The Putter-to-Sleep
The Seine spread before my house without a wrinkle, varnished by the morning sun. It lay there, a lovely, wide, slow, long flood of silver, tarnished in places; and on the further side of the river a line of tall trees stretched along the bank a huge wall of verdure.
The feeling of life which begins again each morning, of life, fresh, gay, loving, shivered in the leaves, fluttered in the air, shimmered in the water.
They brought me my newspapers which the postman had just left and I went out on to the bank with tranquil step to read them.
In the first I opened I caught the words “Suicide Statistics” and I was informed that this year more than eight thousand five hundred persons had killed themselves.
At that moment I saw them! I saw this hideous massacre of desperate creatures, tired of life. I saw people bleeding, their jaw shattered, their skull smashed, their chest pierced by a bullet, slowly dying, alone in a little hotel bedroom, and thinking nothing of their wound, always of their misery.
Others I saw, throat gaping or stomach ripped open, still holding in their hand the kitchen knife or the razor.
I saw others, seated before a glass in which matches were soaking, or sometimes before a little bottle with a red label. They would watch it with rigid eyes, motionless; then they would drink it, then wait; then a grimace would cross their faces, contract their lips; a fear crept into their eyes, for they did not know how much they would suffer before the end.
They would get up, stop, fall, and with hands clutching their stomachs, feel their organs burned and their entrails corroded by the liquid’s flames, before their consciousness was overcast.
Others again I saw hanging from a nail in the wall, from the window fastening, from the ceiling bracket, from the beam of a barn, from the branch of a tree, beneath the evening drizzle. And I guessed all that they had done before they hung there, tongue lolling, motionless. I guessed the anguish of their hearts, their last hesitations, their movements in fixing the rope, trying whether it held firmly, passing it about their neck and letting themselves fall.
Others still I saw lying on their wretched beds, mothers with their little children, old men starving with hunger, girls torn with the agony of love, all rigid, stifled, suffocated, while in the centre of the room still smoked the charcoal brazier.
And some I glimpsed walking to and fro by night on deserted bridges. These were the most sinister. The water eddied beneath the arches with a soft whisper. They did not see it … they guessed its presence, scenting its chilly odour! They desired it and feared it. They did not dare! However, they must. The hour was striking from some distant clock, and suddenly, in the wide silences of the darkness, there swept by me, quickly stifled, the splash of a body falling into the river, a few screams, the slapping of water beaten with hands. Sometimes there was nothing more than the plunge of their fall, when they had bound their arms or tied a stone to their feet.
Oh! poor folk, poor folk, poor folk, how I felt their anguish, how I died their deaths. I have passed through all their miseries; in one hour I have undergone all their tortures. I have known all the sorrows which led them to that place; for I feel degradation, deceiver of life, as no one more than I has felt it.
Yes, I have understood them, those feeble things, who—tormented by ill fortune, having lost their loved ones, awakened from their dreams of later reward, from the illusion of another existance, in which God would at last be just, after giving way to savage anger, and disabused of the mirage of happiness—have had enough of life, and would end this relentless tragedy or shameful comedy.
Suicide; it is the strength of them who have nothing left, the hope of them who believe no more, the sublime courage of the conquered! Yes, there is at least one door from this life; we can always open it and pass to the other side. Nature has made one gesture of pity; she has not imprisoned us. Mercy for the desperate!
While for the merely disabused, let them march forward free-souled and calm-hearted. They have nothing to fear, since they can depart; since behind them stands ever this door that the gods we dream of can never close.
So I meditated on this crowd of willing dead: more than eight thousand five hundred in a year. And it came to me that they had come together to hurl into the world a prayer, to cry their will, to demand something, to be later made real, when the world will understand better. It seemed to me that all these beings tortured, stabbed, poisoned, hung, suffocated, drowned, flocked, in one terrifying horde, like voters at the poll, to say to Society: “Grant us at least a quiet death! Help us to die, you who will not help us to live! See, we are many, we have the right to speak in these days of liberty, of philosophic independence, and of democracy. Give those who renounce life the charity of a death neither repulsive nor fearful.”
I let myself dream, leaving my thoughts to roam about this subject with bizarre, mysterious fancies.
I thought myself at one moment in a lovely city. It was Paris; but of what date? I wandered down the streets, looking at houses, theatres, public buildings, and then suddenly, in a square, I came on a huge edifice, graceful alluring, handsome.
I was surprised when I read on the façade, in gilt letters: “Institute of Voluntary Death”!
The strangeness of those wakened dreams, where the spirit hovers in an unreal yet possible world! Nothing surprises; nothing shocks; and the unbridled fancy no longer distinguishes the comic or the doleful.
I went up to the building, and saw footmen in breeches seated in the hall before a cloakroom, as in the entrance to a club.
