How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph). We used Justin O'Brien's translation.
Quote #10
Should I climb up to the pulpit, like many of my illustrious contemporaries, and curse humanity? Very dangerous, that is! One day, or one night, laughter bursts out without a warning. The judgment you are passing on others eventually snaps back in your face, causing some damage (6.18).
If Jean-Baptiste still fears laughter, it means that he still fears judgment. His whole claim to be a judge-penitent is therefore bogus. He may be willing to judge himself by confessing all to you, but he is certainly not ready for you to judge (i.e., laugh at) him.
Quote #11
I can’t do without it or deny myself those moments when one of them collapses, with the help of alcohol, and beats his breast. Then I grow taller, très cher, I grow taller, I breathe freely, I am on the mountain, the plain stretches before my eyes. How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits. I sit enthroned among my bad angels at the summit of the Dutch heaven and I watch ascending toward me, as they issue from the fogs and the water, the multitude of the Last Judgment. […] And as for me, I pity without absolving, I understand without forgiving, and above all, I feel at last that I am being adored! (6.24).
This is a great reversal of Jean-Baptiste’s original point that Amsterdam is like Dante’s hell. It is through his judgment of you (which he pretends is a confession of his own crimes) that he turns his own hell into a heaven.