Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/99

Rh plan, in the cold-bloodedness of its execution, or in the attention to the innumerable details, one may detect easily the same unreasoning will. The very cunning and development of my thought preceding the crime demonstrate my abnormality.

"Wounded, death awaiting, in the arena I played. The dying gladiator enacting. . ."

Not a single detail out of my life did I leave unrevealed. I searched through my entire life. I gave the aspect of madness to all my steps, to all my words; and in each case I made the mood fit the word and the thought. It seems, and this is the most astonishing thing of all, that even until tonight I have entertained the thought: perhaps I am actually mad. Yet somehow or other I have avoided the thought and ignored it.

While demonstrating my madness do you know what I have perceived? That I am not mad—that is what I have perceived. I will explain.