Source: Andre Cornelis (1886), Ch. 13
Context: I was suddenly carried away by rage to the point of losing all control over my frenzy. "Ah!" I cried, "since you will not do justice on yourself, die then, at once!" I stretched out my hand and seized the dagger which he had recently placed upon the table. He looked at me without flinching, or recoiling; indeed presenting his breast to me, as though to brave my childish rage. I was on his left bending down, and ready to spring. I saw his smile of contempt, and then with all my strength I struck him with the knife in the direction of the heart.
The blade entered his body to the hilt.
No sooner had I done this thing than I recoiled, wild with terror at the deed. He uttered a cry. His face was distorted with terrible agony, and he moved his right hand towards the wound, as though he would draw out the dagger. He looked at me, convulsed; I saw that he wanted to speak; his lips moved, but no sound issued from his mouth. The expression of a supreme effort passed into his eyes, he turned to the table, took a pen, dipped it into the inkstand, and traced two lines on a sheet of paper within his reach. He looked at me again, his lips moved once more, then he fell down like a log.
“There is no law, in literature, against picking up a rusty weapon; the important thing is to be able to sharpen the blade and to reforge the hilt to fit one's hand.”
Il n'est pas défendu, en littérature, de ramasser une arme rouillée; l'important est de savoir aiguiser la lame et d'en reforger la poignée à la mesure de sa main.
Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1888) p. 178; George Burnham Ives (trans.) Thirty Years in Paris (Boston: Little, Brown, 1900) p. 134.
Original
Il n'est pas défendu, en littérature, de ramasser une arme rouillée; l'important est de savoir aiguiser la lame et d'en reforger la poignée à la mesure de sa main.
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Alphonse Daudet 15
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