They endeavored to drag her along, but she held on
with both hands to the railings and uttered such plaints
that the passers-by in the street raised their heads.
And the dying boy waited, his eyes turned towards
that window, waited to die until he could see for the
last time the sweet, beloved face, the worshiped face
of his mother.
He waited long, and night came on. Then he turned
over with his face to the wall and was silent.
When day broke he was dead. The day following
she was crazy.
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.
