"
With these words I sat down, marveling how indignation can solace grief
and restore happiness. Whoever is astonished to learn that from that day
I completely changed my course of life does not know the heart of man,
and he does not understand that a young man of twenty may hesitate before
taking a step, but does not retreat when he has once taken it.
CHAPTER II
THE apprenticeship to debauchery resembles vertigo, for one feels at
first a sort of terror mingled with sensuous delight as though peering
down from some dizzy height. While shameful secret dissipation ruins the
noblest of men, in frank and open irregularities there is some palliation
even for the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his
cloak, to sully his life incognito, and to clandestinely shake off the
hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from
behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel. There are
assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the
night. He who goes his way without concealment says: "Every one does it
and conceals it; I do it and do not conceal it." Thus speaks pride, and
once that cuirass has been buckled on, it glitters with the refulgent
light of day.
It is said that Damocles saw a sword suspended over his head. Thus
libertines seem to have something over their heads which says "Go on, but
I hold the thread." Those masked carriages that are seen during carnival
are the faithful images of their life.
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