16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
the Confessions. I did so: an oath is sacred.
But all the time I was reminded of a cousin, a
priest, who told me that the most tedious,
squalid and disheartening part of his duty was
listening to penitents who having made the act
of contrition recounted imaginary, fictitious
sins, unclean phantasms. And the most painful
was the giving of an absolution that might be
blasphemous.'
'You surely did not doubt Rousseau's truthfulness?'
'Out of common charity I was obliged to do
so.'
'I do not understand you, sir.'
'You will recall that in this book he speaks of
four or five children his mistress bore him,
children that were at once dismissed to the
foundling hospital. Now this does not agree
very well with his praise of the domestic affec-