IN MY OPINION

IT IS a serious subject of meditation and anguish that unlike physical deformity, moral deformity does not betray itself from the outset by any special appearance, by any certain indication.
You have seen the photograph of Plouin: he is the very type of the self-effacing and correct fifty-year-old.

In this calm and charming little town of Moret, on the delightful banks of the Loing, one could meet Plouin, the honorable, the excellent Mr. Plouin, surrounded by the esteem of his suppliers and his neighbors, adorned with all the bourgeois virtues.

And if, passing in front of the discreet and comfortable villa of La Tourelle, you inquired about its inhabitants: A very quiet gentleman, a brave and worthy man, Mr. Plouin; - yes, they are "good people"...

Now we know what Mr. Plouin was thinking about, when, on the promenade, he returned his hat to the grocer or the notary with such politeness; we know the nature of the work that preoccupied him, when, in the evening, he remained so wisely, so laboriously, shut up in his villa, rather than going to the café, or to the club...

Mr. Plouin, military supplier, had planned to poison the horses' fodder, and the food of our troops,

A madman? Not at all; this man reasoned wonderfully; he had said to himself that Germany could not fail to pay very dearly for such an important and ingenious service; and he had offered this service to Germany, which, you see, and for those who know the German mentality, was not at all unreasonable.

A madman, no; simply a monster. That's what's appalling, is that such monsters have nothing to distinguish them from, nothing to signal them to us, nothing to allow us to distance ourselves from them, to be on our guard against them...

A poignant mystery, a formidable enigma of human nature: the murderer of Cormeilles-en-Parisis or the traitor of Moret resemble you, you, me, they are people like everyone else; and the friendly gentleman who, in the railway compartment, courteously offered to raise or lower the window, that other one with whom, this summer, on the beach, you exchanged charming remarks about the bad weather, he perhaps has a Plouin sleeping in him.... Was it Alceste who was right?

Franc-Nohain,