Page 60 - The Thief's Journal

“Ah!”
“What's in it?” “Junk, of course.”
I had smuggled opium. in his stead.
1
I felt no contempt for Stilitano for having exposed me to the danger of being caught
The Thief's Journal
He smiled again and added, “That's fine.” But I myself dared not tell him that he would have managed the trip without any more danger, for I already knew that Stilitano was my own creation and that it depended upon me to destroy it. I understood, nevertheless, why God needs an angel, which He calls a messenger, to achieve certain missions which He Himself can not carry out.
“It's perfectly natural,” I said to myself. “He's a prick and I'm a cunt.”
For his revealing himself to me in this way, my gratitude rose up to him. Had he revealed himself to me by a rather considerable number of bold deeds in which I had been forbidden to take part, thus becoming both cause and end, Stilitano would have lost all power over me. I dimly suspected him of being incapable of an act involving his whole person. The care he took of his body was proof. His baths, his perfumes, his sleeping all morning, the very shape that his body had taken on, its softness. Realizing that it was through me that he had to act, I attached myself to him, sure of drawing strength from the elementary and disorganized power that shaped him.
What with the time of year (autumn), the rain, the dark color of the buildings, the stolidity of the Flemings, the peculiar character of the city, and saddened too by my poverty, I was led by a deep melancholy to discover within me the objects in whose presence I felt uneasy. During the German occupation I saw in the newsreels the funeral services for the hundred or hundred and fifty victims of the bombardment of Antwerp. The coffins, covered with tulips or dahlias and exposed amidst the Antwerp ruins, were all flower stalls, and a host of priests and choir boys in lace surplices was filing by to bless them. This scene, which was the last, still helps me believe that Antwerp revealed to me areas of shadow. “They are celebrating,” I thought to myself, “the cult of this city, the spirit of which—I gathered as much at the time—is Death.” However, the mere appearance of things must have caused me that anxiety which at first was born of fear. Then the anxiety disappeared. I felt I was perceiving things with blinding lucidity. Even the most trivial of them had lost their usual meaning, and I reached the point of wondering whether it was true that one drank from a glass or put on a shoe. As I discovered the particular meaning of each thing, the idea of number deserted me. Little by little Stilitano lost his fabulous power over me. He thought I was dreamy: I was attentive. Without being silent, I was elsewhere. As a result of the relationships suggested by objects that seemed to have contrary purposes, my conversation took on a humorous turn.
1. 1947. I have just read in an evening paper that he was arrested for an armed assault in the dark. The article says:
” ... the handsome cripple was pale...” Reading this causes me no emotion.
“You sure are going nuts!”
“Nuts!” I repeated, opening my eyes wide. Hence, I believe I recall having the revelation of an absolute perception as I considered, in the state of luxurious detachment of which I have been speaking, a clothespin left behind on a line. The elegance and oddness of this familiar little object appeared before me without
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