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.
