"As soon as my companions were in a condition to walk, they were
sent to Moscow. As for me, I fell to the lot of a Boyard, who put me
to work in his garden, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this
nobleman having about two years afterwards been broken alive upon
the wheel, with about thirty others, for some court intrigues, I
took advantage of the event, and made my escape. I traveled over a
great part of Russia. I was a long time an innkeeper's servant at
Riga, then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipsic, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden, The
Hague, and Rotterdam. I have grown old in misery and disgrace,
living with only one buttock, and having in perpetual remembrance that
I am a Pope's daughter. I have been a hundred times upon the point
of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous
weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our
nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a
burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to
preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that
devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into
our hearts?
"In the different countries which it has been my fate to traverse,
and at the many inns where I have been a servant, I have observed a
prodigious number of people who held their existence in abhorrence,
and yet I never knew more than twelve who voluntarily put an end to
their misery; namely, three Negroes, four Englishmen, as many
Genevese, and a German professor named Robek.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57