation, I
described it so justly that he himself seemed affected.
“Those,” he said, interrupting me, “are Julie’s delusive argu-
ments. She always puts feeling in the place of reason and argues so
affectingly that I must embrace her at every reply. Could it be from

* How much more natural is this humanitarian sentiment than the frightful
zeal of persecutors, ever busy in tormenting unbelievers, as if to damn them
even in this life and to become the precursors of hell’s devils. I shall never
cease repeating that these persecutors are not believers; they are impostors.
[Rousseau]
 352 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

her teacher of philosophy,” he added, laughing, “that she has

learned this way of arguing?”
Two months earlier, this pleasantry might have cruelly dis-
concerted me, but the time for embarrassment is past. I merely
laughed in turn, and although Julie blushed a little, she did not
seem any more embarrassed than I. We continued. Without con-
tending about the quantity of evil, Wolmar contented himself with
observing that we must recognize that, little or great, evil indeed
exists, and from this existence alone he inferred the absence of
power, intelligence, or goodness in the First Cause. On my part, I
tried to point out the origin of physical evil in the nature of matter
and of moral evil in man’s free will. I maintained to him that God
could do everything except create other substances as perfect as
his own and as exempt from evil. We were in the heat of debate
when I noticed that Julie had disappeared.
“Can you guess where she is?” her husband said, perceiving that
my eyes were seeking her.
“No doubt,” I said, “she has gone to give some order in the
household.”
“No,” he said, “she would not have taken time from this matter
for that. Everything of that kind is done without her leaving my
side, and yet I never observe her doing it.”
“Ts she, then, in the children’s room?”
“As little likely. Her children are not more dear to her than my
salvation.”
“Well,” I replied, “I know nothing of what she is doing, but
I
am very sure that she is busy only in useful concerns.”
“Still less,” he said coldly. “Come, come. You will see if I guess
well.”
He began to step lightly; I followed him on tiptoe. We came
to
the door of the study; it was closed. He opened it suddenl
y. My
Lord, what a sight! I saw Julie on her knees, her hands clasped
to-
gether, her face in tears. She rose hurriedly, wiping her eyes,
hiding
her face, and trying to escape; I never saw similar confusion. Her
husband did not allow her time to fly. He ran to her in a
kind of
ecstasy. “Dear wife!” he said as he embraced her, “the very
ardor of
your prayers betrays your cause. What do they lack to
be effica-
cious? Go, if they were heard, they would soon be granted.”
“They will be,” she said to him in a firm and confide
nt tone. “I
do not know the time and occasion of it. Would that I could
pur-
chase it at the expense of my lifel My last day wculd be
the best
employed.”
LETTER VI - TO LORD BOMSTON 353

Come, my Lord, leave your miserable fighting. Come to dis-

charge a nobler duty. Does a wise man prefer the honor of killing
men to the tasks which can save one?*

&’ LETTER VI &

To Lord Bomston

WHAT! Even after leaving the army, another trip to Paris! Have you
completely forgotten Clarens, then, and her who lives here? Are
you less dear to us than to Lord Hyde? Are you more necessary to
that friend than to those who wait for you here? You oblige us to
oppose our wishes to yours, and you make me wish I had some in-
fluence in the French court to prevent you from obtaining the
passports you are waiting for. But, be satisfied; go see your worthy
countryman. In spite of him, in spite of you, we shall be revenged
for your preference, and whatever pleasure you might enjoy in
his company, I know that when you are with us you will regret
the time you had not spared us.
Receiving your letter, I had first suspected that you had a secret
commission. . . . What mediator of peace more worthy? .. . But
do kings put their trust in virtuous men? Do they dare listen to the
truth? Do they even know how to respect real merit? . . . No, no,
my dear Edward, you are not made to be a minister of state, and I
think too well of you to believe that if you had not been born an
English peer you might ever become one.
Come, my friend. You will be better off at Clarens than at the
court. Oh, what a winter we shall all spend together, if the hope
of our reunion does not deceive me! Each day makes way for it by
bringing here some one of those privileged souls who are so dear
to each other, who are so worthy of each other’s love, and who
seem only to wait for you to be able to do without the rest of the
universe. Learning what a lucky accident brought here the ad-
versary in Baron d’Etange’s lawsuit, you foretold all that which

* There was here a long letter from Lord Bomston to Julie. In the sequel this
letter will be mentioned, but for good reasons I have been forced to suppress
it. [Rousseau]
 354 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

was to happen from this meeting, which actually did happen.* The
old litigant, although almost as inflexible and obstinate as his op-
ponent, could not resist the influence which has subjugated us all.
After having seen Julie, after having listened to her, after having
spoken with her, he was ashamed to contend with her father. He
left for Berne in such a good disposition and the settlement is now
so well along that from the Baron’s last letter we expect him to
return in a few days.
This you already will have been told by Monsieur de Wolmar.
But what you probably do not know yet is that Madame d’Orbe,
having at last finished her business, has been here since Thursday
and will no longer have another residence than that of her friend.
As I had been informed of the day of her arrival, I went to meet
her, unknown to Madame de Wolmar, whom she wished to surprise,
and having met her this side of Lutri, I retraced my steps with her.
I found her more lively and more charming than ever, but absent-
minded, distracted, not paying much attention, answering still less,
speaking incoherently and by fits and starts—in short, given up
to that restlessness we cannot resist when we are on the point of ob-
taining what we have desired very much. You would have said at
every moment that she was afraid she would have to turn back. Her
departure, although deferred for a long time, was undertaken so
hastily that it turned the heads of the mistress and the servants. A
whimsical disorder prevailed in the little baggage they brought
along. As the maidservant expressed her fears that she had forgotten
something, Claire was ever sure she had had it put in the trunk of
the coach, and when they looked into it, joked about it although
nothing at all was found.
Since she did not want Julie to hear her carriage, she got out
in
the avenue, went across the yard hurrying like a madwoman, and
ran up the steps so precipitously that she had to stop for breath
after the first flight before she could get up them all. Monsieur de
Wolmar came to meet her; she could not speak a single word to
him.
Opening the door of her room, I saw Julie seated near the win-
dow, holding little Henriette on her knees, as she often did. Claire
had thought about a fine speech in her usual manner, a compound
of sentiment and gaiety, but as she set her foot over
the threshold,
the speech, the gaiety, all was forgotten. She flew to her friend, cry-
* One sees that several intervening letters are missing
here as well as in many
other places. The reader will say that a writer gets
out of difficulty quite easily
with such omissions, and I am completely of his opinion
. [Rousseau]
LETTER VI - TO LORD BOMSTON 355

ing in an ecstasy impossible to describe, “Cousin, forever, forever,

until death!”
Henriette, seeing her mother, leaped up and ran to meet her, cry-
ing “Mama! Mama!” with all her might, and ran against her
with such force that the poor child fell backward. This sudden ap-
pearance of Claire, that fall, her joy, her agitation—all took hold
of Julie to such a point that, having stood as she extended her
arms, with a very piercing cry she let herself fall back and grew
faint. Wishing to raise up her daughter, Claire saw her friend turn
pale. She hesitated; she did not know to whom to run. F inally, seeing
me pick up Henriette, she rushed to aid the fainting Julie and fell
with her in the same condition.
Henriette, seeing them both motionless, began to weep and
utter cries which made Fanchon come running. The one ran to her
mother, the other to her mistress. As for me, seized, ecstatic, out of
my mind, I paced in long strides about the room without knowing
what I was doing, uttering broken exclamations and making con-
vulsive movements which I could not control. Wolmar himself, the
cold Wolmar felt himself affected. Oh sentiment, sentiment! Sweet
food of the soul! Where is the iron heart which you have never
affected? Where is the unfortunate mortal from whom you never
wrung tears? Instead of running to Julie, this happy husband
threw himself into a chair in order to contemplate this ravishing
sight eagerly. “Do not fear anything,” he said, seeing our uneasiness
about him. “These scenes of pleasure and joy exhaust our nature
only to rekindle it with a new vigor. They are never dangerous. Let
me enjoy the happiness which I am savoring and which you share.
What must it be for you? I never felt anything like it, and I am the
least happy of the six.”
My Lord, by this first moment you can judge the rest. This re-
union has excited a sound of cheerfulness and a tumultuousness
through the whole house which is not yet subsided. Beside herself,
Julie was in a state of agitation such as I had never seen her in be-
fore; it was impossible for them to think of anything the whole day
long except to look at and embrace each other ceaselessly with fresh
ecstasies. The next day we had hardly enough composure to pre-
pare a celebration. Without Wolmar, all would have gone awry.
Everyone dressed in his best. No work was permitted except that
which was necessary for the amusements. The feast was celebrated,
not with pomp but with delirium. A confusion prevailed in it which
made it affecting, and disorder constituted its finest embellishment.
The morning was spent in putting Madame d’Orbe in possession
356 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

of her post as intendant or housekeeper, and she made haste to take

on her duties with a childish eagerness that made us laugh. Enter-
ing the fine hall for dinner, on every side the two cousins saw their
initials formed with flowers and wound together. Julie guessed im-
mediately the source of this solicitude; she embraced me in a fit of
joy. Contrary to her former custom, Claire hesitated to do as much.
Wolmar found fault with her for it; blushing, she decided to imitate
her cousin. This blush, which I noticed only too well, had an effect
on me which I could not explain, but I did not feel myself in her
arms without emotion.
In the afternoon there was fine tea in the women’s quarters, into
which for once the master and I were admitted. [70] In the evening,
the whole house, increased by three persons, assembled to dance.
Claire seemed to be adorned by the hand of the graces; she had
never been so brilliant as she was that day. She danced, she chatted,
she laughed, she gave orders, she was equal to everything. She had
sworn to tire me out, and after five or six very brisk quadrilles all in
a breath, she did not neglect her usual reproach that I danced like a
philosopher. I told her that she danced like an imp, that she com-
mitted no less mischief, and that I was afraid she would not let me
rest day or night.
“On the contrary,” she said. “Here is something to make you
sleep presently.” And at once she led me again to the dance.
She was indefatigable, but it was not so with Julie. She had
difficulty in standing upright, her knees trembled as she danced,
and she was too affected to be gay. Often we saw tears of joy trickling
from her eyes; she regarded her cousin with a kind of rapture. She
took pleasure in thinking of herself as the stranger for whom the
celebration was made and looking upon Claire as the mistress of
the house who had ordered it. After supper I shot off fireworks which
I had brought from China and which had much effect. We sat up
well into the night; finally we had to leave each other. Madame
d’Orbe was tired, or ought to have been, and Julie wanted her to get
to bed early.
Gradually calm is being restored and order with it. Claire, as
playful as she is, is capable when she pleases of assuming an authori-
tative tone which commands respect. Besides, she has good sense,
exquisite discernment, the penetration of Wolmar, and the goodness
of Julie; and although she is extremely liberal, she nevertheless
has
much prudence as well, so that although left a widow so young
and charged with the inheritance of her daughter, the fortunes of
both have only prospered in her hands, Thus, there is no reason
LETTER VII - TO LORD BOMSTON 357

to fear that under her direction the house may be governed less well
than before. This gives Julie the pleasure of giving herself up en-
tirely to the pursuit which is the most to her liking—that is, the
education of the children—and I doubt not but that Henriette will
profit very much by one of her mothers having relieved the other
from all those duties. I say her mothers, for to see the manner in
which they act with her, it is difficult to distinguish the real one,
and some strangers who arrived today are or seem to be still in doubt
on the matter. In fact, both call her Henriette or my daughter, indif-
ferently. She calls one mama and the other little mama. The same
tenderness prevails on both sides. She obeys them equally. If the
ladies are asked to whom she belongs, each answers, “To me.” If
Henriette is asked, it is found that she has two mothers. People
would be puzzled over less. Yet the most discerning decide finally
upon Julie. Henriette, whose father was blond, is blond like her
and resembles her a great deal. A certain maternal tenderness ap-
pears in Julie’s soft eyes even more than in Claire’s more sprightly
looks. Near Julie, the little one assumes a more respectful manner
and is more attentive to herself. She automatically places herself
more often at Julie’s side because Julie more often has something
to say to her. It must be confessed that all appearances are in
favor of the little mama, and I have perceived that this deception
is so agreeable to the two cousins that it could well be intended
sometimes and become a contrivance which suits them.
My Lord, in two weeks, nothing will be wanting here but your
presence. When you are here, we shall have to think ill of any man
whose heart will search in the rest of the world for any virtues
and pleasures that may not be found in this house.

& LETTER VII *

To Lord Bomston

FOR THREE DAYS I have tried each evening to write you. But after a
day of labor, sleep wins over me as I come to my room. In the morn-
ings at dawn I must return to the work. An intoxication sweeter
than that from wine stirs my inmost soul delightfully, and I cannot
take myself for a moment from these pleasures which are com-
358 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

pletely new for me. I cannot conceive what place could dis-
please me with the company I find in this one, but do you know why
Clarens pleases me in itself? It is because I feel myself truly in the
country, and because this is almost the first time I have been able to
say as much. [71]
For this month past, the autumn heat has been preparing a favor-
able vintage; the first frosts have induced us to begin »it;*) ihe
parched vine branches, the leaves falling and exposing the grapes,
spread before our eyes the gifts of Bacchus and seem to invite mor-
tals to seize them. All the vines laden with that wholesome fruit
which Heaven offers to the unfortunate to make them forget their
misery; the noise of the casks, the vats, the tuns that are being
hooped on all sides; the song of the grape gatherers with which
these slopes reverberate; the continuous tread of those who carry
the harvest to the press; the raucous sound of the rustic instru-
ments that inspire them to work; the pleasant and affecting picture
of a general cheerfulness which seems at this time spread over
the face of the earth; finally, the veil of mist which the sunlight lifts
in the mornings like a theater curtain in order to discover such a
charming sight to the eye—all conspire to give it a festive air, and
this festival becomes only more pleasing upon reflection, when
one observes that it is the only one in which men have been able
to combine the agreeable and the useful.
Monsieur de Wolmar, whose best land here consists of vineyards,
made all the necessary preparations in advance. The vats, the press,
the cellar, the casks await only the sweet liquor for which they are
designed. Madame de Wolmar takes charge of the harvest; the selec-
tion of the workers and the order and distribution of the work are
her concern also. Madame d’Orbe presides over the harvest dinners
and over the wages of the day laborers, according to the established
policy which the laws never infringe upon here. My task is to en-
force Julie’s commands at the press, for her head cannot bear the
vapor from the vats, and Claire has not failed to recommend me
to this occupation as being completely within the province of a
toper.
The duties thus allotted, the common task with which we fill our
free time is that of grape gatherer. Everyone is astir early in the
morning; we assemble to go to the vineyards. Madame d’Orbe, who
is never busy enough to suit her active nature, charges herself in

* The grape harvest is very late in the Vaud region because the
principal crop
is of white wines, and the frost is beneficial to them. [Rousseau]
4
LETTER VII - TO LORD BOMSTON 359

addition with warning and scolding the lazy, and I can safely say
that in respect to me she fulfills this duty with a malicious vigilance.
As for the old Baron, while we are all working, he walks about
with a gun and comes from time to time to take me away from the
grape gathering to go with him thrush-shooting; they do not fail to
say that I have secretly engaged him to do this, so that I am little
by little losing the name of philosopher to get that of idler, titles
which at base are not much different.
You see by what I have just told you of the Baron that our recon-
ciliation is sincere and that Wolmar has reason to be satisfied with
his second test.* Shall I hate the father of my friend! No, if I had
been his son, I should not have respected him more perfectly. In
truth, I do not know a man more upright, more open, more gener-
ous, more honorable in every regard than this good gentleman. But
the singularity of his prejudices is odd. Since he has been certain
that I could not become a member of his family, there is no kind of
civility he does not show me, and provided that I may not be his
son-in-law, he would willingly put himself beneath me. The only
thing for which I cannot pardon him is that sometimes when we
are alone he rallies the would-be philosopher about his former
lessons. These pleasantries are bitter for me, and I always receive
them very badly, but he laughs at my anger and says, “Come, let’s
shoot thrushes. That is enough argument.” Then, as we pass by, he
shouts, “Claire, Claire! A good supper for your teacher, for I am go-
ing to make him get an appetite.” Indeed, at his age, he runs along
the vineyards with his gun as vigorously as I and shoots incom-
parably better. What avenges me a little for his raillery is that be-
fore his daughter he no longer dares breathe a word, and the
little scholar awes her father himself hardly less than she does her
teacher. [72]

* This will be better understood by the following extract from one of Julie’s
letters which is not in this collection:
“ ‘This,’ Monsieur de Wolmar said to me, drawing me aside, ‘is the second
test I determined for him. If he had not paid his respects to your father, I
should be distrustful of him.’
“ But,’ I said, ‘how can you reconcile these respects and your test with the
antipathy you yourself have found between them?’
“Tt no longer exists,’ he replied. ‘Your father’s prejudices have done Saint-
Preux all the harm they could do him. He no longer has anything to fear from
them; he hates them no more. He pities them. On his side, the Baron no longer
fears Saint-Preux. He has a good heart, he feels he has done him much harm,
and he has pity on him. I see that they will get along very well together and
will meet with pleasure. Also from this moment, I rely upon Saint-Preux com-
pletely.’” [Rousseau]
 360 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

“* LETTER VIII &

To Monsieur de Wolmar

ENJOY, MY DEAR WoLMa~R, the fruit of your labor. Accept

the homage
of a purified heart, which you have taken so many pains to make
worthy of being offered to you. Never did a man undertake what
you have undertaken; never did a man attempt what you have
exe-
cuted. Nor did ever a grateful and sensitive soul feel what you
have
inspired in me. Mine had lost its force, its vigor, its being; you
have
restored them all. I was dead to virtue as well as to happiness;
I owe
you this moral life to which I feel myself reborn. Oh my benefact
or!
Oh my father! In giving myself up wholly to you, I can only
offer
you, as to God Himself, the gifts which I have received from
you.
Must I confess to you my weakness and my fears? Hithert
o I have
always distrusted myself. Not a week ago I blushed for
my heart
and thought all your pains wasted. That moment was
cruel and
discouraging for virtue; thanks to Heaven, thanks
to you, it has
passed, no more to return. I no longer believe
myself cured only be-
cause you tell me so but because I feel it. I have no
more need for
you to answer for me. You have put me in a state
to answer for
myself. I had to go away from you and from her in
order to know
what I could be without your support. Far from the place
where she
dwells, I am learning no longer to fear to approach
it.
I have written a detailed account of our journ
ey to Madame
d’Orbe. I shall not repeat it for you here. I
want you to be ac-
quainted with all my weaknesses, but I do not
have the courage to
confess them to you. My dear Wolmar, that
is my last fault; I feel
myself already at such a distance from it that
I cannot think of it
without pride, but it is still so little a while
since that I cannot
confess it painlessly. You who were able to pardo
n my errors, how
could you not pardon the shame which has
brought forth my re-
pentance?
My happiness lacks nothing further. His Lords
hip has told me
everything. My dear friend, am I then yours
? Shall I educate your
children? Will the eldest of the three educate
the other two? With
what ardor I have desired it! How my hope
of being found worthy
LETTER VIII - TO MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 361

of such employment has doubled my assiduity to satisfy yours!

