encumbers the spot, and he waits for new
materials for his new home. At the moment he has prepared to cut the
stone and mix the cement, while standing pick in hand with sleeves rolled
up, he is informed that there is no more stone, and is advised to whiten
the old material and make the best possible use of that. What can you
expect this man to do who is unwilling to build his nest out of ruins?
The quarry is deep, the tools too weak to hew out the stones. "Wait!"
they say to him, "we will draw out the stones one by one; hope, work,
advance, withdraw." What do they not tell him? And in the mean time he
has lost his old house, and has not yet built the new; he does not know
where to protect himself from the rain, or how to prepare his evening
meal, nor where to work, nor where to sleep, nor where to die; and his
children are newly born.

I am much deceived if we do not resemble that man. Oh! people of the
future! when on a warm summer day you bend over your plows in the green
fields of your native land; when you see in the pure sunlight, under a
spotless sky, the earth, your fruitful mother, smiling in her matutinal
robe on the workman, her well-beloved child; when drying on your brow the
holy baptism of sweat, you cast your eye over the vast horizon, where
there will not be one blade higher than another in the human harvest, but
only violets and marguerites in the midst of ripening ears; oh! free men!
when you thank God that you were born for that harvest, think of those
who are no more, tell yourself that we have dearly purchased the repose
which you enjoy; pity us more than all your fathers, for we have suffered
the evil which entitled them to pity and we have lost that which consoled
them.

CHAPTER III

THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFESSIONS

I have to explain how I was first taken with the malady of the age.

I was at table, at a great supper, after a masquerade. About me were my
friends, richly costumed, on all sides young men and women, all sparkling
with beauty and joy; on the right and on the left exquisite dishes,
flagons, splendor, flowers; above my head was an obstreperous orchestra,
and before me my loved one, whom I idolized.

I was then nineteen; I had passed through no great misfortune, I had
suffered from no disease; my character was at once haughty and frank, my
heart full of the hopes of youth. The fumes of wine fermented in my head;
it was one of those moments of intoxication when all that one se