Page 52 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
Are a few books and poems capable of proving to you that I put these misfortunes to use, that they were necessary to my beauty? I have written too much, I am weary. I have been to such great pains to express so poorly what my heroes do so quickly.
When Java cringed with fright, he was stunning. Thanks to him, fear was noble. It was restored to the dignity of natural movement, with no other meaning than that of organic fright, panic of the viscera before the image of death or pain. Java trembled. I saw a yellow diarrhea flow down his monumental thighs. Terror stalked and ravaged the features of his splendid face that had been so tenderly and greedily kissed. It was mad of this cataclysm to dare disturb such noble proportions, such inspiring, such harmonious relationships and these proportions and relationships were the origin of the crisis, they were responsible for it. So lovely were they that they were even its expression, since what I call Java was both master of his body and responsible for his fear. His fear was beautiful to see. Everything became a sign of it: his hair, muscles, eyes, teeth, sex, and the child's manly grace.
Thereafter, he ennobled shame. He bore it in my presence like a burden, like a tiger clinging to his shoulders, the threat of which imparted to his shoulders a most insolent submissiveness. His behavior has since been tempered by a delicate and delightful humility. His male vigor, his bluntness, are veiled, as the glare of the sun might be, by crape. As I watched him fight, I felt he was declining battle. Perhaps he was afraid of being the less strong or that the other fellow might punch his face in, but I saw him overcome by terror. He shriveled up and wanted to fall asleep and dream of the Indies or of Java, or to be arrested by the police and condemned to death. He is thus a coward. But his example has shown me that fear and cowardice can be expressed by the most charming grimaces.
“I'm letting you off,” the fellow sneered at him contemptuously.
Java didn't bat an eyelash. He accepted the insult. He got up from the dust, picked up his beret and left without brushing the dust off his knees. He was still very handsome.
Marc Aubert taught me that treason develops in a fine body. It is therefore plainly legible if it is ciphered with all the signs that formed both the traitor and treason. It was signified in blond hair, limpid eyes, a golden skin, a winning smile, by a neck, a torso, arms, legs, a sex for which I would have given my life and have accumulated acts of treason.
“These heroes,” I said to myself, “must have reached such a state of perfection that I no longer wish to see them live, so that their lives may be climaxed by a brazen destiny. If they have achieved perfection, behold them at the brink of death, no longer afraid of the judgment of men. Nothing can spoil their amazing success. May they therefore grant me what is denied the wretched.”
Almost always alone, though aided by an ideal companion, I crossed other frontiers. My emotion was always equally great. I crossed Alps of all kinds. From Slovenia to Italy, helped by the customs men, then abandoned by them, I went upstream, along a muddy torrent. Fought by the wind, by the cold, by the thorns, by November, I gained a summit behind which was Italy. In order to reach it I affronted monsters hidden by the night or revealed by it. I got caught in the barbed wire of a fort where I heard the sentinels walking and whispering. Crouching in the shadow, my heart beating, I hoped that before shooting me they would fondle me and love me. Thus I hoped that the night would be peopled by voluptuous guards. I ventured at random upon a road. It was the right one. I sensed it by the feel of my soles on its honest ground. Later on, I left Italy for Austria. I crossed fields of snow at night. The moon cast my shadow. In every country that I left behind I had stolen and had known prisons. Yet I was not going through Europe but through the world of objects and circumstances, and with an ever fresher ingenuousness. All the wonders I beheld made me uneasy, but I
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