I went in to look round. One of them, rising, asked me:
“Do you want anything, sir?”
“I want to know what this place is.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you would like me to take you to the secretary of the institute, sir?”
I hesitated and then asked:
“I shall not be disturbing him?”
“Oh, not at all, sir. He is here to see people who want information.”
“Very well. I will follow you.”
He led me through some corridors in which a few old gentlemen were chatting; then I was conducted into a charming room, a little sombre perhaps, furnished in black wood. A plump, potbellied young man was writing a letter and smoking a cigar the quality of which was evidenced by its excellent bouquet.
He rose. We bowed to each other, and when the footman had gone, he asked:
“How can I be of service to you?”
“You will forgive my indiscretion, sir,” I replied. “I have never seen this establishment before. The few words inscribed on the façade surprised me and I wanted to know what they betokened!”
He smiled before answering, then in a low voice with an air of satisfaction:
“Just, sir, that people who want to die, are killed here decently and quietly; I won’t say agreeably.”
I did not feel much moved, for this statement seemed to me on the whole very natural and just. But I was astonished that on this planet with its low, utilitarian, humanitarian ideas, egotistical and coercive of all real liberty, an enterprise of such a nature, worthy of an emancipated humanity, dare be undertaken.
I went on:
“How did this happen?”
“Sir,” he replied, “the number of suicides grew so rapidly in the five years following the Exhibition of 1889, that immediate steps became necessary. People were killing themselves in the streets, at parties, in restaurants, at the theatre, in railway carriages, at presidential banquets, everywhere. Not only was it a very ugly sight for those, such as myself, who are very fond of life, but, moreover, a bad example for the children. So it became necessary to centralise suicides.”
“How did this rush of suicides arise?”
“I have no idea. In my heart, I think the world has grown old. We begin to see clearly and to accept our lot with an ill grace. Today it is the same with destiny as with the government, we know where we are: we decide that we are being cheated at all points, and so we depart. When we realise that Providende lies, cheats, robs and tricks human beings in the same way as a deputy his constituents, we are annoyed, and since we can’t nominate another every quarter as we do our privileged representatives, we quit a place so definitely rotten!”
“Really.”
“Oh, I don’t complain.”
“Will you tell me how the institute works?”
“Willingly. You can always become a member when you want to. It is a club.”
“A club?”
“Certainly, sir, and founded by the most eminent men of the country, by the best imaginations, and the clearest intelligences.”
Laughing heartily, he added:
“And I swear people like it here.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here.”
“You astound me.”
“Lord! they like it because the members of the club have no fear of death, which is the great spoiler of earthly pleasures!”
“But why, if they don’t kill themselves, are they members of this club?”
“One can become a member without putting oneself under the obligation of committing suicide.”
“Then?”
“Let me explain. Fired by the immeasurable growth of the number of suicides, and the hideous spectacle they offered, a society of pure benevolence was formed for the protection of the desperate to put at their disposal a calm and painless, if not unforeseen, death.”
“Whoever gave authority for such a society?”
“General Boulanger during his short tenure of office. He could refuse nothing. Of course, he did no other good action. So a society was formed of farsighted, disabused, sceptical men who wished to build in the heart of Paris a kind of temple to the scorn of death. This building was at first a suspected place which no one would come near. Then the founders called a meeting and arranged a great reception of inauguration with Sarah Bernhardt, Judic, Théo, Granier and a score more. MM. de Rezke, Coquelin, Mounet-Sully, Paulus; then concerts, Dumas comedies, Meilhac, Falévy, Sardou. We only had one frost, one of Becque’s plays, which seemed gloomy, but afterwards was very successful at the Comédie-Française. In the end, all Paris came. The club was launched!”
“In the midst of jubilations! What a ghastly jest!”
“Not at all. Why should death be gloomy? It should be indifferent. We have lightened death, we have made it blossom, we have perfumed it, we have made it easy. One learns to relieve suffering by example; one can see that it is nothing.”
“I can quite understand people coming for the shows, but does anyone come for … it?”
“Not at once: they were distrustful.”
“But later?”
“They came.”
“Many?”
“In masses. We have more than forty a day. Practically no drowned are found in the Seine.”
“Who was the first aspirant?”
“A member of the club.”
“A God-fearer?”
“I don’t think so. A sot, a ruined man, who had lost heavily at baccara for three months.”
“Really?”
“Our second was an Englishman, an eccentric. Then we had a lot of publicity in the newspapers; we told all about our methods; we made up deaths which we thought would attract. But the main impulse came from the lower classes.”
“What are your methods?”
“Would you like to go round? I could explain as we went.”
“Very much indeed.”