How many times I dared to show my eagerness in this matter
to Julie! With what pleasure I often interpreted both your re-
marks in my favor! But although she was aware of my zeal and al-
though she seemed to approve its object, I did not see her enter
explicitly enough into my designs to dare speak more openly of
them. I felt that I had to merit that honor and not ask for it. I
expected this proof of your confidence and your esteem from you
both. I have not been deceived in my expectation; my friends, be-
lieve me, you will not be deceived in yours.
You know that following our conversations on the education of
your children, I had thrown on paper some ideas they furnished
me with, which you approved. Since my departure some new
thoughts have occurred to me on the same subject, and I have re-
duced the whole into a kind of plan with which I shall acquaint
you when I have digested it better, so that you may examine it
in turn. It is only after our arrival in Rome that I hope to have time
to put it in a state fit to show you. This plan begins where Julie’s
ends, or rather, it is only the sequel and the development of hers,
for the whole consists in not spoiling the natural man by subjecting
him to society.
I have recovered my reason through your solicitude. Once
again my heart is free and sound, and I feel myself beloved by all
whose love is dear to me. The most charming future is presented
to me; my situation should be delightful, but it is decreed that my
soul will never be at rest. As the end of our journey draws near, I
see in it the crisis of my illustrious friend’s destiny; it is I who must
determine it, so to speak. Shall I be able to do at least once for
him what he has done so often for me? Shall I be able worthily to
discharge the greatest, the most important duty of my life? My dear
Wolmar, I have carried all your lessons away in the bottom of
my heart, but to know how to render them useful, would that I
could have carried away your wisdom as well! Ah! If one day I
can see Edward happy, if, fulfilling his projects and yours, we will
all rejoin each other to part no more, what wish will be left for me
to have? Only one, the realization of which depends neither on
has
you, nor on me, nor on anyone in the world, but on Him who
a reward in store for your wife’s virtues and secretly counts up your
good deeds.
362 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

% LETTER IX &

To Madame d’Orbe

WHERE ARE YOU, charming cousin? Where are you, amiable friend
of this frail heart which you share for so many reasons and which
you have consoled so many times? Come, let it now pour out into
yours the confession of its last error. Is it not your province to purify
it, and can it still reproach itself for errors that it has confessed to
your No, I am no longer the same, and this change is owed to you.
You have given me a new heart, which offers you its first fruits,
but I shall believe myself freed from the one I am abandoning only
after I have deposited it in your hands. Oh you who have seen it
born, receive its last sighs!
Would you ever have thought it? The moment of my life in which
I was most content with myself was that in which I left you. Re-
covered from my long bewilderment, I looked upon that instant
as the tardy beginning of my return to my duty. I began finally to
pay the immense debts of friendship by tearing myself from such a
cherished place in order to follow a benefactor, a philosopher
who, pretending to need my services, was putting the success of his
own to the test. The sadder this departure was for me, the more I
prided myself on making such a sacrifice. After having spent half my
life in nourishing an unfortunate passion, I was devoting the other
half to justify it, to pay with my virtues a more worthy homage to
her who for so long received all that of my heart. I proudly observed
the first day of my life in which I put myself to shame before neither
you, nor her, nor anyone dear to me.
Lord Bomston had feared the tenderness of the farewells,
and we
wanted to leave without being perceived, but though everyone else
was still sleeping, we could not elude your vigilant friendship. See-
ing your door half open and your maid on the watch, seeing you
come to meet us, entering and finding a tea table prepared,
I
thought, from the resemblances of the circumstances, of another
time, and comparing this departure to the one it called to mind,
I
felt myself so different from what I was then that, pleased to
have
Edward as a witness to these differences, I hoped to make him
for-
LETTER IX - TO MADAME D’ORBE 363

get in Milan the shameful scene in Besancon. Never did I feel my

courage so much. I prided myself on displaying it to you; before you
I made a show of that resolution which you had never seen in me,
and I gloried as I left you in appearing in your eyes such as I was
going to be ever afterwards.
This idea added to my courage, I fortified myself with your es-
teem, and I perhaps would have said good-bye to you with a dry
eye, if your tears trickling over my cheek had not forced my own
to mingle with them.
I left with my heart full of all my duty, penetrated above all with
that which your friendship has imposed upon me, and very deter-
mined to use the rest of my life in deserving it. Edward, reviewing
all my faults, set before my eyes again a picture which was not flatter-
ing, and I knew by his just severity in censuring so many weaknesses
that he was hardly afraid of imitating them. Yet he pretended to
be afraid of it; he spoke to me uneasily of his trip to Rome and the
unworthy attachments which recalled him there in spite of him-
self, but I readily judged that he was exaggerating his own dangers
the more to engage my attention and put it further from those to
which I myself was exposed.
As we were coming to Villeneuve, a servant who was riding a bad
horse was thrown and got a slight bruise on the head. His master
had him bled and determined to spend the night there. Having had
an early dinner, we took the horses and went to Bex to see the salt
mine, and his Lordship having some particular reasons which made
this examination interesting for him, I took the measurements
and sketched the design of the graduation house. We did not get
back to Villeneuve before night. After supper, we chatted, drink-
ing punch, and sat up rather late. It was then that he informed me
what duties had been entrusted to me and what had been done to
make the arrangement possible. You can judge the effect that this
news had on me; such a conversation did not incline me to sleep.
Yet I finally had to go to bed.
the room which was prepared for me, I recognized it
Entering
as the same which I had formerly occupied when I went to Sion.
The sight of it made an impression on me which I should have
im-
difficulty in conveying to you. I was so vividly struck by it that I
mediately imagined myself again the same man as I was then. Ten
years were effaced from my life and all my misfortunes were forgot-
ten. Alas! This mistake was short-lived, and the next moment made
What
the weight of all my former sorrows more oppressive for me.
melancholy reflections succeeded that first enchantment! What
 364. LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

dreadful comparisons offered themselves to my mind! Pleasures of

early youth, delights of first love, why recall them again to this heart,
overwhelmed with troubles and burdened with itself? Oh time,
happy time, it is no more! I loved, I was loved. In peaceful in-
nocence, I used to indulge myself in the ecstasies of a mutual pas-
sion. In long draughts I used to drink in the delightful sentiment
which gave me life. The sweet vapor of hope used to intoxicate my
heart. An ecstasy, a rapture, a delirium absorbed all my faculties.
Ah! On the rocks of Meillerie, in the midst of snow and ice,
frightful
abysses before my eyes, what creature in the world enjoyed a hap-
piness comparable to mine? . . . And J wept! And I found myself
pitiable! And sorrow dared approach me! ... What should
I
be today, then, now that I have possessed everything, lost
every-
thing? . . . I have indeed deserved my misery because I
felt my
happiness so little! ... Did I weep then? ... You wept?...
Wretch, you weep no more. . . . You do not even have the
right to
weep. . . . Would that she were dead! I dared cry that out in
a fit
of rage; yes, I should be less unhappy if she were.
I should dare in-
dulge myself in my griefs. Without remorse I should embrace
her
cold tomb; my laments would be worthy of her. I could say
that she
is hearing my cries, she is seeing my tears, she is
affected by my sobs,
she approves and receives my pure homage. . . . At
least I should
have the hope of rejoining her. . . . But she lives; she
is happy!
. . . She lives, her life is my death, and her happiness
is my tor-
ment. After having torn her from me, Heaven
has taken from me
even the pleasure of regretting her loss! . . . She lives,
but not for
me; she lives for my despair. I am a hundred times farther from her
than if she were dead.
I went to bed with these melancholy thoughts. They
pursued me
during my sleep and filled it with dismal visions. Bitter
sorrows, la-
ments, death composed my dreams, and all the
misfortunes I had
suffered assumed a hundred new forms in my imagi
nation in order
to torment me a second time. One dream in particular, the most
cruel of all, persisted in pursuing me, and all the
confused appari-
tions of phantom after phantom ended always in
this one.
I thought I saw your friend’s worthy mother on
her death bed,
her daughter on her knees before her, bathe
d in tears, kissing her
hands and receiving her last breath. I saw again
that scene which
you once described to me and which will never
leave my memory.
“Oh my mother,” said Julie, in a manner to rend
my soul, “‘she
who owes her life to you is taking yours from
you! Ah! Take back
your favor. Without you, life is but a dreary gift
for me.”
LETTER IX - TO MADAME D’ORBE 365

“My child,” her tender mother replied, “. . . we must fulfill our

destiny. ... God is just. ... You will be a mother in your
PNET. ooh."
She could not finish. . . . I tried to raise my eyes and look at
her; I saw her no more. In her place I saw Julie. I saw her; I recog-
nized her although her face was covered with a veil. I gave a shriek,
I rushed forward to put aside the veil, I could not reach it, I
stretched forth my arms, I tormented myself, but I touched nothing.
“Friend, be calm,” she said to me in a faint voice. ““The terrible
veil covers me. No hand can put it aside.”
At these words, I struggled and made a new effort; this effort
woke me up. I found myself in my bed, overwhelmed by fatigue
and soaked with perspiration and tears.
Soon my fright was dissipated; exhaustion put me to sleep again.
The same dream disturbed me the same way. I woke and went to
sleep a third time. Always the mournful sight, always that same ap-
pearance of death, always that impenetrable veil eluding my hands
and hiding from my eyes the dying person it covered.
As I awoke the last time, my terror was so great that I could not
conquer it even though awake. I threw myself at the foot of my bed,
without knowing what I was doing. I began to wander through the
room, frightened like a child by the shadows of the night, believing
I saw myself surrounded by phantoms, my ear still hearing that
plaintive voice, the sound of which I never heard without emotion.
Beginning to cast light on things, the dawn only transformed them
according to my troubled imagination. My fright doubled and de-
prived me of my judgment. After having with difficulty found my
door, I fled from my room. I bolted into Edward’s; I opened his cur-
tain and let myself fall on his bed, breathlessly crying, “It is over.
I shall see her no more!”’
He woke up with a start; he jumped for his weapons, believing
himself surprised by a thief. Presently he recognized me; I recol-
lected myself, and for the second time in my life I saw myself before
him in a confusion which you can conceive.
He made me sit down, compose myself and speak. As soon as he
knew what the matter was, he tried to turn the thing to ridicule, but
seeing that I was violently affected, and that the impression it had
made would not be easy to destroy, he changed his tone.
“You do not deserve either my friendship or my esteem,” he said
to me rather harshly. “If I had taken for my servant a quarter of the
trouble that I have taken for you, I should have made a man of
him, but you are worthless.”
 366 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

“Ah!” IJ said to him, “that is only too true. All the good I had in
me came from her. I shall never see her again. I am now worthless.”
He smiled and embraced me. “Calm yourself today,” he said, ‘“‘and
tomorrow you will be rational. I shall undertake to make you so.”
After that, changing the subject, he proposed to me that we
leave. I agreed to it, the horses were put to, and we got dressed.
Getting into the carriage, his Lordship said a word in the postil-
ion’s ear, and we left.
We traveled along without saying anything. I was so preoccupied
with my gloomy dream that I heard and saw nothing. I did not
even notice that the lake, which the day before was on my right,
was now on my left. It was only the clatter of the carriage on pav-
ing stones which awoke me from my lethargy and made me per-
ceive, with an astonishment easy to understand, that we had re-
turned to Clarens. Three hundred feet from the gate, his Lord-
ship had the carriage stopped and drawing me aside, he said, “You
see my project. It needs no explanation. Go, visionary,” he added,
clasping my hand, “go see her again. You are fortunate in exposing
your follies only to people who love you! Hurry up, I will wait for
you, but above all, come back only after you have torn away that
fatal veil which is woven in your mind.”
What could I have said? I left without answering. I walked with
a quick pace which reflection slowed as I approached the house.
What sort of a part was I going to act? How could I dare show my-
self? What pretext could I use for this unexpected return? With
what countenance should I go to plead my ridiculous terrors and
bear the scornful look of the generous Wolmar? The closer I
came, the more childish my fright seemed to me, and my extrava-
gant behavior made me pitiable. Yet, a dark presentiment still dis-
turbed me, and I did not feel myself at all reassured. I went on, al-
though slowly, and I was already near the courtyard when I heard
the door of the Elysium open and close again. Seeing no one leave,
I circled it on the outside, and I went along the water to come as
close to the aviary as possible. I did not wait long until someone
approached, Then listening, I heard you both speaking, and though
it was impossible for me to distinguish a single word, I found in
the sound of your voice something indefinably languishing and
tender which I heard with emotion, and in hers not only her usual
affecting and sweet accent but also one that was peaceful and
serene, which immediately restored me and truly woke me from my
dream.
Immediately, I felt myself so changed that I laughed at myself
LETTER X - MADAME D’ORBE’S RESPONSE 367

and my foolish alarms. Reflecting that I had only a hedge and some
bushes to cross through in order to see full of life and health her
whom I had believed I would never see again, I renounced my fears,
my fright, and my dreams forever, and I decided without further
ado to leave again, even without seeing her. Claire, I swear to you
not only that I did not see her but that I turned back proud of not
having seen her, of not having been weak and credulous to the end,
and of having at least done the honor to myself as Edward's
friend of getting the better of a dream.
This, dear cousin, is what I had to tell you and the last confession
left for me to make to you. The details of the rest of our journey
are no longer interesting. It is enough for me to assure you that
since then not only has his Lordship been satisfied with me, but I
am still more satisfied with myself, I who feel my entire recovery
much better than he can see it. For fear of giving him a needless dis-
trust, I hid from him the fact that I had not seen you. When he
asked me if the veil had been lifted, I answered without hesitating
in the affirmative, and we have spoken of it no more. Yes, cousin, it
has lifted forever, this veil with which my reason was obscured for
a long time. All my unruly passions are extinguished. I see
my whole duty and I respect it. You are both more dear to me than
ever, but my heart no longer distinguishes between you and does
not separate the inseparables.
We arrived at Milan the day before yesterday. We are leav-
ing again the day after tomorrow. In a week we expect to be in
Rome, and I hope to find news from you there upon our arrival.
How anxious I am to see those two surprising women who have dis-
turbed for so long the repose of the greatest of men. Oh Julie! Oh
Claire! They would have to equal you to deserve to make him
happy.

4d LETTER X &

Madame d’Orbe’s Response

WE ALL WAITED impatiently for news of you, and I do not need to

tell you how much pleasure your letters have given to our little com-
munity, but what you will not imagine Xe) readily is that of all the
368 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

household I am perhaps the one whom they have least cheered.

