The Diary Of A Madman
He was dead--the head of a high tribunal, the upright magistrate whose
irreproachable life was a proverb in all the courts of France.
Advocates, young counsellors, judges had greeted him at sight of his
large, thin, pale face lighted up by two sparkling deep-set eyes, bowing
low in token of respect.
He had passed his life in pursuing crime and in protecting the weak.
Swindlers and murderers had no more redoubtable enemy, for he seemed to
read the most secret thoughts of their minds.
He was dead, now, at the age of eighty-two, honored by the homage and
followed by the regrets of a whole people. Soldiers in red trousers had
escorted him to the tomb and men in white cravats had spoken words and
shed tears that seemed to be sincere beside his grave.
But here is the strange paper found by the dismayed notary in the desk
where he had kept the records of great criminals! It was entitled:
WHY?
20th June, 1851. I have just left court. I have condemned Blondel to
death! Now, why did this man kill his five children? Frequently one
meets with people to whom the destruction of life is a pleasure. Yes,
yes, it should be a pleasure, the greatest of all, perhaps, for is not
killing the next thing to creating? To make and to destroy! These two
words contain the history of the universe, all the history of worlds, all
that is, all! Why is it not intoxicating to kill?
25th June. To think that a being is there who lives, who walks, who
runs. A being? What is a being? That animated thing, that bears in it
the principle of motion and a will ruling that motion. It is attached to
nothing, this thing. Its feet do not belong to the ground. It is a
grain of life that moves on the earth, and this grain of life, coming I
know not whence, one can destroy at one's will. Then nothing--nothing
more. It perishes, it is finished.
26th June. Why then is it a crime to kill? Yes, why? On the contrary,
it is the law of nature. The mission of every being is to kill; he kills
to live, and he kills to kill. The beast kills without ceasing, all day,
every instant of his existence. Man kills without ceasing, to nourish
himself; but since he needs, besides, to kill for pleasure, he has
invented hunting! The child kills the insects he finds, the little
birds, all the little animals that come in his way. But this does not
suffice for the irresistible need to massacre that is in us. It is not
enough to kill beasts; we must kill man too. Long ago this need was
satisfied by human sacrifices. Now the requirements of social life have
made murder a crime. We condemn and punish the assassin! But as we
cannot live without yielding to this natural and imperious instinct of
death, we relieve ourselves, from time to time, by wars. Then a whole
nation slaughters another nation. It is a feast of blood, a feast that
maddens armies and that intoxicates civilians, women and children, who
read, by lamplight at night, the feverish story of massacre.
One might suppose that those destined to accomplish these butcheries of
men would be despised! No, they are loaded with honors. They are clad
in gold and in resplendent garments; they wear plumes on their heads and
ornaments on their breasts, and they are given crosses, rewards, titles
of every kind. They are proud, respected, loved by women, cheered by the
crowd, solely because their mission is to shed human blood; They drag
through the streets their instruments of death, that the passer-by, clad
in black, looks on with envy. For to kill is the great law set by nature
in the heart of existence! There is nothing more beautiful and honorable
than killing!
30th June. To kill is the law, because nature loves eternal youth. She
seems to cry in all her unconscious acts: "Quick! quick! quick!" The more
she destroys, the more she renews herself.
2d July. A human being--what is a human being? Through thought it is a
reflection of all that is; through memory and science it is an abridged
edition of the universe whose history it represents, a mirror of things
and of nations, each human being becomes a microcosm in the macrocosm.
3d July. It must be a pleasure, unique and full of zest, to kill; to
have there before one the living, thinking being; to make therein a
little hole, nothing but a little hole, to see that red thing flow which
is the blood, which makes life; and to have before one only a heap of
limp flesh, cold, inert, void of thought!
5th August. I, who have passed my life in judging, condemning, killing
by the spoken word, killing by the guillotine those who had killed by the
knife, I, I, if I should do as all the assassins have done whom I have
smitten, I--I--who would know it?
10th August. Who would ever know? Who would ever suspect me, me, me,
especially if I should choose a being I had no interest in doing away
with?
15th August. The temptation has come to me. It pervades my whole being;
my hands tremble with the desire to kill.
