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He
concentrates here on his sixteenth year, a year of idleness, lust, and adolescent
mischief. The memory of stealing some pears prompts a deep probing of the
motives and aims of sinful acts. "I became to myself a wasteland."
CHAPTER I
1. I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and
the carnal corruptions of my soul--not because I still love
them, but that I may love thee, O my God. For love of thy
love I do this, recalling in the bitterness of self-examination
my wicked ways, that thou mayest grow sweet to me, thou
sweetness without deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured!
Thus thou mayest gather me up out of those fragments in
which I was torn to pieces, while I turned away from thee,
O Unity, and lost myself among "the many."[40]
For as I became a youth, I longed to be satisfied with worldly
things, and I dared to grow wild in a succession of various
and shadowy loves. My form wasted away, and I became corrupt
in thy eyes, yet I was still pleasing to my own eyes--and
eager to please the eyes of men.
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