Sir, if you had said that to me a month ago, I should have had nothing
to say; but after what happened to me last month, all my ideas have
changed. I will not speak of my old thoughts except to make you
understand in what way I have changed.--Now, gentlemen, since thirty
days I feel that I am an original, unique being, with a very singular
destiny.--So, gentlemen, you can deduct that before I felt the
contrary, I lived a perfectly ordinary life and made it my business
to be as commonplace as possible. Now, however, I must admit that a
commonplace man does not exist, and I affirm that it is a vain ambition
to try to resemble everybody, for everybody is composed of each one,
and each one does not resemble anybody. But never mind, I took the
greatest pains to put things right; I drew up statistics; I calculated
the happy medium--without understanding that extremes meet, that he
who goes to bed very late comes across him who gets up very early,
and that he who chooses the happy medium risks to fall between two
stools.--Every night I went to bed at ten. I slept eight hours and a
half. I was most careful in all my actions to copy the majority, and in
all my thoughts the most approved opinions. Useless to insist.
But one day a personal adventure happened to me, the importance of
which in the life of a well-ordered man as I was can only be understood
later on. It is a precedent; it is terrible. And I received it.