My only hope lies in my despair.
All is asleep: the army, the wind, and Neptune.
If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.
I felt for my crime a just terror; I looked on my life with hate, and my passion with horror.
To repair the irreparable ravages of time.
Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.