I was taught all sorts of things, and learned all kinds of languages. By dint of impudence and quackery, I sometimes passed for a savant. My head has become a library of odd volumes, of which I keep the key.
CHAPTER III: MY SUFFERINGS.
I was tormented by masters; by tailors who made tight dresses for me; by women, by ambition, by self-love, by useless regrets, by kings, and by remembrances.
CHAPTER IV: PRIVATIONS.
I have been deprived of the three great enjoyments of the human species; theft, gluttony, and pride.
CHAPTER V: MEMORABLE EPOCHS.
At the age of thirty, I gave up dancing; at forty, my endeavors to please the fair sex; at fifty, my regard of public opinion; at sixty, the trouble of thinking; and I have now become a true sage, or egotist, which is the same thing.
CHAPTER VI: MORAL TRAITS.
I was stubborn as a mule, capricious as a coquette, frolicksome as a child, lazy as a dormouse, active as Bonaparte, and all at my pleasure.