I should be wrong if, in order to gain your sympathy in these early
years of my life, I asserted that I was born with a noble nature, a pure
and incorruptible soul. As to this, I know nothing. Maybe there are no
incorruptible souls. Maybe there are. That is what neither you nor any
one will ever know. The great questions awaiting an answer are these:
"Are our innate tendencies invincible? If not, can they be modified
merely or wholly destroyed by education?" For myself, I would not dare
to affirm. I am neither a metaphysician, nor a psychologist, nor a
philosopher; but I have had a terrible life, gentlemen, and if I were a
legislator, I would order that man to have his tongue torn out, or
his head cut off, who dared to preach or write that the nature of
individuals is unchangeable, and that it is no more possible to reform
the character of a man than the appetite of a tiger. God has preserved
me from believing this.

All I can tell you is that my mother instilled into me good principles,
though, perhaps, I was not endowed by nature with her good qualities.
Even with her I was of a violent disposition, but my violence was
sullen and suppressed. I was blind and brutal in anger, nervous even to
cowardice at the approach of danger, daring almost to foolhardiness when
hand to hand with it--that is to say, at once timid and brave from my
love of life. My obstinacy was revolting; yet my mother alone could
conquer me; and without attempting to reason, for my mind developed very
slowly, I used to obey her as if by a sort of magnetic necessity. This
one guiding hand which I remember, and another woman's which I felt
later, were and have been sufficient to lead me towards good. But I lost
my mother before she had been able to teach me anything seriously; and
when I was transplanted to Roche-Mauprat, my feeling for the evil done
there was merely an instinctive aversion, feeble enough, perhaps, if
fear had not been mingled with it.