I am ignorant what became of the victim of my calumny, but there is
little probability of her having been able to place herself agreeably
after this, as she labored under an imputation cruel to her character in
every respect. The theft was a trifle, yet it was a theft, and, what was
worse, employed to seduce a boy; while the lie and obstinacy left nothing
to hope from a person in whom so many vices were united. I do not even
look on the misery and disgrace in which I plunged her as the greatest
evil: who knows, at her age, whither contempt and disregarded innocence
might have led her?--Alas! if remorse for having made her unhappy is
insupportable, what must I have suffered at the thought of rendering her
even worse than myself. The cruel remembrance of this transaction,
sometimes so troubles and disorders me, that, in my disturbed slumbers,
I imagine I see this poor girl enter and reproach me with my crime,
as though I had committed it but yesterday. While in easy tranquil
circumstances, I was less miserable on this account, but, during a
troubled agitated life, it has robbed me of the sweet consolation of
persecuted innocence, and made me wofully experience, what, I think, I
have remarked in some of my works, that remorse sleeps in the calm
sunshine of prosperity, but wakes amid the storms of adversity. I could
never take on me to discharge my heart of this weight in the bosom of a
friend; nor could the closest intimacy ever encourage me to it, even with
Madam de Warrens: all I could do, was to own I had to accuse myself of an
atrocious crime, but never said in what it consisted. The weight,
therefore, has remained heavy on my conscience to this day; and I can
truly own the desire of relieving myself, in some measure, from it,
contributed greatly to the resolution of writing my Confessions.

I have proceeded truly in that I have just made, and it will certainly be
thought I have not sought to palliate the turpitude of my offence; but I