The
cruel remembrance of this transaction, sometimes so troubles and
disorders me, that, in my disturbed slumbers, I imagine I see this
poor girl enter and reproach me with my crime, as though I had
committed it but yesterday. While in easy tranquil circumstances, I
was less miserable on this account, but, during a troubled agitated
life, it has robbed me of the sweet consolation of persecuted
innocence, and made me woefully experience, what, I think, I have
remarked in some of my works, that remorse sleeps in the calm sunshine
of prosperity, but wakes amid the storms of adversity. I could never
take on me to discharge my heart of this weight in the bosom of a
friend; nor could the closest intimacy ever encourage me to it, even
with Madam de Warrens; all I could do, was to own I had to accuse
myself of an atrocious crime, but never said in what it consisted. The
weight, therefore, has remained heavy on my conscience to this day;
and I can truly own the desire of relieving myself, in some measure,
from it, contributed greatly to the resolution of writing my
Confessions.
I have proceeded truly in that I have just made, and it will
certainly be thought I have not sought to palliate the turpitude of my
offense; but I should not fulfill the purpose of this undertaking, did
I not, at the same time, divulge my interior disposition, and excuse
myself as far as is conformable with truth.
Never was wickedness further from my thoughts, than in that cruel
moment; and when I accused the unhappy girl, it is strange, but
strictly true, that my friendship for her was the immediate cause of
it.
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