Everyone learned that you had happily passed over the Alps; as for
me, I reflected only that you were too far away beyond them.
In respect to the detailed account you made me, we said nothing
of it to the Baron, and I skipped over some very needless parts in
reading it to everyone. Monsieur de Wolmar had the ingeniousness
only to laugh at you, but Julie was not able to remember the last
moments of her mother without fresh regrets and new tears. She
noticed in your dream only that which rekindled her griefs.
As for me, I shall tell you, my dear teacher, that I am no longer
surprised to see you in constant astonishment at yourself, always
committing some folly and always beginning to become prudent,
because for a long time you have spent your life in self-reproach the
night before and in self-approval the next morning.
I confess to you also that this great courageous effort which,
though you were so near to us, made you return as you had come
does not appear so wonderful to me as it does to you. I find it more
vain than prudent, and I think that on the whole I should prefer
much less fortitude with a little more reason. From this manner
of running away, could one not ask you for what purpose you had
come? You were ashamed to show yourself, and it is for not daring
to show yourself that you ought to be ashamed, as if the delight of
seeing one’s friends did not a hundred times efface the petty chagrin
over their raillery! Should you not have been only too happy to
come offer us your distracted air in order to make us laugh? Well
then, I did not laugh at you then, but I laugh at you so much the
more today, although since I do not have the pleasure of angering
you, I cannot laugh with such good will.
Unfortunately, there is worse yet. It is that I have caught all your
fears without, like you, being reassured. That dream has something
frightening about it which disturbs me and saddens me despite my-
self. As I read your letter, I censured your agitation; when I finished
it, I censured your security. It is impossible to see both why you
were so affected and why you have become so tranquil. Through
what capriciousness your dreariest presentiments prevailed up to
the moment when you were able to destroy them, and then you did
not try to do so. Another step, a gesture, a word would have done
it. You alarmed yourself without reason; you reassured yourself in
the same way, but you have infected me with the fright you no
longer have, and it appears that, having had fortitude for once
in
your life, you have had it at my expense. Since I received your fatal
letter, my heart has been constantly oppressed; I do not come
near
LETTER XI * MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR’S RESPONSE 369

Julie without trembling over losing her. At every moment I think I

see the pallor of death on her face, and this morning, pressing her
in my arms, I felt myself in tears without knowing why. That veil!
That veil! . . . There is something indefinably sinister in it which
disturbs me each time I think of it. No, I cannot pardon you for
having had the chance to put it aside and not having done so, and
I am indeed afraid of henceforth having no more peaceful moments
until I see you again in her company. Admit also that after having
spoken so long of philosophy, you have in the end shown yourself a
philosopher very unseasonably. Ah! Dream again and come see
your friends; that is better than fleeing them and being a philos-
opher.
It seems by his Lordship’s letter to Monsieur de Wolmar that he
is seriously thinking of coming to settle with us. As soon as he has
made up his mind down there and as soon as his heart has made its
choice, may you both come back happy and settled; that is the
desire of the little community, and above all, of your friend,

Claire dOrbe

P.S. As for the rest, if it is true that you heard nothing of our con-
versation in the Elysium, it is perhaps so much the better for you,
for you know me sufficiently vigilant to see people without their
perceiving me and sufficiently severe to speak maliciously of eaves-
droppers.

& LETTER XI &

Monsieur de Wolmar’s Response

I WROTE to Lord Bomston and spoke to him of you at such length

that writing to you I have hardly anything left to say except to
refer you to his letter. Yours would perhaps require on my part a
return of civilities, but to call you into my family, to treat you as a
brother, as a friend, to make a sister of her who was your mistress,
to give you paternal authority over my children, to entrust you
with my rights after having usurped yours—those are the compli-
 370 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

ments of which I have believed you worthy. On your part, if you

justify my conduct and my solicitude, you will have praised me
sufficiently. I have tried te do you honor through my esteem; do me
honor through your virtues. All other encomiums must be banished
between us.
So far am I from being surprised to see you affected by a dream
that I see no very good reason why you reproach yourself for having
been so. Yet, it seems to me that for a man like you one dream more
or less in not of such great importance.
But what I readily reproach you for is less the effect of your
dream than its kind, and I have a reason quite different from the
one you could imagine. Once a tyrant put a man to death for dream-
ing that he stabbed his master. Remember the reason he gave for
this murder, and make the application of it for yourself.* What!
You are going to decide your friend’s fate and you are thinking of
your former love! Had it not been for the conversations of the pre-
ceding evening, I would never forgive you for that dream. During
the day think of what you are going to do in Rome; you wil] dream
less at night of what is taking place at Vevey.
Fanchon is ill; that keeps my wife busy and deprives her of the
time to write you. Somebody here will willingly take on this task.
Fortunate young man! Everything conspires to your happiness; all
the rewards of virtue seek you to force you to deserve them. As to
the reward for my good deeds, do not charge anyone but yourself
with it; it is from you alone that I expect it.

% LETTER XII *

To Monsieur de Wolmar

LET THIS LETTER be kept between you and me. Let a deep secrecy
forever conceal the errors of the most virtuous of men. In what
dangerous task do I find myself engaged? Oh, my wise and gen-
* According to Mornet, Rousseau could have read this story in either Plutarch
or Montesquieu; the tyrant’s motive in having the man executed was that if
he dreamed of stabbing his master at night, he must have thought of it during
the day. Saint-Preux’s dream, as it will be seen, assumes considerable importance
in Part Six. [Translator’s note]
LETTER XII - TO MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 371

erous friend! Would that I had a mind full of your counsel, just as
I have a heart full of your kindness! Never had I such great need of
prudence, and never did the fear of failing in it present such an ob-
stacle to the little that I have. Ah! Where is your paternal advice?
Where is your instruction, your insight? What will become of me
without you? At this critical moment, I should give all the hope-
ful prospects of my life to have you here for one week.
I was mistaken in all my conjectures. I have done nothing but
blunder until now. I was afraid only of the Marquise. After having
seen her, struck by her beauty and her manner, I endeavored to
detach the noble soul of her former lover completely from her.
Charmed with the thought of bringing him back to the side where I
saw no danger, I spoke to him of Laura with the esteem and the ad-
miration with which she had inspired me. In weakening his strong-
est attachment by praising the other, I hoped eventually to destroy
both.
He gave in to my project at first; he even overdid his obligingness,
and wishing perhaps to punish my importunities by alarming me
somewhat, he pretended even more ardor for Laura than he be-
lieved he had. What shall I tell you now? His ardor is ever the same,
but he no longer pretends. His heart, exhausted by so many trials,
is in a state of weakness which she has taken advantage of. It would
be difficult for anyone to pretend love for her for a long time; con-
sider the case of the very object of the passion which consumes
her. In truth, one cannot look at this unfortunate woman without
being affected by her manner and by her face; an expression of
languor and despondency, which does not leave her charming face,
makes her features more interesting by extinguishing their vivacity,
and as the sun’s rays dart through the clouds, her eyes shoot forth
more piercing looks when dulled by sorrow. Her very humiliation
has all the grace of modesty. Seeing her, one pities her; listening to
her, one respects her. In short, I must say in my friend’s justification
that I know only two men in the world who may remain near her
without danger.
He is going astray, oh Wolmar! I see it, I feel it, I confess it to
you with bitterness in my heart. I shudder to think to what point
his extravagant passion can make him forget what he is and
what his dutyis to himself. I tremble to think that his fearless love
of virtue, which makes him scorn public opinion, may carry him to
the other extremity and make him defy even the sacred laws of
decency and honor. Edward Bomston to make such a marriage! . . .
You understand! ... Under the eyes of his friend! ... Who
 BIL LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

permits it! . . . Who allows it! And who owes him everything!
. . » He will have to tear out my heart with his hand before thus
profaning it.
Yet, what shall I do? How shall I act? You know his violent na-
ture. One gains nothing over him through argument, and for some
time his conversation has not been the sort to calm my fears. I first
pretended not to understand him. I reasoned indirectly in general
maxims; in his turn he pretends not to understand me. If I try to
touch him a little more to the quick, he answers sententiously and
thinks he has refuted me. If I am insistent, he flies into a passion;
he assumes a tone that a friend should not hear and to which friend-
ship cannot answer. You may believe that on this occasion I
am neither fearful nor timid; when we are doing our duty, we are
only too tempted to be proud, but pride has nothing to do with this.
It is a matter of succeeding, and unsuccessful attempts can be in-
jurious to the best means. I hardly dare enter into any argument
with him, for every day I feel the truth of the warning you gave me:
that he is a better reasoner than I and that I must not irritate him
by dispute.
He seems, besides, a little cool toward me. One would say that I
make him uneasy. Even with such superiority in all respects, how
diminished the man is by one moment of weakness! The great,
the sublime Edward fears his friend, his creature, his pupil! He
even seems, from a few words he let fall on the choice of his res-
idence if he does not marry, to wish to test my faithfulness by Op-
posing it to my interest. He knows very well that I neither must nor
wish to leave him. Oh Wolmar, I shall do my duty and shall follow
my benefactor everywhere. If I were cowardly and base, what would
I gain by my perfidy? Would Julie and her worthy husband confide
their children to a traitor?
You have often said to me that inferior passions never are
diverted and always go on to their end, but that one can fortify
great ones against themselves. I thought I could make use of this
maxim in this affair. Indeed, compassion, scorn for prejudices,
habit—all which determines Edward in this case is of that inferior
nature and becomes almost unassailable. However, true love is
inseparable from generosity, and through generosity one always
has some hold over him. I have tried this indirect way, and I do not
despair of success. This means seems cruel; I have undertaken it
only with repugnance. Yet, everything well considered, I think I am
rendering a service to Laura herself. What would she do in the place
to which she can rise by marriage except to expose her former ig-
LETTER XIII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 373

nominy? But how great she can be by remaining what she is! If I
know this extraordinary girl well, her constitution will make her
enjoy her sacrifice more than the rank which she must refuse.
If this resource fails me, there is one left through the government,
on account of their difference of religion, but this means must not
be employed except as a last resort and for want of all others. What-
ever happens, I will not spare any means to prevent an unworthy
and dishonorable alliance. Oh respectable Wolmar! I am desirous
of your esteem to the last moment of my life. Whatever Edward may
write you, whatever you might understand him to say, remember
that, at no matter what cost, as long as my heart will beat in
my breast, Laura Pisana will never be Lady Bomston.
If you approve my measures, this letter needs no answer. If I am
mistaken, instruct me. But hurry, for there is not a moment to lose.
I shall have my letter addressed by an unfamiliar hand. Do the same
in answering me. After having considered what I must do, burn my
letter and forget what it contains. This is the first and the only secret
that I have ever in my life had to hide from the two cousins. If I
dared rely more on my understanding, you yourself should never
know anything of it.*

4 LETTER XIII *&

From Madame de Wolmar to Madame d’Orbe

THE COURIER from Italy seemed only to wait for the moment of your
departure for his own arrival, as if to punish you for having de-
ferred it only for him. It was not I who made this pretty discovery;
it was my husband who noticed that, having had the horses put to
at eight o'clock, you delayed leaving until eleven, not out of love
for us but after having twenty times asked if it was ten, because that
ordinarily is the hour at which the mail comes by.
You are caught, poor cousin; you can no longer deny it. In spite
, the
*In order to understand this letter and the third one of Part Six completely
at first
reader would need to know the adventures of Lord Bomston, and I had
not resolve
decided to add them to this collection. Reconsidering it, I could
myself to spoil the simplicity of the story of the two lovers by the romance of his.
It is better to leave something for the reader to guess. [Rousseau]
 374 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

of Chaillot’s prediction, this Claire, so foolish, or rather so prudent,

could not be so to the end. Here you are in the same toils from
which you took so much trouble to extricate me, and you have not
been able to preserve for yourself the liberty which you restored to
me. Has my turn come to laugh, then? Dear friend, I should have
to have your charm and your graces to know how to laugh like you
and give to raillery itself the tender and affecting manner of kind-
ness. And then, what a difference between us! With what coun-
tenance should I laugh at a disorder of which I am the cause and
which you took upon yourself in order to free me from it? There is
no sentiment in your heart which does not offer mine some reason
for gratitude, and all, even to your weakness, is in you the effect of
your virtue. It is even this which consoles me and makes me cheer-
ful. I had to lament and weep for my faults, but I can laugh at
the
false modesty which makes you blush for an attachment as pure as
yourself,
Let us return to the courier from Italy, and leave moralizing for a
moment. Otherwise I should excessively misuse my former role of
preacher, for it is permissible to put one’s congregation to sleep
but not to put it out of patience. Well, then, what has this courier
brought which has been so long in arriving? Nothing but good news
of our friends and, moreover, a long letter for you. Ah good! I see
you already smiling and breathing once more; since the letter has
arrived, you will wait more patiently to know what it contains.
It may nevertheless be of value, even though it did not come
when expected, for it breathes such an air . . . but I wish to
tell
you news only, and surely what I was going to say is none.
With this letter came another from Lord Bomston for my hus-
band, with a great many compliments for us. This one contains
veritable news, which is so much the more unexpected as the first
was silent on the subject. Our friends were to leave the next day for
Naples, where his Lordship has some business, and from there they
will go to see Vesuvius. . . . Can you conceive, my dear, what this
sight has which is so attractive? Back in Rome, Claire, think,
imagine . . . Edward is on the point of marrying .. . not, thank
Heaven, that unworthy Marquise. He indicates, on the contrary,
that she is very ill. Who then? .. Laura, the charming Laura,
who ..... but yet... what a marriage! . . . Our friend has not
said a word about it. Immediately afterwards, they will all three set
out and come here to make their final arrangements. My husband
has not told me what those are, but he ever expects that
Saint-Preux
will stay with us. [73]
LETTER XII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 375

I must, therefore, give you my Opinion again on your pres-

ent state. Our teacher’s long absence has not changed your regard
for him. Your restored liberty and his return have given rise to a
new opportunity from which love has profited. A new sentiment
was not kindled in your heart; the one hidden there for such a long
time has only been put more at ease. Proud of daring to confess it
to yourself, you made haste to tell me of it. This confession seemed
almost necessary to you to make the sentiment completely innocent;
by becoming a crime for your cousin, it ceased being one for your-
self, and perhaps you have yielded to the disorder which you con-
tended against for so many years only to cure me of it more effec-
tively.
I have felt all this, my dear; I was little alarmed at an inclination
which served me as a safeguard, and for which you did not have to
reproach yourself. The winter we spent all together in the bosom
of peace and friendship gave me even more confidence, as I saw that,
far from losing any of your gaiety, you seemed to have augmented
it. I saw you tender, eager, attentive, but frank in your affectionate-
ness, ingenuous in your raillery, open and guileless in everything,
and in your most lively coquetry, the joy of innocence atoned for
everything.
Since our conversation in the Elysium, I have not been so con-
tent with you. I find you sad and pensive. You take pleasure in
being alone as much as with your friend; you have not changed
your language but you have your tone. Your pleasantries are more
cautious; you no longer dare speak of him so often; one would say
that you are always afraid he is listening to you, and one sees by
your disquietude that you wait for news of him rather than ask
for it.
I am afraid, good cousin, that you are not wholly aware of your
disorder, and that the shaft may have pierced deep sooner than you
seemed to fear. Believe me, probe your disordered heart well. Ask
yourself, I repeat, if however prudent you may be, you can remain
for long with the one you love without risk, and if the confidence
which ruined me is completely harmless for you. You are both free;
that is precisely what makes opportunities more suspicious. In a
virtuous heart, there is no frailty which gives way to remorse, and
I agree with you that one is always sufficiently strong against crime.
But alas! Who can keep himself from being weak? However, con-
sider the consequences; think of the effects of shame. We must
honor ourselves in order to be honored. How can we deserve
another’s respect without showing any for ourselves, and where in
 376 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

the road of vice shall she stop herself who fearlessly makes the first
step? That is what I should say to women of society for whom mo-
rality and religion are nothing, and who have only society’s opinion
of you. But you, virtuous and Christian woman, you who see your
duty and respect it, you who know and follow rules other than pub-
lic opinion, your foremost honor is that which your conscience gives
you, and it is that which it is important to preserve.
Do you wish to know what your mistake in this whole affair is?
It is, I say again to you, to be ashamed of an honest sentiment which
you have only to declare to make innocent.* But with all your
cheerful humor, no one is so timid as you. You jest in order to show
your courage, and I see your poor heart trembling all the while. In
the matter of love, at which you pretend to laugh, you act like those
children who sing in the dark when they are afraid. Oh dear friend!
Remember you have said a thousand times that it is false shame
which leads to true, and virtue puts to shame only what is evil. Is
love in itself a crime? Is it not the purest as well as the sweetest nat-
ural inclination? Does it not have a good and praiseworthy end?
Does it not disdain base and groveling hearts? Does it not inspire
great and strong hearts? Does it not ennoble all their sentiments?
Does it not double their being? Does it not raise them above them-
selves? Ah! If to be honest and prudent, one has to be insensible to
love’s shafts, tell me who are left for virtue on this earth? The out-
casts of nature and the vilest of mortals. [74]
Ah cousin! What delight for me to unite forever two hearts so
well formed for each other, who have been joined for so long in my
own. Let them be even more closely joined in it, if possible. Let
there be but one heart for you and for me. Yes, my Claire, you will
still serve your friend by indulging your love, and I shall be surer
of my own sentiments when I shall no longer be able to distinguish
between him and you.
But if, in spite of my reasons, this project does not suit you, my
Opinion is that no matter what the cost we send away that
dangerous man, always formidable for one of us or the other, for
whatever happens, the education of our children is even less im-
portant to us than the virtue of their mothers. I leave you time to
reflect on all this during your journey. We shall speak of it after
your return.

