Those of my kind visitors who honour me by expressing their delight and even--may this little indiscretion be forgiven me!--even their adoration of my spiritual clearness, can hardly imagine what I was when I came to this prison.

The tens of years which have passed over my head and which have whitened my hair cannot muffle the slight agitation which I experience at the recollection of the first moments when, with the creaking of the rusty hinges, the fatal prison doors opened and then closed behind me forever.
Not endowed with literary talent, which in reality is an indomitable inclination to invent and to lie, I shall attempt to introduce myself to my indulgent reader exactly as I was at that remote time.
I was a young man, twenty-seven years of age--as I had occasion to mention before--unrestrained, impetuous, given to abrupt deviations.

A certain dreaminess, peculiar to my age; a self-respect which was easily offended and which revolted at the slightest insignificant provocation; a passionate impetuosity in solving world problems; fits of melancholy alternated by equally wild fits of merriment--all this gave the young mathematician a character of extreme unsteadiness, of sad and harsh discord.
I must also mention the extreme pride, a family trait, which I inherited from my mother, and which often hindered me from taking the advice of riper and more experienced people than myself; also my extreme obstinacy in carrying out my purposes, a good quality in itself, which becomes dangerous, however, when the purpose in question is not sufficiently well founded and considered.
Thus, during the first days of my confinement, I behaved like all other fools who are thrown into prison.

I shouted loudly and, of course, vainly about my innocence; I demanded violently my immediate freedom and even beat against the door and the walls with my fists.

The door and the walls naturally remained mute, while I caused myself a rather sharp pain.