uicide!"

Before a minute had passed, he turned round towards me again, opened
his eyes and said in a tearful voice:

"Excuse me for taking such a tone, but you'll admit I'm right! To
ask a convict how he got into prison, or a suicide why he shot
himself is not generous . . . and indelicate. To think of gratifying
idle curiosity at the expense of another man's nerves!"

"There is no need to excite yourself. . . . It never occurred to
me to question you about your motives."

"You would have asked. . . . It's what people always do. Though it
would be no use to ask. If I told you, you would not believe or
understand. . . . I must own I don't understand it myself. . . .
There are phrases used in the police reports and newspapers such
as: 'unrequited love,' and 'hopeless poverty,' but the reasons are
not known. . . . They are not known to me, nor to you, nor to your
newspaper offices, where they have the impudence to write 'The diary
of a suicide.' God alone understands the state of a man's soul when
he takes his own life; but men know nothing about it."

"That is all very nice," I said, "but you oughtn't to talk. . . ."

But my suicide could not be stopped, he leaned his head on his fist,
and went on in the tone of some great professor:

"Man will never understand the psychological subtleties of suicide!
How can one speak of reasons? To-day the reason makes one snatch
up a revolver, while to-morrow the same reason seems not worth a
rotten egg. It all depends most likely on the particular condition
of the individual at the given moment. . . . Take me for instance.
Half an hour ago, I had a passionate desire for death, now when the
candle is lighted, and you are sitting by me, I don't even think
of the hour of death. Explain that change if you can! Am I better
off, or has my wife risen from the dead? Is it the influence of the
light on me, or the presence of an outsider?"

"The light certainly has an influence . . ." I muttered for the
sake of saying something. "The influence of light on the organism
. . . ."

"The influence of light. . . . We admit it! But you know men do
shoot themselves by candle-light! And it would be ignominious indeed
for the heroes of your novels if such a trifling thing as a candle
were to change the course of the drama so abruptly. All this nonsense
can be explained perhaps, but not by us. It's useless to ask questions
or give explanations of what one does not understand. . . ."

"Forgiv