The Seine flowed past my house, without a ripple on its surface, and
gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. It was a beautiful, broad,
indolent silver stream, with crimson lights here and there; and on the
opposite side of the river were rows of tall trees that covered all the
bank with an immense wall of verdure.
The sensation of life which is renewed each day, of fresh, happy, loving
life trembled in the leaves, palpitated in the air, was mirrored in the
water.
The postman had just brought my papers, which were handed to me, and I
walked slowly to the river bank in order to read them.
In the first paper I opened I noticed this headline, “Statistics of
Suicides,” and I read that more than 8,500 persons had killed themselves
in that year.
In a moment I seemed to see them! I saw this voluntary and hideous
massacre of the despairing who were weary of life. I saw men bleeding,
their jaws fractured, their skulls cloven, their breasts pierced by
a bullet, slowly dying, alone in a little room in a hotel, giving no
thought to their wound, but thinking only of their misfortunes.
I saw others seated before a tumbler in which some matches were soaking,
or before a little bottle with a red label.
They would look at it fixedly without moving; then they would drink
and await the result; then a spasm would convulse their cheeks and draw
their lips together; their eyes would grow wild with terror, for they
did not know that the end would be preceded by so much suffering.
They rose to their feet, paused, fell over and with their hands pressed
to their stomachs they felt their internal organs on fire, their
entrails devoured by the fiery liquid, before their minds began to grow
dim.
I saw others hanging from a nail in the wall, from the fastening of the
window, from a hook in the ceiling, from a beam in the garret, from
a branch of a tree amid the evening rain. And I surmised all that had
happened before they hung there motionless, their tongues hanging out
of their mouths. I imagined the anguish of their heart, their final
hesitation, their attempts to fasten the rope, to determine that it was
secure, then to pass the noose round their neck and to let themselves
fall.
I saw others lying on wretched beds, mothers with their little children,
old men dying of hunger, young girls dying for love, all rigid,
suffocated, asphyxiated, while in the center of the room the brasier
still gave forth the fumes of charcoal.
And I saw others walking at night along the deserted bridges. These were
the most sinister. The water flowed under the arches with a low sound.
They did not see it... they guessed at it from its cool breath! They
longed for it and they feared it. They dared not do it! And yet, they
must. A distant clock sounded the hour and, suddenly, in the vast
silence of the night, there was heard the splash of a body falling into
the river, a scream or two, the sound of hands beating the water, and
all was still. Sometimes, even, there was only the sound of the falling
body when they had tied their arms down or fastened a stone to their
feet. Oh, the poor things, the poor things, the poor things, how I
felt their anguish, how I died in their death! I went through all their
wretchedness; I endured in one hour all their tortures. I knew all the
sorrows that had led them to this, for I know the deceitful infamy of
life, and no one has felt it more than I have.
How I understood them, these who weak, harassed by misfortune, having
lost those they loved, awakened from the dream of a tardy compensation,
from the illusion of another existence where God will finally be just,
after having been ferocious, and their minds disabused of the mirages
of happiness, have given up the fight and desire to put an end to this
ceaseless tragedy, or this shameful comedy.
Suicide! Why, it is the strength of those whose strength is exhausted,
the hope of those who no longer believe, the sublime courage of the
conquered! Yes, there is at least one door to this life we can always
open and pass through to the other side. Nature had an impulse of pity;
she did not shut us up in prison. Mercy for the despairing!
As for those who are simply disillusioned, let them march ahead with
free soul and quiet heart. They have nothing to fear since they may take
their leave; for behind them there is always this door that the gods of
our illusions cannot even lock.
I thought of this crowd of suicides: more than eight thousand five
hundred in one year. And it seemed to me that they had combined to send
to the world a prayer, to utter a cry of appeal, to demand something
that should come into effect later when we understood things better. It
seemed to me that all these victims, their throats cut, poisoned, hung,
asphyxiated, or drowned, all came together, a frightful horde, like
citizens to the polls, to say to society:
“Grant us, at least, a gentle death! Help us to die, you who will not
help us to live! See, we are numerous, we have the right to speak
in these days of freedom, of philosophic independence and of popular
suffrage. Give to those who renounce life the charity of a death that
will not be repugnant nor terrible.”
I began to dream, allowing my fancy to roam at will in weird and
mysterious fashion on this subject.
I seemed to be all at once in a beautiful city. It was Paris; but at
what period? I walked about the streets, looking at the houses, the
theaters, the public buildings, and presently found myself in a square
where I remarked a large building; very handsome, dainty and attractive.
I was surprised on reading on the facade this inscription in letters of
gold, “Suicide Bureau.”
Oh, the weirdness of waking dreams where the spirit soars into a world
of unrealities and possibilities! Nothing astonishes one, nothing shocks
one; and the unbridled fancy makes no distinction between the comic and
the tragic.
I approached the building where footmen in knee-breeches were seated in
the vestibule in front of a cloak-room as they do at the entrance of a
club.