Translated from an original edition in French and annotated by
John M. Friedberg, M.D.
copyright 1995-98
"Vir fugiens denuo pugnavit."1
Jean Jacques Rousseau, famous sinner, eloquent writer, visionary philosopher, making a show of misanthropy out of a craving for persecution, wrote a preface to his Nouvelle Heloise which is unique: he insults the reader and doesn't care.2 A little preface being fashionable, I'm writing this to let you know who I am, my dear reader, and to win your favor.
I make no pretenses, either stylistically or by new and startling moral discoveries, like the author I just named, who didn't write like people speak, and who, instead of common sense, concocted aphorisms based on loose associations of overheated circumlocutions - brain pepper to make our minds sneeze. I must warn the reader there is nothing new in my story except the story itself, because with regard to ethics, Socrates, Horace, Seneca, Boethius and several others said it all, long ago. All that we can do are portraits; and one needn't be a genius to do one, even a very pretty one.
You must wish me well, my dear reader, because I have no other ambition than to entertain you. I am so sure of success, between you and me, if you don't find this a true and honest history, toss it right out the window. We shouldn't make best sellers of sell-outs. Deep inside myself I feel remorse and embarrassment, the exact sentiments necessary for a perfect confession. But don't expect to find me repulsive. A sincere confession can't make someone repulsive unless they actually are. And because everyone wants respect, a truly repulsive person, if he were at all smart, would never write a confession.
I am certain you won't disapprove of me. I never committed any fault except when misled by my heart or overcome by an abusive vital force which age alone has tamed; and it's enough to make me blush. The honorable sentiments that were taught to me by those who raised me were always my ideals, although never perfect shelters from calumny. Nothing is more important to me than these ideals.
Thirty two years after the event, I am writing the story of something that happened to me out of the blue at age thirty, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita."3 The reason I have to write is to relieve the pain of recitation every time someone deserving of my respect or friendship insists or begs me to do them the pleasure. It has happened to me a hundred times that after telling the story my health suffers, whether an effect of the potent recollection of the sad adventure or the wear and tear on my organs, obliged to detail every circumstance. A hundred times I've decided to write it down, but one thing or another always came up. All obstacles have disappeared, confronted with the reason which now brings my pen to hand.
I no longer have the physical strength necessary to narrate the tale, nor the moral strength to tell the curious who press me to relate it that I cannot. I would rather succumb to the consequences of the effort than to be suspected of bad manners. Here then is the story which, until today, was told only "nisi amicis idque coactus..."4 ready for publication. May it come to pass.
I have reached an age where my health demands greater sacrifices. In order to narrate a story one must be able to articulate the words. The tongue alone does not suffice. We need teeth to pronounce certain consonants, making up one third of the alphabet and I,unfortunately, lost mine. A man can write perfectly well without teeth, but they are indispensable if he wants to speak persuasively.
To survive the disappearance of our parts, and the loss of that which we need for our well being, is a great misfortune because only misery can result from a lack of necessities. But if this misfortune occurs when we're old, we really shouldn't complain. Because, if they took away the furniture, at least they left us the house. Those who kill themselves to escape from such misfortunes, haven't reasoned it out. Because while it's true the suicide obliterates his misfortunes, he can't appreciate it, being dead. Man only hates misfortune because it inconveniences his life; once he no longer possesses life, he can't escape anything.
"Deblilem facito manu - Debilem pede, coxa - Lubricos quate - dentes. Vita dum superest bene est."5
Experts who say emotional pain is more devastating than physical are wrong. Psychological pain attacks only the psyche whereas physical afflictions damage the body and devastate the soul. The truly wise man is always and everywhere happier than all the kings on earth "nisi qum pituita molesta est."6 It isn't possible to live a long life without the tools wearing out. I even believe that were they preserved, we would feel death's blow too acutely. Matter can't resist unchanged the passage of time: "singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes."7
Life is like a beautiful flirt* whom we love and to whom, finally, we grant every condition she imposes as long as she doesn't leave us. Those who say one must disdain life reason poorly. It is death we must scorn and not life, and they aren't the same.
Life and death are two altogether different concepts. Loving life, I love myself and I hate death as my executioner. If I were really smart, I would scorn rather than hate because hate is an unpleasant emotion. And those who fear death are silly because death is inevitable. And those who say they desire death are hypocrites or cowards, for each of us is master of what we were given and can choose death at any moment.
As I begin this history of my escape from the prisons of the State of the Republic of Venice nicknamed I Piombi, (the "leads"), I must warn the reader about a detail of which he or she might well be critical. We don't want authors to talk about themselves and in this history I talk about myself all the time. I beg the reader's permission and I promise I won't be making elegies to myself because, thank God, in the midst of the worst misfortunes, I always recognized myself as the first cause. With regard to my reflections and other picayune details, I leave to those who get bored the perfect liberty to skip them.
Any author who claims to inspire deep thought in those who read to escape from thinking is a pompous liar. I have faithfully followed the principle, in everything I write, of telling the whole truth without omitting the slightest pertinent detail. If I've got a story, it seems to me, I should tell it all or not at all.
And just as I would be annoyed to have to omit any particulars in telling the story verbally, I would be equally annoyed now if, wanting to write comfortably, I had to skip over in silence the slightest relevant fact.
To win your confidence, I had to portray myself with all my faults, just as I am, or have come to know myself. I acknowledge certain behavioral aberrations under appalling circumstances and I've found reason to forgive myself. Having need for the same indulgence on your part, I didn't want to hide a single thing. I would prefer to be found guilty based on the truth, than to be acquitted based on lies.
If anyone finds anywhere in this story any bitterness toward the powers which detained me and forced me, as it were, to take certain risks in the execution of my escape plans, I declare any such complaint to be pure reflex. Bitterness doesn't preoccuipy my heart or mind to recording endless complaints born of hatred and anger. I love my country and accordingly, those who govern it. At the time, I didn't approve of my detention because that would be unnatural. But I approve it today as it affected me - my conduct needed correction.
In spite of all this, I condemn the principle and the practice. If I had been informed of my crime,8 and the time it would take to atone for it, 9 I wouldn't have put my life at risk. And what would have caused me to perish, were I to have perished, would have been the machinery of a despotism which - in view of it's evil consequences - ought to be abolished by those very ones who exercise it.10
Insignia, Council of Ten
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