* Why does the editor leave in the continual repetitions with which this letter
is full, as well as a great many others? For a very simple reason. It is that he is
not at all worried that these letters may please those who will pose this question.
[Rousseau]
LETTER XIII - MADAME DE WOLMAR TO MADAME D’ORBE 377

I decided to send you this letter directly to Geneva, because you

were to spend only one night in Lausanne, and it should no longer
find you there. Be sure to send me some detailed accounts of the
little republic. On the basis of all the good things that are said about
that charming city, I should think you fortunate to see it, if I could
set store by pleasures one buys at the expense of his friends. I have
never loved luxuries, and I hate them now for having taken you
from me for I know not how many years.* My dear, neither of us
went to Geneva to do our wedding shopping; but however deserv-
ing your brother may be, I doubt that your sister-in-law may be
more happy with her Flanders lace and her Indian cloth than we
with our simplicity. Yet, I charge you, in spite of my malice, to en-
gage him to come celebrate the wedding at Clarens. My father is
writing to yours, and my husband to the bride’s mother in order
to invite them. Here are the letters. Deliver them, and enforce the
invitations with your new influence. This is all I can do so that the
festivities may not take place without me, for I declare to you that
no matter what the cost I will not leave my family. Adieu cousin.
Send me one word of news of you, and let me know at least when I
am to expect you. This is the second day since your departure, and
no more can I live so long without you. [75]

* Claire is gone from Clarens only for a few weeks. Julie’s hyperbolic calculation
of the time is apparently meant to show her impatience for her cousin’s return.
[Translator’s note]
ea Seu w Colas

IMTOUCSA) SAS Ste

AE Sele he 2 rei
a) nae? se Toi re . maya
“Uiobinw < ode qe ‘ +eah rie
sayeth (oat at {
aT : Don wheat - >i. ’

ore dpa: pate 3 nhs tte ita! beeerd,

insite epiieindks :

Te Pa BEET -|
a Supa ee
ea tie ae
: tad gem Mba &
ior a oe
: ee pr ahentet eee, a +Per"
lat PERE PFO Cw ao

Cove ae eae ee
soit
ASog: leelegalathe ele a
"oe yw Sa 7
Nee ——

Ry iet5 el S ~e
- 7 °

~
ee a J rr & «

i or) eS 7
- os
: ar;
a .
a - 4 ry . rs

Fe :
.*-°
4 - — 7
—. Le-ae Se
ae a ~~

*
 afte
PART VI

ole
 Fi

oe _
de ay 7?) ae
ae be
f tee

oa?

ot

Py
Une
a

Co
ho
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mi .
-—

ai
3 7
 & LETTER I *

From Madame d’Orbe to Madame de Wolmar

BEFORE LEAVING Lausanne, I must write you a note to inform you

of my arrival here, not, however, so joyous as I hoped. I looked for-
ward with pleasure to this little journey which has tempted you
yourself so often; but by refusing to come along, you have made it
almost troublesome for me, for how could I find it otherwise? If it
is tedious, I shall have the tedium to myself, and if it is agreeable, I
shall regret being pleased without you. If I have nothing to say
against your reasons for staying home, do you think, therefore, that
I am satisfied with them? In truth, cousin, you are very much mis-
taken, and what angers me more is that I do not even have the right
to be angry. Tell me, wicked one, are you not ashamed to be always
in the right with your friend and to oppose what gives her pleasure
without even allowing her the right to complain? If you had slipped
away from your husband, your house, and your little urchins for a
week, all would have gone to wrack and ruin, wouldn’t it?
You would have committed a rash act, to be sure, but I should have
liked you a hundred times better for it, whereas by troubling your-
self to be perfect, you will be good for nothing now and will have to
seek your company among the angels.
In spite of past disagreements, I could not find myself again
among my family without tender feelings; I have been received
with pleasure, or at least with many kisses. I will wait to give you an
account of my brother until I have made his acquaintance. With a
rather fine form, he has the rigid manner of the country he comes
from. He is serious and cold; I find him even a little arrogant. I am
greatly apprehensive for his wife that, instead of being as good a
husband as ours, he may lord it above her a little.
 382 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

My father was so delighted to see me that in order to embrace me

he left off the account of the great battle that the French have just
won in Flanders, as if to verify our friend’s prediction.* What good
fortune that he was not there! Can you imagine the brave Edward
watching the English flee, or fleeing himself? . . . Never, never!
. . . He would sooner have been killed a hundred times.
But with respect to our friends, it has been a long time since they
have written us. Was not yesterday, I believe, the day for the post-
man? If you receive any letters, I hope you will not forget the in-
terest which I take in them.
Adieu, cousin, I must leave. I shall expect news from you
at Geneva, where we hope to arrive tomorrow for dinner. As for the
rest, I warn you that somehow or other the wedding will not take
place without you and that if you will not come to Lausanne, I shall
come with all my family to pillage Clarens and drink all the wine
you have made.

“% LETTER II &

From Madame d’Orbe to Madame de Wolmar

ADMIRABLY DONE, my preaching sister! But you rely a little too

much, it seems to me, on the salutary effect of your sermons, With-
out considering whether they once put your friend to sleep, I assure
you that they do not bore your cousin now, and the one which I
re-
ceived last night, far from prompting me to sleep, kept me awake
the whole night long. Disregard the remarks of your husband, my
argus, if he sees this letter! But I shall see to that, for I protest to
you that you had better burn your fingers than show it to him.
If I were going to recapitulate you point by point, I would en-
croach upon your privilege; it is better to follow my inclina-
tion. And then, in order to affect a more modest manner and not
give you too much advantage over me, I will not speak first of our
travellers and of the mail from Italy. If I should happen to do so, as

* An allusion to the French victory at Fontenoy, May 11, 1745. Lord Bomston
predicted an English defeat in Flanders in Part Five, Letter IV. [Translator
’s
note]
LETTER II + MADAME D’ORBE TO MADAME DE WOLMAR 383

a last shift I shall only have to rewrite my letter and put

the begin-
ning at the end. Let us speak of the would-be Lady Bomsto
n.
I am indignant at that very title. I should not pardon Saint-
Preux
more for letting that girl assume it than Edward for conferring
it on
her and you for recognizing it. Julie de Wolmar to receive Laura
Pisana in her house! To tolerate her near her! Ah, my
child, what
are you thinking? What cruel kindness would that be? Do you
not
know that the air which surrounds you is fatal to infamy? Would
the poor unfortunate dare mingle her breath with yours? Would
she dare respire in your presence? There she would be more ill at
ease than a creature possessed, touched by relics. Your looks alone
would make her sink into the earth; your shadow alone would
kill
her. [76]
Let us not lose ourselves in idle conjectures. If you had not been
Julie, if your friend had not been your lover, I do not know what
business he might have had with you; I do not know what I myself
should have had to do with him. All I am sure of is that if his evil
influence had reached me first, it had been all over with his poor
head, for whether I am a fool or not, I should infallibly have made
him one. But what does it matter what I might have been? Let us
speak of what I am. The first thing that I did was to become
attached to you. From our earliest years, my heart has been
absorbed in yours. As tender and sensitive as I might have been, I
was of myself incapable of loving or feeling. All my sentiments came
to me from you; you alone took the place of everything for me, and
I lived only to be your friend. That is what Chaillot saw; that
is upon what she judged me. Answer me, cousin, was she mis-
taken? [77]
Yes, dear friend, I am as tender and sensitive as you, but I am so
in another way. My affections are more lively; yours are more pen-
etrating. Perhaps with senses more animated, I am less able to di-
rect them, and that very gaiety which costs so many others their
innocence has always preserved mine. This has not always been easy,
I must confess. How can one remain a widow at my age and not
feel sometimes that the daytime is only half of life? But as you have
said and as you prove, prudence is a great means of being prudent;
for with all your serious countenance, I do not believe your case
very different from mine. Therefore, sprightliness comes to my aid
and does more, perhaps, for virtue than serious lessons of reason
might have done. How many times in the stillness of the night, in
which we cannot escape ourselves, have I driven away importunate
thoughts by thinking of pleasantries for the next day! How many
384 LA NOUVELLE HELOIJSE

times have I been saved from the dangers of a private conversation

by an extravagant fancy? You see, my dear, when one is frail, there
is always a time when gaiety becomes serious, but this moment will
not come for me. That is what I feel, and with what I presume to
answer you.
After that, I readily confirm to you all I said in the Elysium about
the attachment that I have felt growing and about all the happiness
I have enjoyed this winter. I indulged myself with the best of hearts
in the charm of being in the company of the one I love, feeling that
I should desire nothing more. If that winter might have lasted for-
ever, I should never have wished for another. My gaiety came from
contentment and not from artifice. I turned the pleasure of busying
myself ceaselessly with him into frolic. I felt that by contenting my-
self with laughter, I was not paving the way for tears. [78]
If we are not master of our sentiments, at least we are of our con-
duct. Without doubt, I could ask Heaven for a heart more at ease,
but would that I could offer to the Sovereign Judge at my last day
a life as innocent as that which I have spent this winter! In truth, I
have nothing with which to reproach myself concerning the only
man who could make me guilty. My dear, it has not been the same
since he has left. Being accustomed to think of him while he is gone,
I think of him every instant of the day, and I find the thought of
him more dangerous than his person. If he is far away, I am in
love; if he is close by, I am only frolicsome. Let him return, and I
shall fear him no more.
To my regret over his departure is joined my uneasiness over his
dream. If you have laid all this to love’s account, you are mistaken;
friendship has had a part in my sadness. At our friends’ departure,
I saw you pale and altered; every moment I expected to see you fall-
ing ill. I am not credulous, but fearful. I am convinced that a dream
does not bring about an event, but I am always afraid that the event
may take place after it. That accursed dream hardly allowed me a
tranquil night, until I saw you recovered and resuming your color.
Could I have suspected the effect his anxiety would have had on
me, unwittingly I would certainly have given the whole world that
he might have shown himself when he returned from Villeneuve
like a madman. At last my vain fear vanished, with your suspicious
looks. Your health, your appetite have done more than your pleas-
antries, and I saw you argue so well at the table against my fears
that they were completely dissipated. ‘To make it better, he is re-
turning, and I am delighted in every respect. His return does not
alarm me, it reassures me; and as soon as we shall see him, I shall
LETTER III - LORD BOMSTON TO MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 385

no longer fear for your life or for my tranquillity. Cousin, be care-

ful of my friend for me, and do not be uneasy about yours. I answer
for her as long as she will have you. . . . But, good heavens, what
then is the matter with me that still makes me uneasy and rends my
heart without my knowing why? Ah, my child, must there be a day
when one of us two will survive the other? Woe to her on whom so
cruel a fate is to fall! She will remain behind, little suited for living
or lifeless before her death.
Could you tell me for what reason I am exhausting myself in fool-
ish lamentations? I don’t care a fig for these terrors which are not in
accord with common sense! Instead of speaking of death, let
us speak of marriage; that will be more pleasant. A long time ago
that idea came to your husband, and if he had never spoken to me
of it, perhaps it would not have come to me at all. Since then, I have
thought of it sometimes, and always with disdain. Fie! Marriage
makes a young widow look old. If I had children from a second bed,
I should think myself the grandmother of those from the first. [79]
That is my whole confession, cousin. I have made it to set you
right, and not to contradict you. It remains for me to declare to you
my resolution in this matter. At present, you know my heart as
well as and perhaps better than I myself. My honor and my happi-
ness are dear to you as much as to myself, and in the present tran-
quillity of your passions, reason will make you see better than
I where I am to find both of them. Charge yourself, therefore, with
my conduct; I submit its entire direction to you. Let us return to
our natural state and exchange occupations; we will both be the
better for it. You govern; I shall be docile. It is for you to decide
what I am to do, for me to do what you will decide. Hold my heart
secure in yours; what use have inseparables for two of them? [80]

+ LETTER III *

From Lord Bomston to Monsieur de Wolmar

NO, DEAR WOLMAR, you are not at all mistaken; the young man is
dependable, but I am hardly so, and I have well nigh paid dear for
the experience which has convinced me of it. Without him, I would
386 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

have myself succumbed to the test which I had destined for

him. You know that, in order to satisfy his gratitude and divert his
heart with new objects, I pretended to give this journey more im-
portance than it really had. To gratify some former inclinations, to
indulge in an old habit one more time—this, along with that
which concerned Saint-Preux, was all that induced me to under-
take it. To bid a final adieu to the attachments of my youth, to
bring back a friend perfectly cured of his—that was all the fruit I
hoped to gather from it.
I informed you that the dream at Villeneuve had left me uneasy.
That dream made me suspicious of the transports of joy in which
he indulged himself when I announced to him that he was to be
tutor to your children and to spend his life with you. The better to
observe the effusion of his heart, I had first removed the obstacles
to it; by declaring to him that I would establish myself with you, I
prevented any further objections for his friendship to make to me.
But some new resolutions made me change my story.
He had not seen the Marquise three times before we were in
agreement on that score. Unfortunately for her, she wanted to win
him over and thus showed him only her artifices. Wretched woman!
What great qualities, but without virtue! What love, but without
honor! Her ardent and sincere love affected me, engaged me,
nourished my own; but it became tinged with the blackness of her
soul and ended by horrifying me. She was no longer a concern of
mine.
When he had seen Laura, when he knew her heart, her beauty,
her spirit and her unparalleled attachment, only too well suited to
make me happy, I resolved to make use of her to acquire a perfect
knowledge of Saint-Preux’s state of mind.
“If I marry Laura,” I said to him, “my plan is not to take her to
London where someone could recognize her, but to a place where
people are capable of honoring virtue in whomever it is found. You
will fulfill your duty as tutor, and we will not cease living together.
If I do not marry her, it is time for me to retire to a contemplative
life. You know my house in Oxfordshire, and you will choose be-
tween educating the children of one of your friends or ac-
companying the other into his retirement.”
He answered me as I could have expected, but I wished to observe
him by his conduct. For, if in order to live at Clarens, he promoted
a marriage which he ought to have opposed, or if in this delicate
situation he preferred the honor of his friend to his own happiness
—in either case the experiment was made and his heart was judged.
LETTER III * LORD BOMSTON TO MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 387

Ifirst found him such as I desired him: firmly set against the
project I pretended to have and armed with all the arguments
which were to prevent me from marrying Laura. I was more
sensible of these arguments than he, but I was seeing her con-
stantly, and I saw her afflicted and tender. My heart, completely
disengaged from the Marquise, settled upon Laura through these
regular visits. Laura’s sentiments doubled the affection she had in-
spired in me. I was ashamed to sacrifice the esteem which I owed
her merit to the public opinion which I scorned. Did I have no ob-
ligations also to the hope I had given her, if not by my words at least
by my attentions? Though I had promised nothing, to do nothing
was to deceive her. This deceit was cruel. Finally, joining a kind of
duty to my inclination and thinking more of my happiness than my
reputation, I ended by reconciling my passion to my reason. I re-
solved to carry the pretended scheme as far as it could go, and
even to its very execution, if I could not otherwise extricate myself
from it without injustice.
However, I felt my uneasiness increasing on account of the young
man, seeing that he was not fulfilling with all his might the role
with which he had charged himself. He opposed my plans, he dis-
approved of the bond I wished to form, but he fought weakly
against my growing inclination and praised Laura so much to me
that, in appearing to turn me from marrying her, he was increasing
my penchant for her. This inconsistency alarmed me. I did not find
him so resolute as he should have been. He seemed not to dare op-
pose my sentiment directly; he gave way against my resistance, he
feared to make me angry, and, to my way of thinking, in doing his
duty he did not have the intrepidity which it inspires in those who
love it.
Other observations increased my distrust. I knew that he was see-
ing Laura secretly; I noticed signs of mutual understanding between
them. The hope of marrying the one whom she had loved so much
did not make her seem happy. I read the same tenderness in her
looks, indeed, but this tenderness was no longer mingled with joy
at my approach; sadness perpetually dominated it. Often in the
sweetest effusions of her heart, I saw her cast a side-glance at the
young man, and this glance was followed by a few tears which she
tried to hide from me. Finally, the mystery was carried to the point
that I was alarmed by it. Consider my surprise. What could I think?
Had I cherished but a serpent in my bosom? How far did I dare
carry my suspicions and return those he once unjustly entertained
of me? Frail and wretched creatures that we are, it is we who create
 388 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

our own misfortunes! Why do we complain that the wicked torment

us when even the good torment each other?
All this only ended by making me determined. Although I was ig-
norant of the basis of this intrigue, I saw that Laura’s heart was ever
the same, and this proof of her affection only endeared her more to
me. I proposed to have an explanation from her before the conclu-
sion of their intrigue, but I wanted to wait until the last moment in
order to get all the light I possibly could beforehand. As for him,
I was resolved to do justice to myself, to do justice to him—in short,
to get to the truth of the matter before either saying anything or tak-
ing measures in regard to him, foreseeing an infallible rupture and
being unwilling to place a good character and twenty years’ hon-
orable reputation into the balance with a few suspicions.
The Marquise was not ignorant of anything which took place be-
tween us. She had spies in Laura’s convent and succeeded in finding
out that it was a question of marriage. She needed nothing more
to rekindle her rage; she wrote me menacing letters. She went fur-
ther, but since it was not the first time and since we were on our
guard, her attempts were vain. The only pleasure I had on this oc-
casion was to see that Saint-Preux was capable of risking his life and
did not hesitate to expose it in order to save that of a friend.
Overcome by her fits of rage, the Marquise fell ill and was soon
past recovery. ‘That was the end of her torments and of her crimes.*
I could not learn of her condition without being afflicted by it. I
sent Doctor Eswin to her; Saint-Preux was with her on my behalf.
She wished to see neither of them; she did not even wish to hear
about me and heaped horrible imprecations upon me each time she
heard my name mentioned. I was grieved for her and felt my
wounds ready to reopen; reason was again victorious, but I should
have been the basest of men to think of marriage while a woman
who was so dear to me was at her extremity. Saint-Preux, fearing
that at last I might not be able to resist the desire to see her, pro-
posed the journey to Naples, and I consented to it.
Two days after our arrival, I saw him enter my room with a res-
olute and serious countenance, holding a letter in his hand.
“The Marquise is dead!” I cried out.
“Would to God!” he replied coldly. “It were better to live
no more than to exist only to do evil, but it is not of her that I have
come to speak to you. Hear me.”

