If the pleasure that the exercise of virtue gives me is of the same nature as physical enjoyment, [ . . . ] if the approval of my conscience is nothing more than an agreeable tickling of my nerves, how could I reply to the person who prefers one pleasure to another? What can I say to the criminal or the assassin who gets pleasure from his crimes, unless it is that he should take care he doesn’t get punished for them?
B.C.
ON THE AUTHOR
Bernardo Carvalho was born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro. He is a writer, journalist, and weekly columnist for the Folha de São Paulo. As well as Fear of de Sade, he has published a collection of stories, Aberração [Aberration] and the novels Onze [Eleven], Os bêbados e os sonâmbulos [Drunks and Sleepwalkers], Teatro [Drama], As iniciais [The Initials], Nove noites [Nine nights] and Mongólia. Some of these books have also been published in France, Portugal, Italy and Sweden.