Confessions, volumes 5 and 6

“She was more to me than a sister, a mother, a friend, or even than a mistress, and for this very reason she was not a mistress; in a word, I loved her too much to desire her…” More of the amours of the twentysomething Jean-Jacques: here initiated into a strangely compromised manhood by his “maman” and perennial comforter – “Was I happy? No: I felt I know-not-what invincible sadness which empoisoned my happiness, it seemed that I had committed an incest, and two or three times, pressing her eagerly in my arms, I deluged her bosom with my tears. On her part, as she had never sought pleasure, she had not the stings of remorse…” (Introduction by Martin Geeson)