y, in order to deceive her lover,
she caught cold and died.'

* * * * *

"It appears that they found me at daybreak, lying on the grave
unconscious."

THE DIARY OF A MADMAN

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 souls 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 20, 1851. I have just left court. I have condemned Blondel 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 25. 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 26. 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