Page 118 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
“You love him, admit it.”
“You're crazy. I don't love him. But he's a good pal.”
“Do you admire him?”
“Well, yes. He fed me. He even sent me some dough.”' He had told me this six months before.
I asked him, “Isn't there anything to swipe at Pierre's?” “Not much, you know. He's got a gold watch.”
“Is that all?”
“He may have some money, but you'd have to look for it.”
Rene wanted exact details. He got them from Java who even agreed to make an appointment with his former lover and to lead him into a trap where Rene would rob him. When he left us, Rene said to me, “Java's pretty lousy. You've got to be a real heel to do what he's doing. You know, I wouldn't dare.”
A curious atmosphere, of mourning and storm, darkened the world: I loved Java who loved me, and hatred set us against each other. We couldn't stand it any more, we hated each other. When this raging hatred appeared, I felt myself disappearing, I saw him disappearing.
“You're a son of a bitch!” “And you're a little skunk!”
For the first time, he made up his mind; he was in a rage; he wanted to kill me; he was hard with anger. Ceasing to be an appearance, he was an apparition. What I had been for him ceased to be while there remained, in both of us, waiting and watching over our delirium, the certainty of so deep a reconciliation that we wept when it took place.
Java's cowardice, inertia, vulgarity of manner and feeling, and his stupidity, do not prevent me from loving him. I add his friendliness. Either the confrontation, or the mixture of these elements, or their inter−penetration, makes for a new quality—a kind of alloy—which has no name. I add his physical person, his bulky and sombre body. To render this new quality, I must use the image of a crystalloid, of which each of the forementioned elements would be a facet. Java sparkles. His water—and his fires—are precisely the peculiar virtue which I call Java and which I love. To sum up: I love neither cowardice nor stupidity; I do not love Java for one or for the other; but their meeting within him fascinates me.
The reader will be amazed that the union of such flabby qualities should produce the sharp edges of
rock−crystal; he will be amazed that I compare, not acts, but the moral expression of acts to attributes of the
measurable—world. I have said that I was fascinated. This word contains the idea of a sheaf —or rather a
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luminous sheaf of beams —like the sparkling of crystal. These sparkles are the result of a certain arrangement
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