Kata

   It would be night when "Cottard" finally resolved to reappear along the
deserted quay. "Cottard," snatched from cold storage at the municipal morgue,
the second to come to such an austere end; "Cottard" who had escaped through the
door of a building.

   Strange weakness: this fear that another is watching me and in doing so lock
eyes with mine. Is this the failure of such a tender and scrupulous heart or of
a will so pitiable in knowing how to save itself? There are cruelties which are
not as resistant to the trial of such kindness.

   Ambushed under the shadowed cover of a tree, I waited for my victim's
entrance into her dark orbit, for her arrival before the aloofness that had come
over me. Only two strides would take her outside the magic circle and back into
the light reverberating nearby. 

   Are you a fan of Asia, dear reader? Have you ever passed, like me, the
Sundays and vacations of your childhood in the street, or in your room, in the
heroic assault of Spiderweb Castle, perfecting with a solemn, refined ballet the
classic Katas of Kendo, the art of stinging, piercing and slashing with two
imaginary enemies who assail you from, left, right, front, back, all sides?
Doubtless you too dreamed of being a Musketeer or a Curiaseer... My own love for
Asia is complicated by the ascetic beauty of its cruelty: assassins, hit-men...
above all the Samurai.

   Cottard's head, royally cut off by the katana's blade, went rolling upon the
pavement of the step, toward the light. No, I did not consider slitting the
throat, but only my gesture drawing the steely line of a negative calligraphy
through space. 

   The heart of this decapitated body which collapsed in place, as though it had
become too heavy to wear for its knees which bent slowly, this heart did not
stop beating the whole time: it pumped savagely, driving a fountain of blood
which spurted forth vertically from its sliced throat, and which a murderer more
"Goncourt" than me, would have doubtlessly taken careful pains to compare with
the Hubert Robert's famous Water Jet. That will not prevent it from behaving
like lively, hot, supple, steaming blood, like blood which bleeds... Had I the
leisure, while I wipe down my dripping blade before hiding it under my coat, had
I the leisure for interminable description by which to make a poetic offering
above and beyond my murderous offering? No, all must take place within a blink
of an eye, in accordance with the saber's blow. I will content myself with
picking up the head in passing, and taking it by the hair, send it over the
parapet and into the canal on the other side. 

   But in what way does it resemble Cottard? It is exactly this which is
unimportant, dear reader so heady with portraits, these resemblances and
analogies. If I outline its figure for you, describe its features to you, would
that provide you with the means of recognizing it in the street, in a photo, or
even laid out in the mud, beside the canal, there decomposing?

   Am I a person, such as I may be, to cooperate with juridical identification
procedures?