I now felt the neglect I had been guilty of during the first years of our connection, in not taking advantage of the docility with which her love inspired her, to improve her talents and give her knowledge, which, by more closely connecting us in our retirement would agreeably have filled up her time and my own, without once suffering us to perceive the length of a private conversation.  Not that this was ever exhausted between us, or that she seemed disgusted with our walks; but we had not a sufficient number of ideas common to both to make ourselves a great store, and we could not incessantly talk of our future projects which were confined to those of enjoying the pleasures of life.  The objects around us inspired me with reflections beyond the reach of her comprehension.  An attachment of twelve years’ standing had no longer need of words:  we were too well acquainted with each other to have any new knowledge to acquire in that respect.  The resource of puns, jests, gossiping and scandal, was all that remained.  In solitude especially is it, that the advantage of living with a person who knows how to think is particularly felt.  I wanted not this resource to amuse myself with her; but she would have stood in need of it to have always found amusement with me.  The worst of all was our being obliged to hold our conversations when we could; her mother, who become importunate, obliged me to watch for opportunities to do it.  I was under constraint in my own house:  this is saying everything; the air of love was prejudicial to good friendship.  We had an intimate intercourse without living in intimacy.

The moment I thought I perceived that Theresa sometimes sought for a pretext to elude the walks I proposed to her, I ceased to invite her to accompany me, without being displeased with her for not finding in them so much amusement as I did.  Pleasure is not a thing which depends upon the will.  I was sure of her heart, and the possession of this was all I desired.  As long as my pleasures were hers, I tasted of them with her; when this ceased to be the case I preferred her contentment to my own.

In this manner it was that, half deceived in my expectation, leading a life after my own heart, in a residence I had chosen with a person who was dear to me, I at length found myself almost alone.  What I still wanted prevented me from enjoying what I had.  With respect to happiness and enjoyment, everything or nothing, was what was necessary to me.  The reason of these observations will hereafter appear.  At present I return to the thread of my narrative.