Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

Fascination

ONE HOUR ago I was a prisoner. And what a prisoner! It was not a question of my honor or my liberty: it was my head that was at stake.

I have known terrible nights haunted by the nightmare of the guillotine. I have trembled as some ghastly fascination made me lift my clammy hands to my neck to trace the narrow line the knife would make there. I have shuddered at the hostile murmurs of the crowd. The hoarse roar: “To the scaffold with him!” has rung and echoed in my ears.

But that is all over now. I am free. Once again I have seen the noisy streets and the bright lights of the shops. Presently, quite at ease, I shall dine. Sitting by the fire I shall smoke my pipe, and tonight I shall fall asleep quietly in the warm bed that is waiting for me.

And yet never have I felt myself so much of a criminal as at this moment just after my judges have acquitted me. I am wondering what aberration prevented them from knowing the kind of being I really am. The power of systematic denial stupefies me, and I feel that if I am to regain my clearness of mind, I must write down the truth I have hidden for the last three months with a cleverness and cynicism that have ended by almost making me believe my own lies.

For I really am a murderer; I killed a woman.

Why?… I do not know. I have never been able to understand why I did it.

Certainly not because of jealousy; I did not love her. Not to rob her; I am rich, and the few francs they found on her could never have tempted me. Nor was it done in anger…

We were in this room. She was standing near that mirror; I was sitting just where I am at this moment. I was reading. She said to me:

“Let’s go out… Let’s go for a stroll in the Bois.”

Without raising my eyes, I replied:

“No, I’m tired. Let’s stay here.”

She insisted. I persisted in my refusal. She kept on insisting, and her voice aggravated me. She spoke very angrily, sneering at my inertia, laughing scornfully, shrugging her shoulders. Several times I tried to stop her:

“Will you be quiet?… I beg you to be quiet…”

She continued. I got up and began to pace the room, and as I walked up and down I saw on the mantelshelf a little revolver that I used to carry in my pocket at night. I took it up mechanically. The moment I touched it an extraordinary frame of mind took possession of me. The voice of my mistress which had till then merely aggravated me, unnerved me to an extent I cannot describe. It was not what she was saying that irritated me; it was her voice, just her voice. If she had been jibbering meaningless words or reciting beautiful poetry, I should have felt just the same exasperation. An irresistible longing for quiet, for complete repose, seized me. How, why did my mind connect this imperious desire for the silence I could not command with the revolver I held in my hand?… I only know that I imagined myself brandishing the weapon, pressing the trigger, and I also saw the woman fall, without a cry…

As a rule such ideas are only giddy hallucinations that flash through the brain and are gone as quickly as they came. But this time it seemed as if this particular vision had caught into my mind in the way a jagged fingernail will catch in floss silk, getting more securely entangled as one tries to free it. I placed the revolver on the table. I could not help looking at it. I tried to turn my head away; my eyes drew me toward it.

It lay there before me a little lifeless thing, with its ivory butt and shining barrel. Twice, thrice, I stretched out, then drew back my hand. The desire was stronger than my will. I was obliged to touch it, to seize it.

It is impossible to understand the temptation that assails one in the face of certain kinds of danger. I remember that one day when I was in the park of the Buttes Chaumont I was obliged to hold on to the parapet of the place they call “The Suicide’s Bridge” to prevent myself from leaping off into space. Several times when I have been alone in a railway carriage I have felt a sick longing to pull the alarm-signal. The nickel knob drew me toward it, seemed to beg to be pulled. It was in vain I told myself that such an action would be absurd, that I should be heavily fined or punished for doing it; had not the chance stoppage of the train or the flashing by of another suddenly diverted my thoughts, I am certain I should have succumbed to the temptation.

Well, at that moment I was overwhelmed by the same irresistible impulse. My eyes and my hands ceased to obey my will. I seemed to be watching myself as if I were someone else, to be following the movements of that other person without knowing what they were leading up to.

Was she still talking?… Was she silent?… I do not know. The only thing I am certain of is that I walked toward her with the revolver in my hand, that my wrist rose, and when it was on a level with her forehead, I pressed the trigger. There was a sharp noise like the crack of a whip. I saw a red mark, very small, under the right lid, and the woman fell, inert, like a petticoat that has been unfastened and slips down on the carpet.

Then, instantly, my reason came back to me. A wild terror dominated me. I rushed about the room like a madman without even thinking of looking at my victim, and some base instinct of cowardice forced me to open the door and run down the staircase shouting:

“Help!… She has killed herself !…”

At first everyone believed it was suicide. Later the experts found that very improbable. I was arrested. The trial was a long one. I could have explained everything in a few words. I need only have said:

“This is how it happened.”

I persisted in obstinate denial. And as, sooner or later, they always find some motive to account for a criminal action, I was eventually acquitted.

Reviewing it all calmly now, I am wondering if I was wrong to go on lying. If I had told the jury what I am writing now, would they have believed me? Would they have absolved me from blame? I believe I was right to deny it. Imperfectly understood, certain truths can very easily seem like lies…

My God, how good it is to be free, to be able to come and go as I like.

From my window I see the street, the houses and the trees… It was here on this very spot the thing happened. They did not want to give me this room. I insisted on having it. I am not afraid of ghosts. Besides, I can write this better here than I should have elsewhere. One can visualize a past incident so much more realistically in the place where it happened.

…Somehow this confession has completely relieved my mind. My soul seems clean once again as if it had been washed.

I shall try to forget the nightmare it has all been. I will go and live in the country somewhere far away from Paris. Soon everyone will have forgotten even my name. I shall be another man, living another existence, with the ways and habits of a peasant… I shall cease to recognize myself.

There is one thing above all that I want to get rid of: the revolver they gave back to me in court this morning. It reminds me too forcibly of things I must forget. If I need a weapon I will buy another.

It is close beside me as I write, and the sight of it hurts me. Yet what a little thing it is… It is pretty… it looks like a toy, a charming ornament… incapable of doing any harm.

…I have just taken it in my hand. It is very light, very smooth to the touch. It is also very cold… It frightens me a little… It is so mysterious, this sleeping weapon… The danger of a knife is apparent; you see the sharp blade, can feel the pointed end… Here, nothing: you must have used it to—I will not keep it… I will not keep it… I will sell it at once, tomorrow… Sell it?… I will give it away… No, I will not. I will throw it away…

Yet, after all, why should I, so long as I don’t see it for some time? I am looking at it too much… It is natural enough, too… It lies there like a silent witness… Decidedly I do not like it. I will get rid of it instantly.

…I keep on writing and the revolver is still before me.

People who commit suicide must sit just like this writing their last wishes. I wonder what their sensations are… I believe I know exactly. At first they dare not look at the revolver… then once their resolution has been made, they probably cannot take their eyes from it, sit looking at it, fascinated…

Does it really need so much courage for a man to kill himself ?

The worst part must be the simple act of stretching out the hand, grasping the weapon, and feeling its chill…

…But no, I am holding it in my left hand… I place the barrel against my temple… The sensation is not at all disagreeable… A little shiver… then the steel grows warm against your flesh…

No, that cannot be the most horrible moment… it must be the second when one presses the trigger… the last order the soul gives the body…

Who knows?… Perhaps even that is nothing… Once the glamor has got hold of you, you feel irresistibly drawn on.

I understand that perfectly…

…You almost feel as if you no longer exist…

…You are no longer conscious of any sensation…

…The Unknown calls you…

…And you press the trigg…