Life's Lovely Burden

The old woman was born the daughter of a Pope. She has experienced the death of her fiancé, been raped by pirates, sold into slavery, been a victim of cannibalism in wartime, and eventually ends up becoming Cunégonde’s servant. Her misfortunes have made her cynical about human nature, but she has somehow managed to not give in to self-pity. As the old woman narrates her life story, she makes an interesting parallel of life and death: 

—A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts; is anything more stupid than choosing to carry a burden that really one wants to cast on the ground? to hold existence in horror, and yet to cling to it? to fondle the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our heart? —In the countries through which I have been forced to wander, in the taverns where I have had to work, I have seen a vast number of people who hated their existence; but I never saw more than a dozen who deliberately put an end to their own misery.

"A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more." The absurdity of this first sentence was the reason it caught my attention; I mean how does one want or have wanted in the past to kill themselves if life is explicitly seen as something "more beautiful?" 

Also, the pessimism of this passage is quite obvious and in my opinion fairly thorough. The only gleam of hope that seems to be shining through the old woman’s words, come from her affirming that people cling on to life because they “love” it and not because they are resigned or fear eternal punishment, which is ironic since she is the daughter of a Pope. The old woman in theory, should have been raised in a religious environment were eternal salvation and God predominated life and the fact that she is no way acknowledging the existence of God in her arguments is a rather more modernistic mentality than that of 19th century France. 

The only slight biblical reference made throughout the entire passage is that of the serpent or Satan, in which this sly and treacherous representation of life is not only tolerated but “fondle[d].” Human beings, then, naturally embrace life—a “stupid” move, perhaps, but one that demonstrates passion, strong will, and an almost heroic and optimistic endurance.