I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one's own degradation; it was from
feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.
not of love, but of sins...are brought all at once so near to a creature pure and innocent; it's loathsome, and that's why one can't help
feeling oneself unworthy."
In his limpid overview of French writings on the Renaissance in 1994-95 (Renaissance Quarterly 49 [1996]: 114-23), Zachary Sayre Schiffman notes that the year's work adheres to Jacob Burckhardt's idea that the birth of the individual brought about a view of the world "being full of unique entities." The narcissistic pleasure obtained by
feeling oneself "unique" was countered by the ensuing, almost paranoid realization that the thrill of self-awareness was based on the sight of infinitely diverse singularities.