Speaker 1: The Diary of a Madman by GUIs de Monpaissant. 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 counselors, judges had saluted, bowing low
in token of profound respect, remembering that grand face, pale
and thin, illumined by two bright, deep set eyes. 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 in the recesses of their
soul their most secret thoughts. 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 breeches had escorted him to the tomb, and men
in white cravats had shed on his grave tears that
seemed to be real. But listen to the strange paper
found by the dismayed notary in the desk where the
judge had kept filed the records of great criminals. It
was entitled why June twentieth, eighteen fifty one I have
just left court. I have condemned and Blondell to death.
Now why did this man kill his five children? Frequently
one meets with people to whom killing is a pleasure. Yes, yes,
it should be a pleasure, the greatest of all, perhaps,
for is not killing most like creating? To make and
to destroy? These two words contain the history of the universe,
the history of all worlds, all that is all. Why
is it not intoxicating to kill? June twenty fifth, To
think that there is a being who lives, who walks,
who runs? A being? What is a being? An animated
thing which bears in it the principle of motion and
a will? Ruling that principle, it clings to nothing, this thing,
its feet are independent of 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. June twenty sixth. Why then, is it
a crime to kill? Yes? Why? On the contrary, it
is the law of nature. Every being has the mission
to kill. He kills to live, and he lives to kill.
The beast kills without ceasing all day, every instant of
its existence, man kills without ceasing to nourish himself. But
since in addition he needs to kill for pleasure, he
has invented the chase. 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 of man 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 sacrifice. Now
the necessity of living in society has 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 intoxicates the civilians,
women and children who read by lamplight at night, the
feverish story of massacre. And do we despise those picked
out to accomplish these butcheries of men? No, they are
loaded with honors. They are clad in gold and in
resplendent stuffs. 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, and the passer by clad in black looks
on with envy. For to kill is the great law
put by nature in the heart of existence. There is
nothing more beautiful and honorable than killing. June thirtieth. 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. July second.
It must be a pleasure, unique and full of zest,
to kill, to place before you a living, thinking being,
to make therein a little hole nothing but a little whole,
and to see that red liquid flow which is the blood,
which is the life, and then to have before you
only a heap of limp flesh, cold, inert, void of thought.
August fifth, I, who have passed my life in judging,
condemning killing by words, pronounced killing by the guillotine, Those
who had killed by the knife. If I should do
as all the assassins whom I have smitten have done,
I I who would know it? August tenth? Who would
ever know? Who would ever suspect me? Especially if I
should choose a being? I had no interest in doing
away with August twenty second. I could resist no longer.
I have killed a little creature as an experiment, as
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.
It was atrocious and delicious. I was nearly choking it,
but I could not see the blood. Then I took scissors,
short nail scissors, and I cut its throat in three
strokes 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 and 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
can 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,
August twenty fifth, I must kill a man, I must
August thirtieth. It is done. But what a little thing.
I had gone for a walk in the forest of Verne.
I was thinking of nothing, literally nothing. See a child
on the road, A little child eating a slice of
bread and butter. He stops to see me pass and says,
good day, mister 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 held my wrists
in his little hands, and his body writhed like a
feather on the fire. Then he moved no more. I
threw the body in the ditch than 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, and passed the evening at the prefects.
They found me witty. But I have not seen blood.
I am not tranquil. August thirty first, the body has
been discovered. They are hunting for the assassin. Ah. September first,
two tramps have been arrested. Proofs are lacking. September two,
the parents have been to see me. They wept. Ah.
October sixth nothing has been discovered. Some strolling vagabond must
have done the deed. Ah. If I had seen the
blood flow, it seems to me I should be tranquil. Now.
October tenth yet another I was walking by the river
after breakfast, and I saw under a willow a fisherman asleep.
It was noon. A spade, as if expressly put there
for me, was standing in a potato field near by.
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,
I should have made an excellent assassin. October twenty fifth,
the affair of the fisherman makes a great noise. His nephew,
who fished with him, is charged with the murder. October
twenty sixth, the examining magistrate affirms that the nephew is guilty.
Everybody in town believes it ah Ah. October twenty seventh,
the nephew defends himself badly. He had gone to the
village to buy bread and cheese, he declares. He swears
that his uncle had been killed in his absence. Who
would believe him? October twenty eighth. The nephew has all
but confessed. So much have they made him lose his head? Ah?
Justice November fifteenth. There are overwhelming proofs against the nephew,
who was his uncle's heir. I shall preside at the
sessions January twenty fifth, eighteen fifty two. To death, to death,
to death. I have had him condemned to death. The
Advocate General spoke like an angel, Ah yet another. I
shall go to see him executed. March tenth. 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 more pages, but
told of no new crime. Alienist physicians, to whom the
awful story has been submitted, declare that there are in
the world many unknown madmen as adroit and as terrible
as this monstrous, lunatic End of the Diary of a
Madman