As I visualized the great host of those dead by their own hand, those 8,500 in the last year alone, it was as if I could hear them unite in a prayer to the world, a simple plea for something which will come in the future when we have more understanding. I could hear all those tormented souls, those who had cut their own throats, poisoned, hanged, suffocated or drowned themselves, all unite in one terrifying horde, clamouring to society: ‘Let us at least have an easy death! Help to die those you have not helped to live! See how many of us there are. In these enlightened days of freedom when every man has a choice, give those abandoning life a death which is neither hideous nor horrifying!’

My thoughts began to wander around this idea in a miasma of weird, bizarre daydreams. For a while I was in some beautiful city, Paris I think, but the period was unclear. I was strolling along the streets looking at various houses, theatres and public buildings when suddenly I came across a large, very attractive and extremely elegant building standing on one side of a square. I was surprised to read on its façade, emblazoned in gold letters the words, ‘Institute of Voluntary Death’. How extraordinary are our waking dreams in which the mind enters an unreal yet perfectly believable world of its own. In it we are amazed or shocked by nothing and our unbridled imagination makes no distinction between the comic and the grotesque.

I moved closer towards the building in the vestibule of which I could now see footmen in knee-breeches seated in front of a cloakroom, just as in the entrance-hall of any gentleman’s club.2 As I went in to have a look, one of them rose and said: ‘May I help you, Monsieur?’

‘Yes, I was just wondering … what sort of a place this is, actually.’

‘That’s all you want to know?’

‘That’s all, yes.’

‘In that case, allow me to take Monsieur to the Secretary of the Institute.’

I hesitated, then went on to say, ‘Are you sure it’s not an intrusion?’

‘Oh, no, Monsieur. Part of his job is to make himself available to anyone wishing to make enquiries.’

‘In that case, do lead on.’

He led me through a series of corridors in which several elderly gentlemen were chatting. I was then ushered into an elegant though somewhat sombre office with ebony furniture. Inside, a portly young man with a paunch was in the process of writing a letter while smoking what smelt like a very expensive cigar. We bowed to each other and after the footman had left he asked: ‘And how may I be of service to you, Monsieur?’