“But since you’re a novelist, once you set about imagining, what’s to prevent you imagining things just as you choose?”
“The stranger the things I imagine, the more necessary it is to find motives and explanations for them.”
“It’s easy enough to find motives for crime.”
“No doubt ... but that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I don’t want a motive for the crime—all I want is an explanation of the criminal. Yes! I mean to lead him into committing a crime gratuitously—into wanting to commit a crime without any motive at all.”
Lafcadio began to prick up his ears.
“We will take him as a mere youth. I mean him to show the elegance of his nature by this—that he acts almost entirely in play, and as a matter of course prefers his pleasure to his interest.”
“Rather unusual, I should say,” ventured Lafcadio.
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Julius, enchanted. “Then, we must add that he takes pleasure in self-control.”
“To the point of dissimulation.”
“We’ll endow him, then, with the love of risk.”