The Confessions - Neuromantic.net :books you can believe in...

The Confessions
said to me, “Suppose we go to the opera?”—”With all my made my business wearisome, I had nothing to amuse me.
heart.” We go: he takes two box tickets, gives me one, and This renewed my taste for reading which had long been ne-
enters himself with the other; I follow, find the door crowded; glected. I thus committed a fresh offence, books made me
and, looking in, see every one standing; judging, therefore, neglect my work, and brought on additional punishment,
that M. de Franceul might suppose me concealed by the com- while inclination, strengthened by constraint, became an
pany, I go out, ask for my ticket, and, getting the money unconquerable passion. La Tribu, a well-known librarian,
returned, leave the house, without considering, that by then furnished me with all kinds; good or bad, I perused them
I had reached the door every one would be seated, and M. with avidity, and without discrimination.
de Franceul might readily perceive I was not there.
It will be said; “at length, then, money became necessary”—
As nothing could be more opposite to my natural inclina- true; but this happened at a time when a taste for study had
tion than this abominable meanness, I note it, to show there deprived me both of resolution and activity; totally occu-
are moments of delirium when men ought not to be judged pied by this new inclination, I only wished to read, I robbed
by their actions: this was not stealing the money, it was only no longer. This is another of my peculiarities; a mere noth-
stealing the use of it, and was the more infamous for wanting frequently calls me off from what I appear the most ating
the excuse of a temptation.
tached to; I give in to the new idea; it becomes a passion,
I should never end these accounts, was I to describe all the and immediately every former desire is forgotten.
gradations through which I passed, during my apprentice- Reading was my new hobby; my heart beat with impaship,
from the sublimity of a hero to the baseness of a villain. tience to run over the new book I carried in my pocket; the
Though I entered into most of the vices of my situation, I first moment I was alone, I seized the opportunity to draw it
had no relish for its pleasures; the amusements of my com- out, and thought no longer of rummaging my master’s closet.
panions were displeasing, and when too much restraint had I was even ashamed to think that I had been guilty of such
42