We were created to devour one another.

But our debilitated, enervated, hypocritical race wallows in a sly cannibalism.

While we are gulping one another down we declare that life is sacred, and we no longer dare to confess that life is murder." "That life is murder," echoed Chevalier dreamily, without grasping the meaning of the words.
Then he poured forth a string of nebulous ideas: "Murder and bloodshed, that may be! But amusing bloodshed, and comical murder.

Life is a burlesque catastrophe, a terrible comedy, the mask of carnival over blood-stained cheeks.

That is what life means to the artist; the artist on the stage, and the artist in action." Nanteuil uneasily sought a meaning in these confused phrases.
The actor continued excitedly: "Life is yet another thing: it is the flower and the knife, it is to see red one day and blue the next, it is hatred and love, ravishing, delightful hatred, cruel love." "Monsieur Chevalier," asked Constantin Marc in the quietest of tones, "does it not seem to you natural to be a murderer, and do you not think that it is merely the fear of being killed that prevents us from killing ?" Chevalier replied in deep, pensive tones: "Most certainly not! It would not be the fear of being killed that would prevent me from killing.