Troubled Sleep

"He made his way to the parapet and stood there firing. This was revenge on a big scale; each one of his shots wiped out some ancient scruple. One for Lola, whom I dared not rob, one for Marcelle, whom I ought to have ditched, one for Odette, whom I didn't want to screw. This for the books I never dared to write, this for the journeys I never made, this for everybody in general whom I wanted to hate and tried to understand. He fired, and the tables of the law crushed about him --Thou shall love thy neighbor has thyself--bang! in that bastard's face --Thou shall not kill--bang! at that scarecrow opposite. He was firing on his fellow men, on Virtue, on the whole world; Liberty is Terror. The mairie was ablaze, his head was ablaze; bullets were whining around him, free as the air. The world is going up in smoke, and me with it. He fired; he looked at his watch: fourteen minutes and thirty seconds. Nothing more to ask of fate now except one half-minute, just time enough to fire at that smart officer, at all the Beauty of the Earth, at the street, at the flowers, at the gardens, at everything he had loved. Beauty dived downwards obscenely, and Mathieu went on firing. He fired: he was cleansed, he was all powerful, he was free."