On the following day, either the hope of obtaining his money or some vague fear that they might have been in earnest in the wild tale that they had told him, induced this man to go to the address they had left with him; and he there heard that the two unhappy boys had been that morning found lying together, hand-in-hand, on a bed hired a few weeks before by one of them. When they were discovered, they were already dead and cold.
On a small table in the room lay many written papers, all expressing aspirations after greatness that should cost neither labour nor care, a profound contempt for those who were satisfied to live by the sweat of their brow, sundry quotations from Victor Hugo, and a request that their names and the manner of their death might be transmitted to the newspapers.
Many are the cases of young men, calling themselves friends, who have thus encouraged each other to make their final exit from life, if not with applause, at least with effect. And more numerous still are the tales recounted of young men and women found dead, and locked in each other’s arms, fulfilling literally, and with most sad seriousness, the destiny sketched so merrily in an old song—
“Gai, gai, marions-nous—
Mettons-nous dans la misère;
Gai, gai, marions-nous—
Mettons-nous la corde au cou.”[83]
A woman drowned herself by breaking a hole in the ice of a pond sufficiently large to admit her head, which she put into the water, so that her body remained quite dry.
A Greenwich pensioner, who had his allowance stopped from some misconduct, committed suicide by stabbing himself with his spectacles, which he sharpened to a point for that purpose.
A man, with a determination to sacrifice his life, threw himself among the bears in the Jardin du Roi, in Paris. A bear sprung immediately upon him, and before he could be rescued from Bruin’s grasp, he was so mutilated that he died a few hours afterwards. Prior to his death he expressed much pleasure at having effected his purpose.