ABSTRACT
At first glance nothing could be further from Rousseau's Confessions than this brief aside by Stendhal. Until, that is, we resist the temptation to take Stendhal at his word. He has revealed himself, uttered the sigh, while speaking of the need for silence and concealment. The complication is characteristic. Stendhal mistrusts autobiographical egoism at the same time that he is drawn to it: "I have felt, during a month of thinking about it, a genuine repugnance at writing solely to speak of myself, of the sum total of my shirts, of the mishaps to my self-esteem." Though primarily an instinct in Stendhal, self-irony has its method and its raison d'etre. Behind the self-reproach is an even stronger self-love. In a democratic society, the private man who singles himself out as extraordinary and especially deserving is vulnerable to mockery and scorn: he lacks the egalitarian complacency of the crowd.
