Victus: The Fall of Barcelona

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If man is the only being with a geometrical, rational mind, why is it that the poor and defenseless take up arms against the powerful and well equipped? Why do the few oppose the many, and the small resist the great? I know the reason why. One word.

We, the engineers of my age, had not one office but two. The first, which was sacred, consisted of building fortresses; the second, sacrilegious, their destruction. And now that I have become like Tiberius, allow me to reveal the word — that one Word. For, my friends, my enemies, insects all, in the trifling circumference of this universe of ours, I was the traitor. My actions led to the storming of my father’s house. I surrendered the city that had been given to me to defend, a city that stood in defiance of two imperial allies. My city. The traitor who delivered it over was me.

What you have just read is a first draft. Writing it, I must have been in a melancholy mood or drunk. When I read it back, I wanted to tear up the paragraph in question, affected and simpering as it was. More the kind of thing one might expect from a cock-sucker like Voltaire.

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