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.
"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.'
