This success completed my infatuation; I saw nothing but M. Venture; he almost made me forget even Madam de Warrens.  That I might profit more at ease by his instructions and example, I proposed to share his lodgings, to which he readily consented.  It was at a shoemaker’s; a pleasant, jovial fellow, who, in his county dialect, called his wife nothing but trollop; an appellation which she certainly merited.  Venture took care to augment their differences, though under an appearance of doing the direct contrary, throwing out in a distant manner, and provincial accents, hints that produced the utmost effect, and furnished such scenes as were sufficient to make any one die with laughter.  Thus the mornings passed without our thinking of them; at two or three o’clock we took some refreshment.  Venture then went to his various engagements, where he supped, while I walked alone, meditating on his great merit, coveting and admiring his rare talents, and cursing my own unlucky stars, that did not call me to so happy a life.  How little did I then know of myself! mine had been a thousand times more delightful, had I not been such a fool, or known better how to enjoy it.

Madam de Warrens had taken no one with her but Anet:  Merceret, the chambermaid, whom I have before mentioned, still remained in the house.  Merceret was something older than myself, not pretty, but tolerably agreeable; good-natured, free from malice, having no fault to my knowledge but being a little refractory with her mistress.  I often went to see her; she was an old acquaintance, who recalled to my remembrance one more beloved, and this made her dear to me.  She had several friends, and among others one Mademoiselle Giraud, a Genevese, who, for the punishment of my sins, took it in her head to have an inclination for me, always pressing Merceret, when she returned her visits, to bring me with her.  As I liked Merceret, I felt no disinclination to accompany her; besides I met there with some young people whose company pleased me.  For Mademoiselle Giraud, who offered every kind of enticement, nothing could increase the aversion I had for her.  When she drew near me, with her dried black snout, smeared with Spanish snuff, it was with the utmost difficulty that I could refrain from expressing my distaste; but, being pleased with her visitors, I took patience.  Among these were two girls who (either to pay their court to Mademoiselle Giraud or myself) paid me every possible attention.  I conceived this to be only friendship; but have since thought it depended only on myself to have discovered something more, though I did not even think of it at the time.