* In a suppressed letter by his Lordship, one sees that he thought that the souls
of the wicked were annihilated at their death. [Rousseau]
4
LETTER III - LORD BOMSTON TO MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 389

I waited in silence.
“My Lord,” he said, “in giving me the sacred name of friend, you
taught me how to bear it. I have acquitted myself of the charge with
which you have entrusted me, and seeing you ready to forget your-
self, I have had to make you remember who you are. You have been
able to break one bond only by entering into another. Both
were unworthy of you. If it had been a matter only of an un-
equal marriage, I should have said to you, ‘Remember that you are
an English Peer and either renounce all claims to public honors or
respect opinion’ But a scandalous marriage! ... You!...
Choose your wife more carefully. It is not enough that she be vir-
tuous; she must be without taint. . . . A wife for Edward Bomston
is not easy to find. See what I have done.”
Then he gave me the letter. It was from Laura. I did not open it
without emotion.
“Love has been victorious,” she wrote. “You have wished to
marry me; I am content. Your friend has prescribed my duty to me;
I am doing it without regret. In dishonoring you, I should have
lived unhappily; in leaving you your reputation, it seems to me I
am sharing it. The sacrifice of all my happiness to so cruel a duty
makes me forget the shame of my youth. Adieu. From this instant
forever.
I cease to be within your power, or within my own. Adieu
Oh Edward! Do not bring despair into my seclusion; hear my last
wish. Do not give to any other the place that I have not been able
of
to fill. There was one heart in the world for you, and it was that
Laura.”

silence to
Distress kept me from speaking. He profited from my
the veil in the con-
tell me that after my departure she had taken
Rome, informed she
vent where she was lodging; that the court of
to prevent me
was going to marry a Lutheran, had given orders
he had taken
from seeing her again. And he confessed openly that
all these measures with her consent.
vigorously as I
“I did not oppose your plans,” he continued, “‘as
and wishing to
might have, fearing your return to the Marquise
ained for Laura.
distract that former passion with the one you entert
necess ary, I first appea led to reason; but
Seeing you go further than
too just cause to dis-
having through my own faults acquired but
finding in it all the generosity
trust it, I sounded Laura’s heart, and,
tage of it to bring
that is inseparable from true love, I took advan
The assurance of being
her to the sacrifice which she has just made.
 390 of LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

no longer the object of your contempt restored her courage and

made her more worthy of your esteem. She has done her duty; you
must do yours.”
Then approaching ecstatically, he said to me, clasping me against
his breast, “My friend, I read in our common destiny sent us by
Heaven those laws which are prescribed for us both. The reign of
love is past; let that of friendship begin. My heart now hears only
its sacred voice; it knows no other tie than that which binds me to
you. Select the place you wish to live. Clarens, Oxford, London,
Paris, or Rome—all suit me, provided that we live there together.
Go where you will, seek seclusion wherever you may, I will follow
you forever. I make a solemn vow before the living God: I
will never leave you until death.”
I was affected. The zeal and the emotion of this ardent young man
shone in his eyes. I forgot the Marquise and Laura. What in the
world can one regret when he has preserved such a friend? I saw
also, by the resolution he unhesitatingly took in this case, that he
was truly cured of his former passion and that you have not wasted
the pains you took with him. At last I dare believe, by the vow that
he made with such good heart to remain attached to me, that he
was controlled more by virtue than by his former inclinations. I can
send him back to you, then, in full confidence. Yes, my dear Wol-
mar, he is worthy of educating youth, and what is more, of living in
your house.
A few days after, I learned of the death of the Marquise. She had
been dead for me for a long time; this loss no longer affected me.
Up to this point, I had considered marriage as a debt that everyone
contracts at his birth with his race and with his country, and I had
resolved to marry, less through inclination than through duty. I
changed my mind. The obligation to marry is not universal; for
each man it depends upon the rank into which fate has placed him.
For the common people, for the artisans, for villagers, for really
useful men, celibacy is wrong; for the classes which govern the
others, to which everyone ceaselessly aspires and which are always
only too full, celibacy is permissible and even proper. Otherwise,
the State may only depopulate itself by the increase of sub-
jects which are its dead weight. Men shall always have enough mas-
ters, and England will lack laborers sooner than peers.
I believe myself free, therefore, and master of myself in the rank
in which Heaven caused me to be born. At my age, I can no longer
repair the losses my heart has sustained. I shall devote it to culti-
yating that which I have left and cannot put it back together better
LETTER IV - RESPONSE 391

than at Clarens. I accept all your offers, therefore, under the condi-
tions that my fortune must add to yours, so that it may not be
useless to me. After the vow that Saint-Preux has made, I no
longer have any other means of keeping him with you than by
dwelling there myself, and if ever he is troublesome, that will be
sufficient reason for me to leave. The only problem left for me
concerns my journeys to England, for although I no longer have any
interest in Parliament, while I am a member that is enough for me
to do my duty until the last. But I have a faithful colleague and
friend, whom I can empower to answer for me in current affairs.
On the occasions when I shall think it my duty to be there my-
self, our pupil will be able to accompany me, even with his own
pupils when they are a little bigger and you wish to confide them
to us. These journeys could only be useful to them and will not be
long enough to afflict their mother a great deal.
I have not shown this letter to Saint-Preux. Do not show all of it
to your ladies. It is fitting that the purpose of this experiment be
ever known only by you and me. However, hide from them nothing
of that which does honor to my worthy friend, even at my expense.
Adieu, my dear Wolmar. I am sending you the designs for my
pavilion. Amend them, change them as you please, but have the
work begun now if possible. I wanted to remove the music room,
for all my enjoyments are lost and I no longer care about anything.
But I am leaving it in at the request of Saint-Preux, who proposed
to exercise your children in that room. You will also receive a few
books for the enlargement of your library. But what will you find
that is new in the books? Oh Wolmar, you need only to learn to
read the book of nature in order to be the wisest of mortals.

&@ LETTER IV *

Response

I HAVE BEEN WAITING, my dear Bomston, for the denouement of

your lengthy adventures. It would indeed have seemed strange if,
having resisted your inclinations so long, you had waited to give
way to them only until a friend had come to sustain you; although,
 392 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

to tell the truth, one may often be more weak while leaning on an-
other than when he relies only upon himself. Yet, I confess that I
was alarmed by your last letter in which you announced your mar-
riage to Laura as absolutely determined. I doubted the event de-
spite your assurance, and if my expectation had been deceived, I
should never have seen Saint-Preux again. You have both done
what I had hoped from each of you, and you have only too well
justified the opinion I had entertained of you, so that I shall be de-
lighted to see you settle here, according to our first arrangements.
Come, uncommon men, increase and share the happiness of this
house. Whatever may be the hopes of those who believe in a future
life, I like to spend this one in their company, and I feel that you
all are more agreeable to me such as you are than if you had the
misfortune to think as I do.
Besides, you know what I said to you on Saint-Preux’s account
at your departure. I had no need to pass judgment upon him after
your experiment, for my own was completed, and I believe I know
him as much as one man can know another. I have, moreover, more
than one reason to rely upon his heart and am much more sure of
him than he is himself. Although he may seem to wish to imitate
you in renouncing marriage, perhaps you will find cause here to
persuade him to change his mind. I shall explain further after your
return. [81]
Our little cousin has been in Geneva for eight or ten days with
her family, to shop and for other business. We expect her return
daily. I have told my wife all that she ought to know of your letter.
We had learned through Monsieur Miol that the marriage was
broken off, but she was ignorant of the part that Saint-Preux had
in that affair. Be sure that she learns only with the greatest pleasure
all that he has done to merit your generosity and justify your es-
teem. I have shown her the designs for your pavilion. She finds
them in very good taste; nevertheless we shall make some changes
in them that the location necessitates which will make your lodging
more comfortable. You will surely approve of them. We are waiting
for Claire’s opinion before touching them, for you know that we
can do nothing without her. Meanwhile, I have already put every-
one to work, and I hope that before winter the masonry will be well
along.
Thank you for your books, but I no longer read those which I
understand, and it is too late to learn to read those I do not under-
stand. Yet I am less ignorant than you accuse me of being. The true
4
 LETTER VI + FROM MADAME DE WOLMAR 393

book of nature is for me the heart of man, and the proof that I
know how to read it is in my friendship for you. [82]

4 LETTER VI &

From Madame de Wolmar

WHAT A DELIGHTFUL SENTIMENT I am experiencing as I begin this

letter! This is the first time in my life that I have been able to
write you without fear and without shame. I pride myself in the
friendship which unites us, for it is the result of an unparalleled
victory. People stifle great passions; rarely do they purify them. To
forget a dear one when honor requires it is the effort of an honor-
able and ordinary soul; but after having been what we were, to be
what we are today—that is a real triumph of virtue. The reason
for ceasing to love can be a vicious one; that which changes a tender
love into a friendship no less vigorous could not be equivocal.
Should we ever have made this progress by our own strength
alone? Never, never my good friend. To attempt it even would
have been rash. To avoid each other was for us the first article of
our duty that nothing should have permitted us to violate. We
might always have esteemed each other, no doubt, but we would
have ceased to see each other, to write each other. We would have
striven to think no longer of each other, and the greatest honor
we could have reciprocally shown each other would have been to
break off all communication between us.
See, instead of that, what is our present situation. Is there in the
world one more pleasant, and do we not enjoy a thousand times a
day the reward of the struggles it cost us? To see each other, to
love each other, to be sensible of our love, to be satisfied with it, to
spend our life together in fraternal familiarity and peaceful in-
nocence, to attend to each other, to think of each other without re-
morse, to speak of each other without shame, and to acquire honor
in our own eyes from the very attachment with which we re-
proached ourselves for so long—that is the point we have reached.
Oh my friend! What a career of honor we have already traversed!
Let us presume to boast of it in order to keep ourselves in it and
finish it as we have begun it.
394 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

To whom do we owe such extraordinary good fortune? You

know. I have seen your sensitive heart overflowing at the gen-
erosity of the best of men, pleased and impressed by it. And how
could his goodness be a burden to us, to you and to me? It does not
impose new obligations upon us; it only makes those more dear to
us which already were so sacred. The only way of showing gratitude
for his good deeds is to be worthy of them, for all their value for
him is in their success. Therefore, let us consider that in the effu-
sion of our zeal. With our virtues, let us recompense those of our
benefactor—that is all that we owe him. He has done enough for
us and for himself if he has restored us to ourselves. Apart or to-
gether, living or dead, we shall everywhere make manifest the
proof of our love which will never be a dishonor for any of the
three. [83]
According to what Lord Bomston informs us, I am expecting you
both toward the end of next month. You will not recognize your
rooms, but in the changes that have been made, you will recognize
the attentions and the love of a good friend who has taken
pleasure in decorating it. You will also find in it a small assortment
of books which she has chosen for you in Geneva, better and in
better taste than L’Adone,* although that one may also be there
as a joke. Yet, be discreet, for as she does not wish you to know that
all this is her doing, I hasten to tell you before she forbids me to
speak of it to you.
Adieu, my friend. Our excursion to the castle of Chillon, which
we used to make all together, will take place tomorrow without
you. Although it may be made with pleasure, it will not be the
better for that. The bailiff has invited us with our children, which
has left me no excuse, but I know not why I wish we had already
returned.f

* By Marino. In a deleted portion, Saint-Preux has scoffed at this work. [Transla-

tor’s note]
+ The castle of Chillon, former seat of the bailiffs of Vevey, is situated on the
lake upon a rock cliff which forms a peninsula, around which I have seen people
sound the lake at more than 150 fathoms, which is almost 800 feet, without find-
ing bottom. In this rock cliff, caves and cellars have been scooped beneath the
level of the water, which is let in when desired through watercocks. It was there
that for six years Francois Bonnivard, Prior of Saint Victor, was held prisoner, a
man of unusual merit, with integrity and courage proof against everything, a
friend of liberty although a Savoyard and tolerant although a priest. However, in
the year when these last letters seem to have been written, it had been a long
time since the bailiffs of Vevey had dwelled in the castle of Chillon. One may
suppose, if he wishes, that the one there at that time had gone there to spend
a few days. [Rousseau]
4
 LETTER IX - FROM FANCHON ANET 395

t LETTER IX &

From Fanchon Anet

OH MONSIEUR! Oh my benefactor! What am I ordere

d to inform you?
-- + Madame! ...my poor mistress... oh
God! I can see
your fright already . . . but you cannot see our
desolation. . . . I
have not a moment to lose; I must tell VOUrs on. elemust rry <r
I wish I had already told you all. . . . Ah, what will
become of you
when you know of our misfortune?
The whole family went yesterday to dine at Chillon.
The Baron,
who was going to Savoy to spend a few days at the castle
of Blonay,
left after dinner. The company went with him for
a little way;
then they took a walk along the embankment. Madam
e d’Orbe
and the bailiff’s wife walked ahead with Monsieur.
Madame was
following, holding Henriette with one hand and Marcel
lin with
the other. I was behind with the elder boy. The bailiff,
who had
stopped to speak to someone, came to rejoin the group and
offered
his arm to Madame. To take it, she sent Marcellin back to me.
He
ran to me; I hurried to him. Running, the child tripped
, his foot
slipped, and he fell into the water. I uttered a piercing cry; Madam
e
turned round, saw her son fall, flew back like an arrow, and
threw herself in after him. . . .
Ah! Wretch, that I did not do as much! Would that I had not
stood there! . . . Alas! I held back the elder son who wanted to
jump after his mother . . . she was struggling, clasping the other
in her arms . . . we had neither servants nor a boat there; it took
time to get them out . . the child is recovered, but the mother
. the shock, the fall, the condition she was in . . . who knows
better than I the dangers of such a fall! . . . She remained un-
conscious for a very long time. Hardly had she revived when she
asked for her son . . . with what transports of joy she embraced
him! I thought she was saved, but her spirits lasted only a moment.
She wished to be brought back here; on the way she fainted several
times. From some orders she has given me, I see that she does not
believe she will recover. I am too unhappy; she will not recover.
Madame d’Orbe is more altered than she. Everyone is in distress
396 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

... 1am the calmest of all the household . . . why should I be

uneasy? . . . My good mistress! Ah, if I lose you, I shall have no
need for anyone. . . . Oh my dear Monsieur, may the good Lord
sustain you in this ordeal... Adieu... the doctor is leaving
her room. I shall hurry to meet him . . . if he gives us some hope,
I shall inform you. If Isay nothing . . .

to LETTER X *&

Begun by Madame d’Orbe and Finished

by Monsieur de Wolmar

IT Is OVER. Imprudent, unfortunate man, unhappy dreamer! You

shall never see her again .. . the veil ... Julie is no more...

She has written to you. Wait for her letter. Respect her last
wishes. There are great obligations left for you to fulfill on this
earth.

