August 10. 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 22. 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 Ifelt 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 25. I must kill a man! I must!
August 30. It is done. But what a little thing! I had gone for a walk in the forest of Vernes. 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, Mr. 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, then 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 Prefect's. They found me witty. But I have not seen blood! I am not tranquil.
August 31. The body has been discovered. They are hunting for the assassin. Ah!
September 1. Two tramps have been arrested. Proofs are lacking.
September 2. The parents have been to see me. They wept! Ah!
October 6. 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 10. 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! Ishould have made an excellent assassin.
October 25. The affair of the fisherman makes a great noise. His nephew, who fished with him, is charged with the murder.
October 26. The examining magistrate affirms that the nephew is guilty. Everybody in town believes it. Ah! ah!
October 27. 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 28. The nephew has all but confessed, so much have they made him lose his head! Ah! Justice!
November 15. There are overwheming proofs against the nephew, who was his uncle's heir. I shall preside at the sessions.
January 25, 1852. 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 10. 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.
