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Confessions, volumes 3 and 4

by Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU (1712 - 1778)

03 - "There were at Turin several new converts..."

“The smallest, the most trifling pleasure that is conveniently within my reach, tempts me more than all the joys of paradise.” Here again is the youthful, hero-worshipping Jean-Jacques – displaying an emotional immaturity that leads him into picaresque escapades in the company of transients and misfits, always ending in reunion with mother-surrogate Madame de Warens. In a literally unprecedented gesture of self-revelation, Rousseau opens Volume 3 exposing himself indecently in dark alleyways. This 1903 edition fails to appreciate the humorous strangeness of the passage and removes it to protect the reader. (Summary by Martin Geeson)

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Listen next episodes of Confessions, volumes 3 and 4:
04 - "How did my heart beat..." , 05 - "I never recollect to have enjoyed the future..." , 06 - "This life was too delightful..." , 07 - "What a change! but I was obliged..." , 08 - "I was destined to be the outcast..." , 09 - "The Chapter of Geneva..." , 10 - Vol. 4: "Let anyone judge my surprise..." , 11 - "Arrived at Toune, and myself well dried..." , 12 - "One morning, when he expected to give audience..." , 13 - "I did not return to Nion..." , 14 - "It is a long time since I mentioned..." , 15 - "We began our expedition unsuccessfully..." , 16 - "How much did Paris disappoint..." , 17 - "One day, among others..." , 18 - "I remained at Lyon seven or eight days..."