He took his hat, opened the door, motioned me before him into a gambling-room where men were playing as they play in all dives. He led me across several rooms. Everywhere was lively and gay chatter. I have rarely seen so vivacious a club, so animated, so mirthful.
As I seemed surprised, the secretary challenged me:
“Oh, the club has an unprecedented rage. The right people from all over the globe become members in order to have the air of mocking death. Once they are here, they think they have to be gay in order not to seem afraid. So they joke, laugh, play the buffoon; they have wit and learn to acquire it. Nowadays it is the most frequented and the most amusing place in Paris. The women even are getting busy to organise an annexe for themselves.”
“And in spite of all this, you have plenty of suicides in the house?”
“As I told you, between forty and fifty a day. The upper classes are rare, but there are plenty of poverty-stricken devils. And the middle classes too send a good many.”
“And how … is it done?”
“Asphyxiation … very gently.”
“Your apparatus?”
“A gas of our own invention. We hold the patent. On the other side of the building are the public entrances. Three little doors opening into side alleys. When a man or a women knocks, we begin by interrogating them; then we offer them assistance, help, protection. If our client accepts, we make inquiries and often we succeed in saving them.”
“Where do you find the money?”
“We possess a great deal. The membership subscription is very high. Then it is good form to make donations to the institute. The names of all donors are printed in the Figaro. Moreover, every wealthy man’s suicide costs a thousand francs, a good pose to die in. The poor die gratis.”
“How do you recognise the poor?”
“Oh, we guess, sir! And, too, they have to bring a certificate of indigence from the local police. If you knew how sinister their entry is! I have only visited that part of the establishment once; I shall never visit it again. As premises, they are nearly as good as this part, nearly as rich and comfortable, but the people … the people!!! If you could only see them arrive, old people in rags who are on the point of death, people starving of misery for months, fed at the corners like street dogs; tattered, gaunt women who are ill, paralysed, incapable of making a living, and who say to us after having related their circumstances: ‘You see, it can’t go on, for I can do nothing and earn nothing.’ I saw one old woman of eighty-seven who had lost all her children and all her grandchildren, and who had been sleeping out of doors for six weeks. I was sick with emotion at the sight. But then, we have so many different cases, without mentioning those who say nothing save to ask: ‘Where is it?’ Those we let in and it is all over at once.”
I repeated, with constricted heart:
“And … where is it?”
“Here.”
He opened a door, and went on:
“Come in. It is the room specially reserved for members, and the one that is used least. As yet we have had no more than eleven annihilations.”
“Oh, you call it an … annihilation?”
“Yes, sir. After you.”
I hesitated, but at last went in. It proved a delightful gallery, a kind of conservatory, which pale blue, soft rose, and light green glasses surrounded poetically in a kind of landscape tapestry. In this charming room there were divans, magnificent palms, sweet-scented flowers, particularly roses, books on the table, the Revue des Deux Mondes, boxes of duty-paid cigars, and, what surprised me, Vichy pastiles in a bonbonnière.
As I showed my astonishment my guide said: “Oh, people often come here for a chat,” and went on:
“The public rooms are like this, though furnished more simply.”
I asked a question.
He pointed with his finger to a chaise-longue upholstered in creamy crêpe de Chine with white embroidery, beneath a tall shrub of species unknown to me, round the foot of which ran a flower bed of reseda.
The secretary added in a lower voice:
“The flower and the scent can be changed at will, for our gas, which is quite imperceptible, lends to death the scene of whatever flower the subject prefers. It is volatilised with essences. Would you like to smell it for a second?”
“No, thanks,” I replied quickly, “not yet.”
He began laughing.
“Oh, there’s no danger, sir. I have made sure of that myself several times.”
I was afraid to appear cowardly. I replied:
“Well, I’m quite agreeable.”
“Sit down on the ‘putter-to-sleep,’ then.”
Slightly nervous, I seated myself on the low chair upholstered in crêpe de Chine, and then lay full length. Almost at once I was enveloped by a delicious scene of reseda. I opened my mouth to receive it more easily, for my soul was already growing torpid, was forgetting, was savouring, in the first discomfort of asphyxiation, the bewitching intoxication of an enchanting and withering opium.
I was shaken by the arm.
“Ah, sir,” said the secretary, laughing, “I see that you are letting yourself get caught.”
But a voice, a real and not a dream voice, greeted me with a pleasant ring:
“Morning, sir, I trust you’re well.”
My dream fled. I saw the Seine beneath the sun, and, coming along the path, the local policeman, who touched his black képi with its silver braid with his right hand.
I answered:
“Good morning, Marinel. Where are you off to?”
“I’m going to report on a drowned man they’ve fished up by Morillons. Another one who has chucked himself into the Seine. He’d taken off his trousers to tie his legs with.”