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 no