The economy of risk put to the test of the gratuitous act in André Gide’s Les Caves du Vatican

In Gide’s Les Caves du Vatican, the main character commits a gratuitous murder to prove his absolute freedom. This paper shows how the concept of gratuity relegates the principles of profit and benefit in favor of traditionally devalued notions like loss and excess. In Gide’s mind and in the wake of Dostoyevsky, the gratuitous risk is likened to the diabolical glitch in the gears, for the sake of evil.