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Bookiir Having left Mme de Vercellis's in almost the same condition as I had entered it, I returned to my former landlady's, and stayed there for five or six weeks, during which health, youth, and idleness often rendered my temperament importunate. I was restless, heedless, a dreamer; I wept, I sighed, I desired a happiness about which I had no idea, and the deprivation of which I felt nevertheless. This condition cannot be described, and few men can even imagine it; because most of them have anticipated this simultaneously tormenting and delightful plenitude of life which gives a foretaste of enjoyment in the intoxication of desire.2 My inflamed blood continuously filled my brain with girls and women, but—since I was unaware of the genuine use—in a bizarre way I made use of them at my whim in my mind's eye without knowing how to do anything more with them, and these ideas kept my senses in a very uncomfortable activity from which they fortunately did not teach me to relieve myself. I would have given my life to find a Mile Goton again for a quarter of an hour. But this was no longer the time when the games of childhood went in that direction as if by themselves. Along with years had come shame, the companion of the consciousness of evil; it had increased my natural timidity to the point of rendering it invincible, and never—either at that time or since—have I been able to succeed in making a lascivious proposal unless the one to whom I was making it had in a way compelled me to do so by her advances, even when I knew that she was not scrupulous and I was almost certain of being taken at my word. My agitation grew to the point that, not being able to satisfy my desires , I stirred them up by the most extravagant maneuvers. I sought out dark alleys, hidden nooks where I could expose myself from afar to persons of the opposite sex in the condition in which I would have wished I could be near them. What they saw was not the obscene object, I did not even dream of that, it was the ridiculous object; the foolish pleasure I had in displaying it to their eyes cannot be described. There was only one step to take from that to feeling the desired treatment, and I do not doubt that some bold one would have given me this amusement while passing by, if I had had the audacity to wait. This madness had a catastrophe that was just about as comic, but a little less pleasant for me. 74 Book III (PL, I, 8&-90) 7S One day I went to take my position at the far end of a courtyard where there was a well where the girls of the house often came to seek water. In this far end there was a little stairway that led to some cellars by means of several passageways. I explored these underground passageways in the darkness, and, since I found them to be long and dark I judged that they were endless, and that if I were seen and surprised, I would find a sure refuge in them. In this confidence, I offered to the girls who came to the well a sight more laughable than seductive; the most prudent pretended to see nothing, others began to laugh, still others believed they were being insulted and made a commotion. I escaped into my retreat; I was followed. I hear a man's voice, which I had not counted on and which alarmed me: I plunged into the underground at the risk of getting lost there; the noise, the voices, the man's voice always followed me; I had counted on darkness, I saw light. I shuddered; I plunged farther down; a wall stopped me, and not being able to go any farther I had to await my destiny there. In a moment I was reached and seized by a big man wearing a big mustache, a big hat, a big sabre, escorted by four or five old women each armed with a broomstick, among whom I perceived the little hussy who had betrayed me, and who doubtless wanted to see me face to face. Taking me by the arm the man with the sabre brusquely asked me what I was doing there. One realizes that I did not have a ready answer...

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