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| It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others.
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Chapter IX.—It Was a Pleasure to
Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others.
17. By what feelings, then, was I animated?
For it was in truth too shameful; and woe was me who had it. But
still what was it? “Who can understand his errors?”216
We laughed,
because our hearts were tickled at the thought of deceiving those
who little imagined what we were doing, and would have vehemently
disapproved of it. Yet, again, why did I so rejoice in this, that I
did it not alone? Is it that no one readily laughs alone? No one
does so readily; but yet sometimes, when men are alone by
themselves, nobody being by, a fit of laughter overcomes them when
anything very droll presents itself to their senses or mind. Yet
alone I would not have done it—alone I could not at all have done
it. Behold, my God, the lively recollection of my soul is laid bare
before Thee—alone I had not committed that theft, wherein what I
stole pleased me not, but rather the act of stealing; nor to have
done it alone would I have liked so well, neither would I have done
it. O Friendship too unfriendly! thou mysterious seducer of the
soul, thou greediness to do mischief out of mirth and wantonness,
thou craving for others’ loss, without desire for my own profit
or revenge; but when they say, “Let us go, let us do it,” we
are ashamed not to be shameless.
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