‘Bah, another glass of punch will put you all right,’ laughed Julien. ‘On reflection, I find the Doctor’s proposal an excellent one. We are sick of everything here—wine, women, and song, such as Paris now furnishes. Then, let us go and see for ourselves what is going on among the stars. There’s this comfort, Anatole, we go in a body, if there is anything ugly to face. That’s the difficulty about suicide,—its lugubrious solitude. In company, one may snap his fingers at fear. To see three friendly faces round you, all ready to plunge at once into the same boat, and exchange jokes simultaneously with old Father Charon! When you lift your own cocked pistol to your forehead, to see three other hands and all four be shot together out of the mystery, either into eternity or—le néant.’
‘Ah, there, you’re not sure either, Gaston,’ Anatole protested, reproachfully.
‘That’s just it, boy; I know nothing now, but with the dawn of the new century I should know everything.’
‘My humble contribution to the Doctor’s plan is the proposal that we blow our brains out together—I mean in the same room,’ suggested Julien.
‘Precisely; I have just been thinking the matter out. Now here in Paris, we should excite excessive attention. But it might better be managed in some quiet place—near the sea, or close to a river bank, where our bodies might disappear easily, without giving rise to immediate alarm. I know of a half deserted island down near Beaufort, my native town. You will hardly believe that a place so near a busy factory town—one of the largest provincial cities of France—could be so forsaken and desolate. I doubt if any one lives on it now. My father-in-law had a big gloomy house on that island. I don’t think there was another inhabitant but himself. We might go down there, and toast the new century in among the dark rocks above the river.’
‘Beaufort! a commonplace train with such an end in view,’ sighed Anatole.
‘Not necessarily a train. What is to prevent us from taking horse, as your favourite heroes of Dumas did?’ said the Doctor, smiling a little at him.
‘With all my heart, if we are going to ride to Beaufort,’ cried Anatole. ‘I don’t care if I am shot then.’
PART SECOND
DR. VERMONT
(Told by the author)