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| Edouard Manet |
SUICIDES
Hardly a day
goes by without our reading a news item like the following in some newspaper:
"On
Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de-----, were awakened by two successive
shots. The explosions seemed to come from the apartment occupied by M. X----.
The door was broken in and the man was found bathed in his blood, still holding
in one hand the revolver with which he had taken his life.
"M.
X---- was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and had
everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for his
action."
What
terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret wounds drive
these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we imagine tragedies of
love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we never find anything definite,
we apply to these deaths the word "mystery."
A letter
found on the desk of one of these "suicides without cause," and
written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into our
hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great
catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of despair; but
it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of life, the
disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have disappeared; it gives
the reason for these tragic ends, which only nervous and highstrung people can
understand.
Here it is:
"It is
midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself. Why? I shall
attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read these lines, but for
myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress upon myself the fatal necessity
of this act which can, at best, be only deferred.
"I was
brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning believers. And I
believed as they did.
"My
dream lasted a long time. The last veil has just been torn from my eyes.
"During
the last few years a strange change has been taking place within me. All the
events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a beautiful sunset, are
now fading away. The true meaning of things has appeared to me in its brutal
reality; and the true reason for love has bred in me disgust even for this
poetic sentiment: 'We are the eternal toys of foolish and charming illusions,
which are always being renewed.'
"On
growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery of life, to
the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything appeared to me in a
new light, this evening, after dinner.
"Formerly,
I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the appearance of the
streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an interest in the cut of my
clothes. But the repetition of the same sights has had the result of filling my
heart with weariness and disgust, just as one would feel were one to go every
night to the same theatre.
"For
the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at the same
restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same hours the same
dishes brought me by different waiters.
"I have
tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places terrified me. I
felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly started on my homeward
journey.
"But
here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for thirty
years in the same place, the smell of my apartments (for, with time, each
dwelling takes on a particular odor) each night, these and other things disgust
me and make me sick of living thus.
"Everything
repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in the lock, the place
where I always find my matches, the first object which meets my eye when I
enter the room, make me feel like jumping out of the window and putting an end
to those monotonous events from which we can never escape.
"Each
day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat; and my face,
which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with soap on my cheeks, has
several times made me weak from sadness.
"Now I
even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I know them so
well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I am going to answer.
Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse keeps circling around
eternally. We must circle round always, around the same ideas, the same joys,
the same pleasures, the same habits, the same beliefs, the same sensations of
disgust.
"The
fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the street
lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier weight than usual
oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.
"For
good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist,
amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to
everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest
pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism unbelief, nightmares and the
desire for death. I have often noticed this fact. Perhaps I would not kill
myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.
"When I
sat down in the arm-chair where I have been sitting every day for thirty years,
I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by such a terrible distress
that I thought I must go mad.
"I
tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every occupation
struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought me of putting my
papers in order.
"For a
long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for, for the last
thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the same
desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble. But I feel
such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting anything in order
that I have never had the courage to begin this tedious business.
"I
therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers and destroy
the majority of them.
"At
first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age, then I
chose one.
"Oh! if
you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters!
"And
if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your eyes
that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some forgotten
handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of memories; carry these
papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes, crush them to an invisible
powder, or otherwise you are lost--just as I have been lost for an hour.
"The
first letters which I read did not interest me greatly. They were recent, and
came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and whose presence does not
move me to any great extent. But all at once one envelope made me start. My
name was traced on it in a large, bold handwriting; and suddenly tears came to
my eyes. That letter was from my dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the
confidant of my hopes; and he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant
smile and his hand outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes,
the dead come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than the
universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.
"With
trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told me, and in my
poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began to groan as a man
whose bones are slowly being crushed.
"Then I
travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river. I recognized
people, so long forgotten that I no longer knew their names. Their faces alone
lived in me. In my mother's letters I saw again the old servants, the shape of
our house and the little insignificant odds and ends which cling to our minds.
"Yes, I
suddenly saw again all my mother's old gowns, the different styles which she
adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her hair. She haunted me especially
in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace; and I remembered something she said one
day when she was wearing this dress. She said: 'Robert, my child, if you do not
stand up straight you will be round-shouldered all your life.'
"Then,
opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories of tender
passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter, locks of hair and
dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life, whose living heroines are
now white-haired, plunged me into the deep melancholy of things. Oh, the young
brows where blond locks curl, the caress of the hands, the glance which speaks,
the hearts which beat, that smile which promises the lips, those lips which
promise the embrace! And the first kiss-that endless kiss which makes you close
your eyes, which drowns all thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching
possession!
"Taking
these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious
caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the
hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures
invented in all the fables about hell.
"One
last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years ago by my
writing teacher. Here it is:
"'MY
DEAR LITTLE MAMMA: "'I am seven years old to-day. It is the age of reason.
I take advantage of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.
"'Your
little son, who loves you
"'ROBERT.'
"It is
all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned my glance on
what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old age, and approaching
infirmities, and everything over and gone. And nobody near me!
"My
revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it . . . . Never reread your old
letters!"
And that is
how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain to discover some
great sorrow in their lives.
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