ABSTRACT
How much do we sometimes deceive ourselves, my dear Aza! when we think that prudence guides our actions. I have a long time refused the urgent request which Deterville sent me, that I would grant him a moment’s conversation. Alas! I shunned my own happiness. At length, not through complaisance, but because I was weary of continual importunity, 168 I went to the parlour. At sight of the great alteration in Deterville, which makes him scarcely to be known, I was in the utmost confusion, and immediately repenting the step I had taken, I stood trembling, expecting the reproaches which I thought he had a right to make me; far from divining what was really true, that he was going to fill my soul with the utmost pleasure.
