Yes.Is the executioner who lets down the knife on the neck of the condemned criminal to be called an assassin? No! Well, then Ishall be the executioner and nothing else.I rose from the bench where I had shed my last tears of resolution and cowardice--for thus I regarded those hot tears to which I now appeal, as a last proof that I was not born for what I have done.
While walking back to Paris, I multiplied and reiterated my arguments.Sometimes I succeeded in silencing a voice within me, stronger than my reasoning and my longing for vengeance, a voice which pronounced the words formerly uttered by my aunt: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord God." And if there be no God? And if there be, is not the fault His, for He has let this thing be? Yes, such were my wild words and thoughts; and then all these scruples of my conscience appeared to me mere vain, futile quibbles, fitting for philosophers and confessors.
There remained one indisputable, absolute fact; I could not endure that the murderer of my father should continue to be the husband of my mother.
There was a second no less evident fact; I could not place this man in the hands of justice without, probably, killing my mother on the spot, or, quite certainly, laying her whole life waste.Therefore I would have to be my own tribunal, judge, and executioner in my own cause.What mattered to me the arguments for or against? Iwas bound to give heed first to my final instinct, and it cried out to me "Kill!"I walked fast, keeping my mind fixed on this idea with a kind of tragic pleasure, for I felt that my irresolution was gone, and that I should act.All of a sudden, as I came close to the Arc de Triomphe, I remembered how, on that very spot, I had met one of my club companions for the last time.He shot himself the next day.