+ LETTER XI *&

From Monsieur de Wolmar

I HAVE ALLOWED your first grief to pass in silence; my letter might

only have aggravated it. You were no more in a condition to bear
these details than I was to write of them. Now perhaps they will
be agreeable to both of us. I have only memories left of her; my
heart takes pleasure in recalling them! You now have only tears to
show to my heart; you shall have the consolation of shedding them
into it for her. This pleasure of unfortunates is refused me in my
misery; Iam more unhappy than you.
It is not of her illness, it is of her that I wish to speak. Other
mothers could throw themselves into the water after their children.
LETTER XI - FROM MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 397

Accidents, fever, death are natural; it is the ordinary lot of mortals.

But the employment of her last moments, her conversation, her
sentiments, her spirit—all that belongs only to Julie. She did not
live like any other; no one, to my knowledge, died like her. That is
what I alone was witness to and what you will learn only from me.
You know that the fright, the distress, the fall, and the extrac-
tion from the water left her in a lengthy faint from which she re-
covered completely only at home. Upon arriving, she asked again
for her son. He came, and no sooner did she see him walk in and
respond to her caresses than she became completely tranquil and
consented to take a little rest. Her sleep was brief, and since the
doctor had not yet arrived, while waiting for him she had us sit
around her bed—Fanchon, her cousin, and me. She spoke to us of
her children, of the diligent care in regard to them that the plan
of education she had undertaken required, and of the danger of
neglecting them for a moment. Without giving great importance
to her illness, she predicted that it would keep her for some time
from discharging her part of those very duties and exhorted us all
to divide that part among us.
She dwelled upon all her projects, on yours, on the means most
apt to make them succeed, on the observations she had made as to
what could promote or injure them—in short, upon all which
might enable us to take her place as mother as long as she would be
forced to suspend her duties. These were, I thought, a great many
precautions for someone who thought herself prevented for only
a few days from so dear an occupation, but what completely fright-
ened me was to see that in regard to Henriette she entered into
even greater detail. As to her sons, she had limited herself to that
which concerned their early childhood, as if she was shifting the
responsibility of their youth to someone else; for the daughter she
extended her remarks to her coming of age, and sensible that on
this point nothing could take the place of the reflections that her
own experience had caused her to make, she exposed to us briefly
but with force and clarity the plan of education which she had
formulated for her, setting out for her mother the most lively rea-
sons and the most affecting exhortations to engage her to follow it.
All these ideas on the education of young people and on the
duties of mothers, mixed with frequent reflections upon her own
life, could not fail to inject some warmth into the conversation. I
saw that it was becoming too animated. Claire held one of her
cousin’s hands and pressed it every moment to her lips, sobbing at
every reply. Fanchon was no calmer, and as for Julie, I observed that
 398 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

tears were also swelling in her eyes but that she did not dare weep,
for fear of alarming us all the more. Forthwith I said to my-
self: she sees herself dead. The only hope left for me was that her
fears might be deceiving her about her condition and representing
the danger greater than it perhaps was. Unhappily I knew her too
well to rely a great deal on this deception. Several times I tried
to calm her; I begged her again not to disturb herself to no purpose
by conversations which we could resume at our leisure.
“Ah,” she said, “nothing disturbs women so much as silence!
And since I feel a little feverish, it is so much the better to employ
the chattering that it causes for useful matters than to talk unrea-
sonable nonsense.”
The doctor’s arrival caused a confusion in the house impossible
to describe. All the servants, one after the other with anxious looks
and folded arms, were waiting at the door of the room for his pro-
nouncement on the condition of their mistress, as if their own des-
tiny were depending on it. This sight threw poor Claire into a dis-
traction which made me fear for her reason. It was necessary to send
them away under different pretexts to take from her sight that cause
for alarm. The doctor vaguely gave a little hope but in a tone suited
to take it from me. Nor did Julie say what she was thinking; the
presence of her cousin restrained her. When the doctor left, I fol-
lowed him; Claire wanted to follow too, but Julie held her back and
gave me a sign with her eyes that I understood. I hastened to warn
the doctor that if there were any danger, it was necessary to conceal
it from Madame d’Orbe as carefully as and even more carefully than
from the sick woman, lest despair might finally discompose her and
make her unable to attend to her friend. He declared that there was
indeed some danger, but that, twenty-four hours being hardly
elapsed since the accident, he needed more time to form a certain
opinion; that the next night would determine the course of the ill-
ness; and that he could not make a pronouncement until the third
day. Fanchon alone was a witness to these words, and after having
prevailed upon her, not without difficulty, to control herself, we
agreed upon what would be told Madame d’Orbe and the rest of the
household.
Toward the evening Julie compelled her cousin, who had spent
the preceding night with her and who wanted to spend the next one
there too, to go get a few hours rest. During this time, the
sick woman, knowing that she was to be bled in the foot and that
the doctor was making the arrangements, sent for him and spoke
these words:
 LETTER XI - FROM MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 399

“Monsieur du Bosson, when you think you must deceive a timid

patient about his case, this is a humanitarian precaution of which
I approve. But it is cruel to lavish on all alike these superfluous and
disagreeable treatments of which many have no need. Prescribe for
me all that you consider truly useful to me, and I will obey
promptly. As for treatments which are only for the imagination,
spare me those. It is my body and not my mind which is suffering,
and I have no fear of ending my life but of spending the remainder
of it poorly. The last moments of life are too precious for it to be
permissible to make ill use of them. If you cannot prolong mine, at
least do not cut it short by taking from me the use of the few mo-
ments which nature has left me. The fewer I have, the more you
must respect them. Make me recover, or leave me; I shall surely be
able to die alone.”
That is how that woman, so timid and so gentle in ordinary mat-
ters, could assume a resolute and serious tone upon important oc-
casions.
The night was cruel and decisive. Suffocation, oppression, faint-
ing fits, her skin dry and burning. A high fever, during which we
frequently heard her call aloud for Marcellin, as if to get hold of
him again, and sometimes pronounce another name as well,
formerly much repeated on a similar occasion. The next day the
doctor declared to me straightforwardly that he did not think she
had three days to live.[84] I hurriedly ran to Julie’s bed. I dismissed
everyone, and I sat down, you can guess with what a countenance!
With her I did not take precautions necessary for frail spirits. I said
nothing, but she looked at me and understood me immediately.
“Do you think you bring me news?” she said, holding out
her hand to me. “No, my friend, I am well aware of it. Death presses
upon me. We must take leave of each other.”’
Then she held a long conversation with me of which some day I
shall have to give you an account and during which she wrote her
testament into my heart. If I had known hers any less, her last will
would have sufficed to acquaint me with it. She asked me if her con-
dition was known in the household. I told her that apprehension
reigned in it, but that they knew nothing positive and that du Bos-
son had confided in me alone. She implored me to keep the secret
carefully for the rest of the day.
“Claire,” she added, “will never bear this blow except from my
hand. She will die of it if it comes to her from another. I shall des-
tine tonight to this sad task. It is for that reason above all that I
wished to have the doctor’s opinion, in order not to subject that un-
400 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

happy woman unnecessarily, on the basis of my feeling alone, to so

cruel a blow. Make sure that she may not suspect anything before-
hand, or you run the risk of remaining without a friend and of
leaving your children without a mother.”
She spoke to me of her father. I confessed to have sent him an ex-
press letter, but I kept myself from adding that the messenger, in-
stead of contenting himself with simply delivering my letter as I had
ordered him, hastened to speak so loudly that my old friend, believ-
ing his daughter drowned, fell with fright upon the staircase and did
himself an injury which kept him at Blonay in his bed. The hope
of seeing her father again affected her sensibly, and the certainty
that this hope was vain was not the least of the anguish which I had
to stifle.
The fever of the preceding night had made her extremely weak.
This long conversation had not helped to strengthen her; in her
prostrate state, she tried to get a little rest during the day. I learned
only two days later that she had not spent it entirely in sleep-
ing.[85]
Madame d’Orbe had sat up the two preceding nights; she had
not removed her clothing for three days. Julie proposed that she go
to bed; she wished to do nothing of the kind.
“Well, then,” said Julie, “let a little bed be made for her in my
room, unless,” she added reflectively, “she wishes to share mine.
What say you, cousin? My sickness is not contagious; you have no
objection to me. Sleep in my bed.”
The proposal was accepted. As for me, I was sent away, and truly
I had need of rest.
I rose early. Uneasy about what had taken place during the night,
at the first sound I heard I entered the room. On the basis of the
state Madame d’Orbe was in the night before, I expected I would
find her in despair and witness her furors. Upon entering, I saw her
seated in an armchair, wan and pale, ghastly rather, her eyes glazed
and almost dead, but gentle, calm, speaking little and doing all that
was told her without responding. As for Julie, she seemed less weak
than the night before. Her voice was more steady, her gestures more
animated. She seemed to have assumed her cousin's vivacity. I knew
readily by her color that this visible improvement was the effect of
the fever, but I also saw shining in her eyes an indescribable secret
joy which contributed to it, the cause of which I did not discern.
The doctor nonetheless confirmed his opinion of the night before;
the sick woman nonetheless continued to think the same as he, and
there remained no more hope for me.
LETTER XI + FROM MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 401

Having been obliged to leave her for a little while, I no-

ticed upon returning that her rooms had been carefully ordered.
Neatness and elegance reigned there. She had had bowls of flowers
put on her mantel; her curtains were half-opened and fastened back.
The bedroom had been aired, and a pleasant scent was apparent.
No one might have ever believed himself in a sick room. She had
dressed with the same care. Grace and taste showed themselves even
in her dishabille. All this gave her the air of a society woman who
is expecting company rather than that of a country woman who is
awaiting her last hour. She saw my surprise, she smiled at it, and
reading my thoughts she was about to answer me when the chil-
dren were brought in. Then they alone were her concern, and you
may judge whether, sensing herself ready to part from them, her
caresses were cool and moderate! I even observed that she turned
more often and with embraces even more ardent to the one who had
cost her her life, as if he had become more dear to her at that price.
All these embraces, these sighs, these raptures were mysteries for
those poor children. They loved her tenderly, but it was with the
tenderness of their age. They understood nothing of her condition,
of the repetition of her caresses, of her regrets over seeing them no
more. They saw us sorrowful, and they wept. They knew nothing
more. Although we teach children the word death, they have no idea
of it; they fear it neither for themselves nor for others. They fear
suffering but not dying. When grief tore some lament from their
mother, they pierced the air with their cries; when we spoke to them
of losing her, one would have thought them stupid. Only Hen-
riette, a little older and of a sex in which sentiment and understand-
ing develop earlier, seemed disturbed and alarmed to see her little
mama in bed, she who was always seen stirring about before her
children were up.[86]
After having opened her heart with her children, after having
taken each of them aside, especially Henriette, whom she kept
apart very long and whom we heard lamenting and sobbing as she
received her kisses, she called them all three, gave them her blessing,
and said to them, pointing to Madame d’Orbe, “Go my children, go
kneel at the feet of your mother. That is the one God gives you. He
has deprived you of nothing.”
At once they ran to her, threw themselves at her knees, took her
hands, and called her their good mama, their second mother. Claire
bent over them, but, clasping them in her arms, she tried in vain
to speak; she could only sob, she could not utter a single word, she
 402 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

was choked up. Judge whether Julie was moved! This scene was
beginning to become too animated; I stopped it.[87]
Then, sitting beside her and looking at her attentively, I said to
her, “Julie, my dear Julie, you have broken my heart. Alas, you have
waited quite late to do so!
“Yes,” I continued, seeing that she was looking at me with sur-
prise, “I have seen through you. You are rejoicing in death. You are
glad to leave me. Remember your husband’s conduct since we have
lived together. Have I deserved so cruel a sentiment from your”
Immediately she took my hands, and in that tone which was ca-
pable of piercing my soul, she said, “Who, I? I wish to leave you? Is
it thus that you read my heart? Have you so soon forgotten our con-
versation of yesterday?”
“Yet,” I replied, “you are dying content . . . I have seen it...
Dseentse eye
“Stop,” she said. “It is true, I am dying content, but I am content
to die as I have lived, worthy of being your wife. Do not ask me
more. I shall tell you nothing more. But here,” she continued, draw-
ing a paper from under her pillow, “here is what will finally
clarify this mystery for you.”
‘This paper was a letter, and I saw that it was addressed to you.
“I am giving it to you open,” she added, handing it to me, “so that
after having read it you may decide to send it or suppress it, accord-
ing as you find it most befitting your wisdom and my honor. I beg
you to read it only when I am dead, and I am so sure of what you
will do at my request that I do not even want you to promise me.”
This letter, my dear Saint-Preux, is the one you will find enclosed.
I can hardly realize that she who wrote it is dead; I can scarcely be-
lieve that she exists no more.[88]
“I feel weak,” she said. “I foresee that this conversation could be
the last we shall have together. In the name of our union, in the
name of our dear children who are the pledge of it, be unjust to-
ward your wife no more. I, to rejoice in leaving you! You who have
lived only to make me happy and virtuous. You, of all men the one
who was best for me, the only, perhaps, with whom I could es-
tablish a good household and become a deserving woman! Ah, be-
lieve me, if I set a value on life, it would be so that I might spend it
with you!”
These words, pronounced with tenderness, affected me to
the point where, frequently carrying to my lips her hands which I
was holding in mine, I felt them moistened by my tears. I did not
LETTER XI - FROM MONSIEUR DE WOLMAR 403

believe my eyes capable of shedding any. Those were the first since
my birth; those will be the last until my death. After having wept
for Julie, I can no longer weep for anything.
This day was fatiguing for her.[89] During the night I heard
some movements which did not alarm me, but toward morning
when all was calm, a muffled sound struck my ear. I listened;
I thought I distinguished some moans. I hurried, I entered
the room, I opened the curtain . . . Saint-Preux! .. . my dear
Saint-Preux! . . . I saw the two friends motionless, locked in each
other’s arms, the one in a faint and the other expiring. I cried out,
I wanted to hold back or to receive her last breath, and I rushed
forward. She was no more.
Worshipper of God, Julie was no more. . . . I cannot tell you
what took place for a few hours. I am unaware of what happened
to myself. Recovered from my first shock, I asked after Madame
d’Orbe. I learned that it had been necessary to carry her into her
room, and even to confine her in it, for she would return each mo-
ment to Julie’s, throw herself upon the body, warm it with her own,
strive to revive it, importune it, press herself against it in a kind of
frenzy, call it aloud a thousand passionate names, and feed her de-
spair with all these useless efforts.
Upon entering, I found her completely out of her mind, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, knowing no one, rolling about the room
wringing her hands and gnawing upon the legs of chairs, mumbling
some wild words in a hollow voice, then at intervals uttering some
sharp cries which made one shudder. At the foot of her bed, her
chambermaid, dismayed, terrified, motionless, not daring to breathe,
was trying to hide from her and trembling in every limb. Indeed,
the convulsions with which Claire was seized were somewhat fright-
ening. I made a sign to the chambermaid to withdraw, for I feared
that a single ill-timed word of consolation might throw her into a
furor.
I did not try to speak to her; she would not have listened to me
nor even heard. But after a little while, seeing her spent with
fatigue, I picked her up and carried her to a chair. I sat near her,
holding her hands; I ordered that the children be brought and had
them come stand around her. Unfortunately, the first one she per-
ceived was precisely the innocent cause of her friend’s death. The
sight of him made her shudder. I saw her countenance change, her
eyes turn aside with a kind of horror, and her bent arms stiffen in
order to push him away. I drew the child to me.
404 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

“Unlucky boy!” I said to him. “For having been too precious to

the one, you have become hateful to the other. Their hearts were
not the same in everything.”
These words irritated her violently and brought forth some very
cutting ones for me. Nevertheless, they made an impression. She
took the child in her arms and forced herself to caress him. It was in
vain; she set him down almost immediately. She even continues to
look upon him with less pleasure than upon the other, and I
am very glad that it was not that one for whom her daughter was
intended.[90]
The most pitiable task is to have still to console the others. That
is what remains for me to do with respect to my father-in-law, Ma-
dame d’Orbe, friends, relatives, neighbors, and my own servants. The
others are nothing, but my old friend, and Madame d’Orbe! You
must see the affliction of the latter in order to judge what she adds
to my own. Far from being grateful to me for my solicitude, she re-
proaches me for it. My attentions irritate her; the coldness of my
sorrow aggravates her. She needs bitter grief similar to her own, and
in her cruel sorrow she would like to see everyone in despair. What
is most desolating is that we can depend upon nothing with her, for
what comforts her one moment vexes her a moment later. All that
she does, all that she says approaches madness and would be ridicu-
lous to cold, unfeeling people. I have a great deal to put up with, but
I shall never become discouraged. By serving her whom Julie loved,
I believe I am honoring her memory better than with tears.[91]
This, my dear Saint-Preux, is about our present situation. Since
the Baron’s return, Claire goes up to him every morning, either
while I am there or when I leave. They spend an hour or two to-
gether, and the care she takes of him somewhat facilitates that
which we take of her. Moreover, she is beginning to become
more diligent in regard to the children. One of the three has been
ill, precisely the one whom she loves least. This incident has made
her realize that she still has something to lose and has restored her
zeal in her duties. With all that, she is not yet at the point of mere
sorrow. Her tears do not yet flow. She waits for you in order to shed
them. It is for you to dry them. You must understand me. Think of
Julie’s last counsel; it was first suggested by me, and I think it more
useful and prudent than ever. Come rejoin all which remains of her.
Her father, her friend, her husband, her children—everyone waits
for you, everyone wants you back. You are needed by everyone. In
short, without further explanation, come to share and cure my sor-
tows; I shall perhaps be more obligated to you than to anyone else.
LETTER XII + FROM JULIE 405

4 LETTER XII &

From Julie

(This letter was enclosed in the preceding.)

