"Confession de Minuit: Roman" by Georges Duhamel is a novel written in 1920, the first volume in a five-part cycle following Louis Salavin. A thirty-year-old Parisian office clerk inexplicably touches his boss's earlobe one morning, losing his job and spiraling into depression and self-disgust. Confined to his small apartment with his devoted mother, Salavin wanders Paris aimlessly, haunted by strange impulses and fleeing from himself. On Christmas Day, another disturbing moment drives him to abandon everything and confess his story late one night in a bistro. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
These books are free to read. Each is in the public domain in the United States; check your own country's rules before you copy or share one.