22d August. I could resist no longer. I killed a little creature as an
experiment, for a beginning. Jean, my servant, had a goldfinch in a cage
hung in the office window. I sent him on an errand, and I took the
little bird in my hand, in my hand where I felt its heart beat. It was
warm. I went up to my room. From time to time I squeezed it tighter;
its heart beat faster; this was atrocious and delicious. I was near
choking it. But I could not see the blood.
Then I took scissors, short-nail scissors, and I cut its throat with
three slits, quite gently. It opened its bill, it struggled to escape
me, but I held it, oh! I held it--I could have held a mad dog--and I saw
the blood trickle.
And then I did as assassins do--real ones. I washed the scissors, I
washed my hands. I sprinkled water and took the body, the corpse, to the
garden to hide it. I buried it under a strawberry-plant. It will never
be found. Every day I shall eat a strawberry from that plant. How one
can enjoy life when one knows how!
My servant cried; he thought his bird flown. How could he suspect me?
Ah! ah!
25th August. I must kill a man! I must----
30th August. It is done. But what a little thing! I had gone for a
walk in the forest of Vernes. I was thinking of nothing, literally
nothing. A child was in the road, a little child eating a slice of bread
and butter.
He stops to see me pass and says, "Good-day, Mr. President."
And the thought enters my head, "Shall I kill him?"
I answer: "You are alone, my boy?"
"Yes, sir."
"All alone in the wood?"
"Yes, sir."
The wish to kill him intoxicated me like wine. I approached him quite
softly, persuaded that he was going to run away. And, suddenly, I seized
him by the throat. He looked at me with terror in his eyes--such eyes!
He held my wrists in his little hands and his body writhed like a feather
over the fire. Then he moved no more. I threw the body in the ditch,
and some weeds on top of it. I returned home, and dined well. What a
little thing it was! In the evening I was very gay, light, rejuvenated;
I passed the evening at the Prefect's. They found me witty. But I have
not seen blood! I am tranquil.
31st August. The body has been discovered. They are hunting for the
assassin. Ah! ah!
1st September. Two tramps have been arrested. Proofs are lacking.
2d September. The parents have been to see me. They wept! Ah! ah!
6th October. Nothing has been discovered. Some strolling vagabond must
have done the deed. Ah! ah! If I had seen the blood flow, it seems to
me I should be tranquil now! The desire to kill is in my blood; it is
like the passion of youth at twenty.
20th October. Yet another. I was walking by the river, after breakfast.
And I saw, under a willow, a fisherman asleep. It was noon. A spade was
standing in a potato-field near by, as if expressly, for me.
I took it. I returned; I raised it like a club, and with one blow of the
edge I cleft the fisherman's head. Oh! he bled, this one! Rose-colored
blood. It flowed into the water, quite gently. And I went away with a
grave step. If I had been seen! Ah! ah! I should have made an
excellent assassin.
25th October. The affair of the fisherman makes a great stir. His
nephew, who fished with him, is charged with the murder.
26th October. The examining magistrate affirms that the nephew is
guilty. Everybody in town believes it. Ah! ah!
27th October. The nephew makes a very poor witness. He had gone to the
village to buy bread and cheese, he declared. He swore that his uncle
had been killed in his absence! Who would believe him?
28th October. The nephew has all but confessed, they have badgered him
so. Ah! ah! justice!
15th November. There are overwhelming proofs against the nephew, who was
his uncle's heir. I shall preside at the sessions.
25th January. To death! to death! to death! I have had him condemned to
death! Ah! ah! The advocate-general spoke like an angel! Ah! ah! Yet
another! I shall go to see him executed!
10th March. It is done. They guillotined him this morning. He died
very well! very well! That gave me pleasure! How fine it is to see a
man's head cut off
Now, I shall wait, I can wait. It would take such a little thing to let
myself be caught.
The manuscript contained yet other pages, but without relating any new
crime.
Alienist physicians to whom the awful story has been submitted declare
that there are in the world many undiscovered madmen as adroit and as
much to be feared as this monstrous lunatic.
-THE END-
Guy De Maupassant's short story: The Diary Of A Madman
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