WE MUST give up our projects. All is changed, my good friend. Let
us bear this change without a murmur; it comes from a Being more
wise than we. We dreamed of rejoining each other. That reunion
was not good. It is Heaven’s blessing to have prevented it, thereby,
without a doubt, preventing misfortune.
I have for a long time deluded myself. This delusion was advan-
tageous to me; it vanishes the moment I no longer need it. You had
thought me cured of my love for you, and I thought I was too. Let
us give thanks to the One who made that delusion last as long as it
was useful. Who knows whether, seeing that I was so close to the
abyss, I might not have lost my head? Yes, I tried in vain to stifle
the first sentiment which inspired me; it is concentrated in my heart.
It reawakens at the moment when it is no longer to be feared; it sus-
tains me while my strength is leaving me; it revives me while I am
dying. My friend, I am making this confession without shame. This
sentiment, nourished despite myself, was involuntary; it has cost my
innocence nothing. Everything which was dependent upon my will
was devoted to my duty. If my heart, which was not dependent
upon it, was devoted to you, that was my torment and not my crime.
I have done what I ought to have done; my virtue remains unblem-
ished, and my love has remained without remorse.
I dare pride myself in the past, but who might have been able to
answer for my future? One day more, perhaps, and I might be
guilty! What danger might there be in a whole life spent with you?
What risks I have run unknowingly! To what greater risks I was go-
ing to be exposed! Without a doubt, I felt for myself the fears that I
thought I was feeling for you. Every trial has been made, but trials
could be too often repeated. Have I not lived long enough for hap-
piness and for virtue? What advantage was left for me to de-
rive from life? By depriving me of it, Heaven no longer deprives
me of anything regrettable and instead protects my honor. My
friend, I am leaving at a favorable moment. Satisfied with you and
with myself, I am leaving joyfully, and this departure is in no way
cruel. After so many sacrifices, I consider as little the one left for me
to make. It is only to die once more.
 406 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

I foresee your grief; I feel it. You remain behind, to be pitied,

I
know it well. And the awareness of your sorrow is the greatest af-
fliction I carry off with me. But see also what consolations I am leav-
ing you! See how the duties you are to discharge for her who was
dear to you put you under an obligation to preserve yourself for
her! It remains for you to serve her in the better part of herself. You
are losing of Julie only that which you have for a long time lost.
The best of her remains for you. Come, rejoin her family. Let her
heart dwell among you. Let all those she loved gather together to
give her a new existence. Your duties, your pleasures,
your friend-
ship—all will be her work. The bond of your union formed by her
will give her new life; she will expire only when the last
one of all
is dead.
Remember that you have left another Julie, and do not forget
what you owe to her. Each of you is going to lose half of his life;
join together in order to preserve each other. The only way left
for
you both to survive me is by serving my family and my children
.
Would that I could invent still stronger bonds in order to unite all
who are dear to me! How dear you ought to be to each other!
How
this thought must strengthen your mutual attachment! Your former
objections against this engagement are going to be new reasons
for
entering into it. How will you ever be able to speak of me
without
melting into tenderness together? No, Claire and Julie will
be so
united in your thoughts that it will no longer be possible
for your
heart to separate them. Hers will give you back all that yours
has
felt for her friend; she will be its confidante and its object.
You will
be happy with the one who is left for you, without ceasing
to be
faithful to the one whom you have lost; and after so many
disap-
pointments and misfortunes, before the age of living and loving
is
past, you will have burned with a legitimate passion
and enjoyed
an innocent happiness.
It is in this chaste union that without distraction and withou
t fear
you will be able to busy yourselves with the duties I am
leaving you,
after which you will no longer be at a loss to account for
the good
you have done on this earth. You know that there exists
a man
worthy of the happiness to which he is incapable of aspirin
g. This
man is your liberator, the husband of the friend he restore
d to you.
Alone, without interest in life, without expecta
tion of the one which
follows it, without pleasure, without consolation,
without hope, he
will soon be the most unfortunate of mortals, You owe
him the same
pains he has taken with you, and you know the way
to make them
beneficial. Remember my preceding letter. Spend
your days with
LETTER XIII - FROM MADAME D’ORBE 407

him. May none of those who loved me forsake him. He has

restored
your taste for virtue; show him the purpose and the
value of it. Be a
Christian in order to induce him to be one too. Success is closer
than
you think. He has done his duty; I shall do mine; do yours.
God is
Just; my confidence will not deceive me.
I have but a word to say to you about my children. I know what
trouble their education is going to be for you, but I also am con-
vinced that these troubles will not be painful for you. In
the
fatiguing moments inseparable from this employment, say to your-
self that they are Julie’s children, and the moments will no longer
be tiresome for you. Monsieur de Wolmar will deliver to you the
observations I have made about your essay on education and on the
character of my two sons. These observations are only begun. I do
not give them to you as a rule; I submit them to your insight. Do
not make scholars of them; make benevolent and just men of them.
Speak to them sometimes of their mother . . . you know how dear
they were to her . . . tell Marcellin that it has not pained me to
die for him. Tell his brother that it was for him that I wished to
live. Tell their . . . I feel tired. I must finish this letter. In leaving
my children to you, I part from them with less pain. I think I thus
am staying with them.
Adieu, adieu, my sweet friend. . . . Alas! I am ending my life
as I began it. I have said too much, perhaps, in this moment when
the heart no longer hides anything. ... Ah, why should I be
afraid of expressing all that I feel? It is no longer I who speak to
you; I am already in the arms of death. When you see this letter,
the worms will be preying upon your lover’s features and upon her
heart, where your image will exist no more. But could my soul
exist without you? Without you, what happiness could I enjoy? No,
I do not leave you; I go to wait for you. The virtue which separated
us on earth will unite us in the eternal dwelling. I am dying in this
sweet hope, only too happy to purchase at the price of my life the
right of loving you forever without crime and of telling you so one
more time.

4 LETTER XIII *

From Madame d’Orbe

I LEARN that you are beginning to recover sufficiently so that we

may hope to see you here soon. You must strive, my friend, to over-
 408 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

come your weakness; you must try to come over the mountains be-
fore winter finally closes them to you. You will find in this country
the air which agrees with you; you will see here only grief and sor-
row, and perhaps our common affliction will be a solace for your
own. In order to be given vent, mine needs you. I alone can neither
weep, nor cry out, nor make myself understood. Wolmar under-
stands me but does not respond to me. The sorrow of the unhappy
father is buried within himself. He does not imagine one more
cruel; he causes it neither to be seen nor felt. Aged men no longer
give vent to their griefs. My children affect me but are incapable of
pitying me. I am alone amid everyone. In my stunned dejection, I
have no further communication with anyone. I have only enough
strength and life to feel the horrors of death. Oh come, you who
share my loss! Come share my griefs. Come feed my heart with your
sorrow. Come fill it with your tears. That is the only consolation
which I may hope for; that is the only pleasure left for me to en-
joy.
But before you arrive and I learn your opinion concerning a proj-
ect which I know has been mentioned to you, it is well that you
know mine first. I am ingenuous and frank; I will conceal nothing
from you. I have loved you, I confess. Perhaps I do yet; perhaps
I always shall. I do not know nor wish to know. It is suspected, I am
aware; I neither am angry nor care. But here is what I have to tell
you and what you must observe well. It is that a man who was loved
by Julie d’Etange and who could resolve to marry another woman
is in my eyes a merely unworthy and base creature whom I should
consider a disgrace to have as a friend; and as for me, I protest to
you that any man, whoever he may be, who will henceforward dare
speak to me of love will never speak again to me in his life.
Think of the duties which are awaiting you, of the obligations
which are imposed upon you, of her to whom you have promised
them. Her children are in their formative years and are growing;
her father is wasting insensibly. Her husband is uneasy and dis-
turbed. In vain he strives, but he cannot believe her annihilated.
His heart, in spite of himself, rebels against his empty reason. He
speaks of her, he speaks of it, and he sighs. I believe I can already
see the vows fulfilled that she has repeatedly made, and it is for you
to finish this great work. What motives to draw you both here! It
is indeed worthy of the generous Edward that our misfortunes have
not made him change his decision.
Come, then, dear and respectable friends. Come rejoin all which
remains of her. Let us gather together all who were dear to her. Let
LETTER XIII - FROM MADAME D’ORBE 409

her spirit inspire us. Let her heart unite all of ours. Let us live al-
ways under her regard. I like to believe that from the place where
she is dwelling, from the place of eternal peace, her soul, still loving
and sensitive, takes pleasure in returning among us, in finding her
friends again full of memories of her, in seeing them imitate her
virtues, in hearing herself honored by them, in seeing them kiss her
tomb and sigh while pronouncing her name. No, she has not for-
saken this place, which she made so delightful for us. It is still full
of her. I see her in every object; I perceive her at every step. At every
instant of the day I hear the accents of her voice. It is here that she
lived; it is here that her ashes repose . . . half her ashes. Twice a
week, as I go to the church . . . I look at . . . I look at the sad
and revered spot. . . . Beauty, there, then, is your last refuge! .. .
Confidence, friendship, virtues, pleasures, cheerful joys—the earth
has swallowed all. . . . I feel myself drawn along . . . I approach
trembling . . . I am afraid to tread on this sacred ground .. . I
think I feel it shake and tremble under my feet . . . I hear a plain-
tive voice murmuring! . . . Claire, oh my Claire, where are you?
What are you doing far from your friend? . . . Her tomb does not
contain her wholly . . . it awaits the remainder of its prey...
it will not wait for long.*

* After having reread this collection of letters, I believe I see why the story, as
weak as it is, is so agreeable to me and will be so, I think, to every well-disposed
reader. It is that at least this weak story is pure and not mixed with unpleasant-
ness; that it is not excited by baseness or by crimes, nor mixed with the disagree-
able sensations of hatred. I cannot conceive what pleasure one can take in imagin-
ing and describing the character of a scoundrel, in putting oneself in his place
while representing him, in lending him the most imposing brilliance. I greatly
pity the authors of so many tragedies full of horrors, who spend their lives in
making people act and speak whom one cannot hear nor see without suffering.
It seems to me that one ought to sigh to be condemned to such cruel work; those
who make an amusement of it must be indeed devoured by zeal for public useful-
ness. As for me, I sincerely admire their talent and their fine wit, but I thank
God for not having given them to me. [Rousseau]

END OF LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

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 t& APPENDIX &

Subjects of deleted portions, marked in the text by [1], [2], .. . ete.

[1] A method of study for Julie (five pages). Saint-Preux, dismissing all
ostentatious displays of erudition as artificial, recommends that a genuine
student of knowledge read very little but reflect a great deal on what he
has read, thus finding in himself rather than in books the source of wis-
dom, virtue, and good taste. Cf. Emile.

[2] Further description of the wild beauties of the mountains (one page).
[3] Continuation of the above (one-half page).
[4] A description of the peasants of the High Valais region (four pages).
Saint-Preux praises the sincerity, generosity, and hospitality of the Swiss
mountain people. He comments upon their spontaneous and gratuitous
kindness, their disdain of crass commerce, their simple and democratic
table manners, and their robust physiques. Cf. Letter to d’Alembert.
[5] A reference to Saint-Preux’s description of the women of the Valais
(one-third page).
[6] A comparison of French and Italian music (four pages). Saint-Preux
explains how harmony, the distinctive feature of French music, is an
artificial invention of civilization, contrary to all the natural laws of the
musical art. Italian music, on the other hand, understands well the im-
portance of melody, which is truly natural and expressive of the deepest
emotions of the passionate soul. Cf. Letter on French Music.
[7] A description of Julie’s lessons in Italian music (one page).
[8] An argument against dueling (seven pages). Julie recalls to Saint-Preux
a distinction he had once made between genuine and apparent honor and
insists that his fighting a duel with Lord Bomston would serve only the
latter. She argues further against dueling: the custom is barbarous and
 412 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

inhumane; the moral stain of killing a man in such a way is greater than
that of bearing his insult; honor resides within oneself, not in the opin-
ions of others, and the way to defend it is not by dueling but by living
an irreproachable life; a courageous man disdains dueling, and a good man
abhors it. Cf. Letter to d’Alembert.
[9] An attack on nobility (one page). Lord Bomston denies the claims of
the nobility to have done honor to Switzerland and insists to the Baron
d’Etange that none of his country’s true heroes has been an aristocrat. Cf.
Social Contract.
[10] An attack upon the evils of the social conventions which permit a
father to force a marriage partner upon his daughter (one page). Lord
Bomston insists that a father’s only duty is to advise his daughter about
the character of the man she has chosen.
[11] A comparison of the appearances and temperaments of Claire and
Julie (one-half page).
[12] Advice on happiness (three pages). Julie recalls to Saint-Preux the
examples of Socrates, Brutus, Regulus, and Cato and reminds him that
the only happiness in the world is found by the good man. She warns him
against imitating the evil examples to be found in society and of then
justifying his vice with the sophistic precepts of the world. Cf. Emile.
[13] An analysis of Saint-Preux’s love (one page). Julie insists that even
though Saint-Preux may be physically attracted by coquettish women, he
will never be able to efface her image from his heart.
[14] A discussion of the falseness of Parisian society (four pages). Saint-
Preux complains of the artificial terms of politeness one encounters in
society which mask real emotions (cf. Emile), of the superficial wisdom of
Parisian sages which is used only to justify society’s current prejudices
(cf. Discourse on the Arts and Sciences), and of the pressures of conformity
which force men to hide their true natures.

[15] A criticism of Saint-Preux’s comments on Parisian society (two pages).

Julie claims that Saint-Preux has not been in society long enough to re-
flect so profoundly on it and warns him against developing a superficial
style of expression.
[16] A brief reference to the above, in which Julie insists that Claire had
dictated the critical remarks (one-fourth page).

[17] Saint-Preux’s defense against Claire’s criticism (four pages). Saint-

Preux justifies his superficial style by maintaining that with it he
has
captured the tone of the fashionable Parisian society. He further insists
to Julie that he is not really attempting to observe the true character
of
the French. To do that he would have to travel to the provinces and ob-
serve the people of the small towns and villages. Cf. Letter to d’Alembe
rt.
APPENDIX 413

[18] Further comments on the difficulty of observing society (one page).

