The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Volume 04 — Jean-Jacques Rousseau — John Shaqi
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Volume 04
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · en
By continuing to teach music, I insensibly gained some knowledge of it.
The life I led was sufficiently agreeable, and any reasonable man might
have been satisfied, but my unsettled heart demanded something more.
On Sundays, or whenever I had leisure, I wandered, sighing and
thoughtful, about the adjoining woods, and when once out of the city
never returned before night. One day, being at Boudry, I went to dine at
a public-house, where I saw a man with a long beard, dressed in a
violet-colored Grecian habit, with a fur cap, and whose air and manner
were rather noble. This person found some difficulty in making himself
understood, speaking only an unintelligible jargon, which bore more
resemblance to Italian than any other language. I understood almost all
he said, and I was the only person present who could do so, for he was
obliged to make his request known to the landlord and others about him by
signs. On my speaking a few words in Italian, which he perfectly
understood, he got up and embraced me with rapture; a connection was soon
formed, and from that moment, I became his interpreter. His dinner was
excellent, mine rather worse than indifferent, he gave me an invitation
to dine with him, which I accepted without much ceremony. Drinking and
chatting soon rendered us familiar, and by the end of the repast we had
all the disposition in the world to become inseparable companions. He
informed me he was a Greek prelate, and 'Archimandrite' of Jerusalem;
that he had undertaken to make a gathering in Europe for the
reestablishment of the Holy Sepulchre, and showed me some very fine
patents from the czarina, the emperor, and several other sovereigns.
He was tolerably content with what he had collected hitherto, though he
had experienced inconceivable difficulties in Germany; for not
understanding a word of German, Latin, or French, he had been obliged to
have recourse to his Greek, Turkish Lingua Franca, which did not procure
him much in the country he was travelling through; his proposal,
therefore, to me was, that I should accompany him in the quality of
secretary and interpreter. In spite of my violet-colored coat, which
accorded well enough with the proposed employment, he guessed from my
meagre appearance, that I should easily be gained; and he was not
mistaken. The bargain was soon made, I demanded nothing, and he promised
liberally; thus, without any security or knowledge of the person I was
about to serve, I gave myself up entirely to his conduct, and the next
day behold me on an expedition to Jerusalem.