TO CARTHAGE I CAME, and a hissing cauldron1 of shameful loves seethed around me on all sides. I was not in love, yet I loved to love and, in the hidden depths of unsated desire, I hated myself for my partial lack of desire. I sought some object that I might love, loving the very act of love; I hated peace of mind and a path unbeset by pitfalls.2 For, though I was hungry within me with the lack of that inner food which is Thyself, my God, I experienced no longing as a result