Suicides

The narrator finds a letter from a man who killed himself officially «without reason». This man of fifty-seven describes his life: thirty years of boredom, always repeated gestures and loneliness. Suffering from stomach pain, he can not eat much «what is still the greatest happiness». That evening he starts a task constantly postponed, to store in his desk correspondence and memories of a lifetime. Moved to tears by all these old stories which come to mind, he looks horrified «the hideous and lonely old age and the coming infirmities». He shoots himself in the head.