Saint-Preux gives up the idea of observing it truly either as a philosopher
or as a simple spectator.
[19] An observation of Parisian society (eight pages). Saint-Preux comments
on techniques of satire and ridicule among fashionable society (cf. Letter
to d'Alembert); on Parisian conversations, both frivolous and serious; on
the discussions he has heard about sentiment, the true meaning of which
has escaped the fashionable people of the world; on the conformity among
the affected Parisians; on the artificiality of the French theater (cf. Letter
to d’Alembert).
[20] A brief comment on the virtues of the French people (one-half page).
Julie cites especially Catinat and Fénelon as modern examples of virtue.
[21] A request from Julie to hear about the Parisian opera (one-fourth
page).
[22] A reference to a French work of literary criticism on Pope’s Epistles,
by M. de Crouzas (one-fourth page).
[23] A description of the physical features of Parisian women (one-half
Page).
[24] Further observations on Parisian women (14 pages). Saint-Preux com-
ments on the absurd dress of fashionable women, on their hair styles, on
their lack of modesty, on their harsh speech and excessively frank manner
of address, on the differences between them and Swiss women in their
preference for male company, on their fondness for the theater, on their
immoral liaisons, and on their scornful attitude toward love and marriage.
Saint-Preux then tells Julie of a party in the countryside to which he was
invited and at which he had the opportunity to observe several women
very closely. Here he began to revise his estimate of French women and
to see them as good and kind-hearted. But on the whole they are tyranni-
cal and all of society’s activities depend upon their tastes and whims. Cf.
Letter to d’Alembert.
[25] A letter to Claire on the Parisian opera (11 pages). Saint-Preux dis-
cusses the reputation of the Parisian opera for magnificence, a reputation
which he scorns as extravagant; he attacks the Royal Academy of Music
for having false tastes; he describes the physical appearance of the theater
and the disagreeable manner in which the performers sing and play French
music; and he concludes with a description of the ballets, which he con-
siders the best part of the opera. Cf. Letter on French Music.
[26] A letter to Julie in which Saint-Preux criticizes her portrait as not
being sufficiently accurate to convey her beauty (four pages).
[27] A reprimand to Saint-Preux (two pages). Julie reminds him that she
had warned him earlier not to take on the tone and style of a man of the
world.
 414 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

[28] Moral advice for Saint-Preux (one page). Julie suggests that, in order
to avoid a repetition of his offense, he try to anticipate the quality of his
remorse beforehand.
[29] Further moral advice (three pages). Commenting on how contact
with
the fashionable world has tended to make Saint-Preux flippant,
Julie ad-
vises him to frequent only the homes of grave and studious
people, to
neglect the aristocracy, to visit with the honest and respectable bourgeois
ie,
and even to continue his observations in the homes of the
poor.
[30] A postscript (one page). Julie reveals to Saint-Preux that
she has seen
his letters to Lord Bomston and compliments him on
his astute insights
into political matters.
[31] An analysis of love (two pages). Claire insists
to Saint-Preux that a
frustrated and unhappy love is preferable to an
extinguished love.
[32] A description of the last days of the life
of the Baroness d’Etange
(one page).
[33] Saint-Preux’s irrational lament over losing
Julie (one page).
[34] Continuation of the above (one page)
.
[35] A recapitulation of past events and
a description of Julie’s marriage
to Wolmar (28 pages). Julie reminds Saint
-Preux of all the passionate mo-
ments of the past six years but insists
to him that during the marriage
ceremony when she promised to be faithf
ul to her husband, the vow came
from her heart. Immediately afterward, she claims,
she felt herself cured
of her passion for Saint-Preux and
perfectly resolved to live as a chaste
wife. Telling Saint-Preux of her horro
r of adultery, she urges him to fol-
low her example in sacrificing his
love to virtue.
[36] Further advice to Julie to keep
her former affair secret fr om her hus-
band (one page).
[37] Further descri Ption of Wolm
ar’s character as a moderate man
page). (one

[38] A comment on the possibilit

y that passionate lovers may
supportable husbands (one page make in-
).
[39] A restatement of the arg
umen ts both for and against
Wolmar of her love affair (one Julie’s telling
page)
[40] Another statement of Juli
e's horror of adultery (one
again urges Saint-Preux to page). Julie once
subdue his love for her in the name of virtue.
[41] A reference to a 1736
publication in Latin by Joh
fourth page). Robeck argu annis Robeck (one-
es in favor of suicide.
[42] An argument in fayor
of suicide (nine pages). Sai
God permits men to take nt-Preux claims that
their lives for the following
4
reas ons: just as one
APPENDIX 415

may cut off a diseased limb to save the body, so may one destroy the body
to save the soul; it is no crime against God to wish to leave one’s mortal
life for immortality. Citing Socrates and numerous Romans who committed
suicide as examples of courageous men, Saint-Preux insists that to kill one-
self is not an immoral or a cowardly act. To be sure, there are responsi-
bilities toward others which one must not shirk, but once these are ful-
filled it is permissible to relieve oneself of life’s miseries; and when those
miseries are incurable, the only relief is through suicide. When God makes
one’s life so painful that death is desirable, then He is, in effect, inviting
that person to kill himself. The Bible, after all, contains no injunction
against that act.
[43] An argument against suicide (eight pages). Lord Bomston refutes
Saint-Preux’s arguments by insisting that God has put man on earth for
a purpose, namely, to do good. He advises Saint-Preux to examine his
conscience to see if he has done enough in his life to permit him to cut
it short. If a man suffers from incurable physical ills which deprive him
of his will and his reason, suicide is permissible, but as long as he has
these faculties, a man of honor must live out his life and devote it to
virtue, despite the personal suffering he experiences. Moreover, Saint-Preux
would cause his friends to suffer if he committed suicide, sufficient reason
in itself for abandoning the project. Finally, Lord Bomston dismisses
Saint-Preux’s examples: the noble Romans killed themselves not for per-
sonal reasons but in the cause of their country.
[44] Julie’s lament over growing old (one-half page).
[45] A statement of Claire’s love for Julie (one-half page).

[46] A recapitulation of past events in Claire’s life (four pages). Claire

discloses to Julie that she has talked much to Wolmar and she knows he
is confident of Julie’s virtue. She gives a résumé of her life with Monsieur
d’Orbe and expresses her aversion to a second marriage.

[47] A comparison of the characters of Claire and Julie (one page).

[48] A summary of the places visited and the trials undergone by Saint-
Preux on his world voyage (two and one-half pages).

[49] A further statement of Wolmar’s confidence in Julie (two pages).

[50] An analysis of Wolmar’s trust in Julie’s virtue (two pages). Claire

warns Julie that her husband, though he is confident of her virtue, might
be somewhat disturbed by the language she uses when she talks about
Saint-Preux.

[51] A comment on the naturally easy manners of Saint-Preux (one and

one-half pages). Claire compares his manners to those of the affected men
of Parisian society. Cf. Emile.
 416 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

[52] An anecdote concerning the child Henriette (one and one-half pages).
Claire tells of a conversation in which her daughter revealed her fondness
for Julie’s son.
[53] A statement of Saint-Preux’s intent to describe for Lord Bomston the
conduct and economy of the Wolmar household at Clarens (one-half page).
[54] A description of the conduct and economy of the Wolmar household
(32 pages). Saint-Preux tells Lord Bomston about the vineyards of Clarens
and Wolmar’s methods of cultivation; his fair treatment of his agricultural
workers; the way he and Julie select and train their domestic help; the
duties of the house servants and the €asy, natural way in which they live
together, as contrasted with the constrained manners in Parisian society
(cf. Letter to d’Alembert); Julie’s habit of spending Sunday evenings in
a social hour with her women domestics; Julie’s preferences in food and
drink; the games of the men servants; the social gatherings for
both the
men and the women where dancing is permitted, despite the proscriptio
n
of it by the Swiss Protestant church, because Julie feels that
such public
gatherings of both sexes are pleasurable and actually more innocent
and
more conducive to morality than private meetings (cf. Letter to
d’Alem-
bert); the contrast between the strife among the perfidious domestic
serv-
ants in Paris, a result of wicked habits contracted from their masters
and
mistresses, and the concord which reigns in the Wolmar household;
the
ways in which Julie and her husband set examples for their servants;
and
the just discipline to which the servants are subjected.
[55] Further description of the foliage in Julie’s Elysium
(one-half page).
[56] Further description of the water passages in Julie’s
garden (one-half
page).
[57] A comment on false tastes in gardens (five pages).
Wolmar ridicules
the artificiality of formal flower gardens. Flowers, he
argues, were made
to please the eye, not to be curiously arranged by
man. A man of true
taste does not try to improve on nature by making
it orderly; he simply
enjoys natural beauty. Saint-Preux then describes
Some gardens he has
seen in China and in England which would please
a man of Wolmar’s
tastes.
[58] A record of a brief conversation between Julie
and Saint-Preux over
the household routine (one page).
[59] Further details of Wolmar’s self-analysis (one-ha
lf page).
[60] A statement of Claire’s confidence in Julie’s
virtue (five pages). Claire
believes that Julie’s extreme circumspection
is harmful, that she ought to
have more self-confidence since all those aroun
d her have no fear for her
virtue. Claire knows and shares Julie’s horror
of adultery, but she feels
that Wolmar’s trust in his wife proves that
Julie is truly incapable of
committing that crime.
APPENDIX 417

[61] A comment on love and virtue (three pages). Wolmar indicates that
he is aware that Julie and Saint-Preux still love each other profoundly,
but he knows Julie’s virtue as a wife and intends, by throwing the two
we to force Saint-Preux to abandon completely his former image of
ulie.
[62] A description of the sights along the shores of the Lake of Geneva
(one page).
[63] An analysis of the character of Saint-Preux (one and one-half pages).
Reviewing the past twelve years, Lord Bomston maintains that Saint-Preux
has passed his youth, which he had dedicated to sentiment and experience;
now he is mature and must dedicate his life to reflection and thought.

[64] A statement on the usefulness of friends in helping one choose a

course of action (one-half page).

[65] A description of life with the Wolmars (37 pages). Saint-Preux praises
the harmony and happiness which reigns in the Wolmar household; com-
ments on the fortune of the Wolmars and their manner of using and
increasing it; explains Julie’s simple tastes in furniture and decoration;
describes Julie’s care for the people of the villages around Clarens, the
principles by which she dispenses her charity, the help she gives the vil-
lagers in developing their talents, and her attitudes toward beggars; com-
ments on the moderation Julie displays in her amusements; describes the
food and the dining habits of the household; describes Julie’s simple tastes
in clothes and her aversion to any ostentatious display of wealth; explains
Wolmar’s economic theories; describes the small economies of the house-
hold; describes Wolmar’s work among the peasants; tells of the affection
displayed among the members of the family and of the sentimental eve-
ning routine; and concludes with praise for Julie’s beauty, grace, and
virtue.

[66] A summary of the Wolmars’ ideas on education (35 pages). Saint-Preux

tells Lord Bomston of Julie’s calm and loving manner with her children
and of her mild and firm discipline. He then summarizes the Wolmars’
educational theories: one must remember first of all that children are not
rational beings; reason is acquired at a much later age. Therefore one
must be patient with children and not expect them to act like adults;
moreover, one should not try to teach them intellectual subjects before
they are ready. Each child has his unique genius and character. One must
not try to change or restrain it but to allow it to perfect itself, for all
human beings are originally good and all vices observable in human char-
acter come from the false forms society tries to impose on their natural
geniuses. Education, then, is a matter of allowing natural penchants to
develop fully. Instead of disciplining a child rigidly, one should allow
him freedom and provide him with examples of good conduct in an or-
derly, harmonious environment. However, one should not be over-indul-
 418 LA NOUVELLE HELOJSE

gent. Children should not be urged to read at an early age, for their
knowledge comes primarily from experience. Cf. Emile.
[67] A brief account of the war between the English and the French (one-
half page).
[68] An explanation of Julie’s natural religion (one page). Saint-Preux Te
ports further on the quality of Julie’s belief in and love of God, which
stem from her sentimental response to the immensity of the universe. Cf.
Emile.
[69] A comment on Wolmar’s atheism (two pages). Saint-Preux attacks the
open atheism to be found in papist countries (cf. Emile). Wolmar, how-
ever, for the sake of his wife and children, does not outwardly show his
lack of faith. He attends church and conforms to established religious
usage. Saint-Preux insists that Wolmar’s atheism does not spring from any
vice in his character but from the coldness of his heart.
[70] A reference to country games held in Claire’s honor (one-quarter
page).
[71] Saint-Preux’s lyrical praise of life in the country (two pages).
[72] A description of the activities of the grape harvest (six
pages). Saint-
Preux tells Lord Bomston of the work, of the gaiety which
accompanies
it, and of the pleasurable musical gatherings during leisure
moments.
[73] A comment on Lord Bomston’s love affairs and on
Claire’s attitude
toward love and marriage (five pages). Julie expresses her
fears and doubts
over Lord Bomston’s decision and then, analyzing Claire’s
character, urges
her to consider a second marriage.

[74] A suggestion that Claire and Saint-Preux marry

(one and one-half
pages).

[75] An anecdote told by Julie concerning Claire’s child,

and a letter from
Henriette to her mother begging Claire to return
to Clarens soon (one
and one-half pages).
[76] Further assertions that Laura would be unsuitable as a
wife to Lord
Bomston (one page).
[77] A résumé of Claire’s sentiments of the past
twelve years in regard to
Saint-Preux (two pages).
[78] Claire’s confession of her growing fondne
ss for Saint-Preux (one and
one-half pages).
[79] Further arguments against a second marria
ge for Claire (two pages),
Claire insists first that the memory of her first
husband prevents her from
marrying again; she also admits that she is not
sure that Saint-Preux really
is fond of her in the way that would make
their marriage feasible.
APPENDIX 419

[80] Claire’s acknowledgment of her letters from Italy and from Clarens
and her promise to write Julie a long letter from Geneva (one and one-
half pages).

[81] An argument against celibacy (one-half page). Wolmar insists that

men have a duty to propagate the race.

[82] A letter from Claire on the character of the citizens of Geneva (eight
pages). Claire praises the Genevans for their smoothly functioning repub-
lican government and for their openness, generosity, good sense and in-
sight. But she criticizes their love of money and their insufficient pride in
their former simplicity and long-standing liberty. She discusses the Gene-
vans’ love for and skill in conversation, their pronunciation, the learning
displayed by both men and women, their dress and manners, the harmony
of their domestic life, and their courage. Cf. Letter to d’Alembert.

[83] Correspondence between Julie and Saint-Preux on matters of virtue

and morality (45 pages). Julie insists that a wise and virtuous soul is a
pure one (cf. Emile) and is the source of one’s morality. She reminds
Saint-Preux of the times in the past when he was tempted to act immorally
and warns him that eternal vigilance is necessary. When he comes to live
at Clarens, he will find temptation all around him. Subtly she suggests
to him that his wisest course would be to marry Claire. She asks him to
examine his conscience and pray to God for guidance rather than turn,
like a philosopher, to general laws and merely human judgment for rules
to live by (cf. Emile). Saint-Preux replies by insisting that Julie has noth-
ing to fear, for both of them are changed persons and both are incapable
of immoral acts. He assures her that he now loves only her virtues, not
her person. He confesses that he has great affection for Claire, but of a
totally different kind from that which he felt for Julie; he knows he can-
not marry Claire, because she would know his heart too well to believe it
could ever be totally hers, and because he has no desire to supplant
Monsieur d’Orbe in her heart. He claims that he is happy simply living
near her and enjoying her company; he wants no further union. Aware
of Claire’s growing love for him, he knows too that once having been
Julie’s lover he can never be another's. Saint-Preux then warns Julie
against thinking too much about temptations and immorality, especially
since he is convinced of his victory over his passions. Answering Julie’s
advice to trust in God, he defines divine grace: God has given us reason
in order to know what is good, conscience to love it, and freedom to choose
it; therefore one can safely trust oneself to decide upon a virtuous and
moral course of conduct (cf. Emile). Like a Deist, Saint-Preux does not
believe that God gives any individual extraordinary assistance as a result
of prayer, for such preference is not in accord with divine justice; this
is not to say that prayer is useless, but we must not believe that we have
the power to make God perform miracles just for us (cf. Emile). Saint-
Preux urges Julie not to send him away or make him marry Claire just
420 LA NOUVELLE HELOISE

because of her fears for his virtue. Julie responds that she had no such
intention. By urging his marriage to Claire she had simply hoped to unite
them all more closely. She assures him that she is happier and more self-
confident now than ever; her advice to him had not been meant to indi-
cate any insecurity on her part. Yet, despite all her present happiness, she
still has a secret regret, a secret longing which leads her to religious medi-
tations. It is not that she is a mystic, nor that she subscribes to any creed
which insists upon devotion to God at the expense of one’s duty to one’s
fellow man. The God she worships is not a vengeful but a just and merci-
ful God (cf. Emile). She cannot believe, therefore, that God would punish
the good Wolmar, despite his atheism. Hoping by her true Christian ex-
ample to convert her husband, she once again invites Saint-Preux to re-
turn and help her in this task.
[84] A self-analysis in which Wolmar reveals his initial suspicions of the
truth of Julie’s religious faith (one and one-half pages).

[85] A description of Claire’s anxiety (one page).

[86] A brief reference to the death of the Emperor Vespasian (one-fourth
page).

[87] A description of one of Julie’s last dinners with her family and a
résumé of a conversation with a minister (ten pages). Wolmar again con-
fesses his inquietude over his atheism, and the beginning of his conversion
as he listened to Julie’s statement of her faith in a just and merciful God.
Since her heart tells her that she is dying as a virtuous woman, she has
no fears but instead rejoices as she draws nearer to God’s throne (cf. Emile,
Reveries of a Solitary Stroller). The minister compares Julie’s joyous at-
titudes toward death with the fears and terrors of most Christians as they
approach their last hour.

[88] An expression of Julie’s concern for her father (one-half page).

[89] A description of Julie’s last day (15 pages). Early in the day Claude
Anet returns and there is a sentimental scene around Julie’s bed as she
recognizes him. In the afternoon Wolmar and Claire listen to Julie’s last
conversation. She recapitulates the events of her life and expresses her
love for all those who were dear to her. When the minister joins them, the
conversation turns to the subject of the immortality of the soul, a doctrine
which Julie believes implicitly, for, as she says, God speaks to us not
through our mortal organs but through the intangible sentiments of our
hearts. Contrary to the belief of the minister that eternity will be spent
in enjoying the sublimity of the Creator, Julie’s hope is that she will meet
her loved ones again in the next world (cf. Emile). During the evening,
Julie experiences a momentary rally which raises Claire’s hopes.

[90] A description of the return of the Baron d’Etange, of his grief

and
APPENDIX 42]

anguish over his daughter’s death, and of Claire’s placing a veil over Julie’s
face (three pages).
[91] An account of Wolmar’s attempt to restore Claire to her reason (two
pages). Wolmar dresses Henriette to look like Julie; the resemblance
is
enough to touch Claire’s heart and encourage her to continue living.
S wey

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