My servant cried; he thought his bird flown.  How could he suspect me?  Ah! ah!

25th August.  I must kill a man!  I must—­

30th August.  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.  A child was in 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 looked at me with terror in his eyes—­such eyes!  He held my wrists in his little hands and his body writhed like a feather over the fire.  Then he moved no more.  I threw the body in the ditch, and 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; I passed the evening at the Prefect’s.  They found me witty.  But I have not seen blood!  I am tranquil.

31st August.  The body has been discovered.  They are hunting for the assassin.  Ah! ah!

1st September.  Two tramps have been arrested.  Proofs are lacking.

2d September.  The parents have been to see me.  They wept!  Ah! ah!

6th October.  Nothing has been discovered.  Some strolling vagabond must have done the deed.  Ah! ah!  If I had seen the blood flow, it seems to me I should be tranquil now!  The desire to kill is in my blood; it is like the passion of youth at twenty.

20th October.  Yet another.  I was walking by the river, after breakfast.  And I saw, under a willow, a fisherman asleep.  It was noon.  A spade was standing in a potato-field near by, as if expressly, for me.

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! ah!  I should have made an excellent assassin.

25th October.  The affair of the fisherman makes a great stir.  His nephew, who fished with him, is charged with the murder.

26th October.  The examining magistrate affirms that the nephew is guilty.  Everybody in town believes it.  Ah! ah!

27th October.  The nephew makes a very poor witness.  He had gone to the village to buy bread and cheese, he declared.  He swore that his uncle had been killed in his absence!  Who would believe him?

28th October.  The nephew has all but confessed, they have badgered him so.  Ah! ah! justice!

15th November.  There are overwhelming proofs against the nephew, who was his uncle’s heir.  I shall preside at the sessions.