had infected my reason. Tears,
such as I had never shed, ran down my cheeks.

"'The boy does not know who I am, nor whence I come,' I now said to
myself, half aloud, 'and yet he shuns me like some noxious beast. Have
I any mark on my forehead, or have I ceased to look like a man because
I can no longer love one?' The contempt of this boy wounded me more
bitterly than three years' service in the galleys, for I had done him a
kindness, and could not charge him with personal hatred.

"I sat down in a timber-yard opposite the church. What I actually
desired I do not know, but this I know, that I rose with indignation;
when, of all my acquaintance that passed, not one would give me a
greeting. Deeply offended, I left the spot to seek a lodging, when
just as I was turning the corner of a street I ran against my Johanna.
'The host of the Sun!' she cried aloud, and made a movement to embrace
me. 'Thou returned, dear host of the Sun--God be praised!' Her attire
bespoke misery and hunger, her aspect denoted the abandoned condition
to which she had sunk. I quickly surmised what had happened; some of
the prince's dragoons who had met me, made me guess that there was a
garrison in the town. 'Soldier's wench!' cried I, and laughing, I
turned my back upon her. I felt comforted that in the rank of living
beings there was still one creature below me. I had never loved her.

"My mother was dead, my creditors had paid themselves with my small
house. I had lost every body and every thing. All the world shunned
me as though I were venomous, but I had at last forgotten shame.
Before, I had retired from the sight of men because contempt was
unendurable. Now I obtruded myself upon them, and felt delight in
scaring them. I was easy because I had nothing more to lose, and
nothing more to guard. I no more needed any good quality, because none
believed I could have any.

"The whole world lay open before me, and in some strange province I
might have passed for an honest man, but I had lost the spirit even to
appear one. Despair and shame had at last forced this mood upon me.
It was the last refuge that was left me, to learn to do without honour,
because I had no longer a claim to it. Had my pride and vanity
survived my degradation, I must have destroyed myself.

"What I had actually resolved upon was yet unknown even to myself. I
had to be sure a dark remembrance that I wished to do something bad. I
wished to merit my fate