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"Suicide Hotel."

By André Maurois (Émile Herzog, 1885-1967; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Candide, December 16, 1937.

English reprint: Coronet, August 1938 (today's text).

Reprinted in EQMM, February 1952 (go to text page 3 HERE).

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Filmed for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as "Thanatos Palace Hotel"; first air date: February 1, 1965 (IMDb HERE). (Also filmed in Germany, France, Mexico, Russia, and Australia.)

Short short story (5 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Suicide is an art that does not permit mediocrity nor amateurism, and which, moreover, by its very nature does not allow the acquisition of experience."

MOST OF US would probably agree with George Carlin: "I couldn't commit suicide if my life depended on it." But sometimes life throws us hard balls and we can't get out of the way fast enough. When that happens, in the grip of despair, dark thoughts cloud the mind. In our story, one such despairing individual loses his fortune and his marriage and decides to end it all, and wouldn't you know it, there just happens to be an organization that's very willing to help him do it—for a price, of course . . .

Principal characters:

~ Jean Monnier ("Huddled in an arm chair, his head in his hands, he seemed crushed"), Gertrude Miller ("he’s gambled his shirt. Fanny told me so. She’s going to leave him tonight"), Harry Cooper ("Tough luck for him"), Henry Boerstecher ("Cruel? On the contrary it is in that that the humanity of our method lies"), Claire Kerby-Shaw ("Why the devil did such a charming being want to die?"), and Sarconi ("You asked for me, Signor Manager?").

References:

- "Suicide":

  "SUICIDE (from Latin sui, "of oneself," and cidium, from caedere, "to kill"), the act of intentionally destroying one's own life. The phenomenon of suicide has at all times attracted a large amount of attention from moralists and social investigators. Its existence is looked upon, in Western civilization, as a sign of the presence of maladies in the body politic which, whether remediable or not, deserve careful examination." (Wikisource HERE).

- "Thanatos":

  "In Greek mythology, Thanatos ('(I) die, am dying') was the personification of death." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- Sarconi's name seems to hint at his function:

  "combining form from Greek sark-, sárx 'flesh, piece of meat'." (Merriam-Webster HERE).

Resource:

- An excellent, very detailed, and thorough compare-and-contrast summary by Jack Seabrook of both the Maurois and Hitchcock versions of the story is on bare-bones e-zine (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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