What fruit had I then (wretched man!) in those things, of the
remembrance whereof I am now ashamed? Especially, in that theft
which I loved for the theft's sake; and it too was nothing, and
therefore the more miserable I, who loved it. Yet alone I had not done
it: such was I then, I remember, alone I had never done it. I loved
then in it also the company of the accomplices, with whom I did it?
I did not then love nothing else but the theft, yea rather I did
love nothing else; for that circumstance of the company was also
nothing. What is, in truth? who can teach me, save He that
enlighteneth my heart, and discovereth its dark corners? What is it
which hath come into my mind to enquire, and discuss, and consider?
For had I then loved the pears I stole, and wished to enjoy them, I
might have done it alone, had the bare commission of the theft
sufficed to attain my pleasure; nor needed I have inflamed the itching
of my desires by the excitement of accomplices. But since my
pleasure was not in those pears, it was in the offence itself, which
the company of fellow-sinners occasioned.
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