Page 84 - The Thief's Journal

“That's just it. I like souvenirs.”
The Thief's Journal
I smashed him in the face. He whimpered, though in silence. With the same dispatch as Stilitano, I opened my knife in front of him and showed him the blade. I should like to tell with greater preciseness what this moment meant to me. The cruelty into which I was forcing myself gave amazing power not only to my body but to my mind. I felt myself capable of being magnanimous toward my victim and of untying him. Capable also of killing him. He himself must have recognized my force. In spite of the darkness I knew he was humble, well−disposed, inclined to serve my intoxication.
1
“And don't yell or I'll kill you.”
1. Rene, whom I shall mention again later, told me that a queer in Nice used to do the same sort of thing. The anecdote he related drew me even closer to him.
I took a step in the darkness.
“Listen...”
“What?”
He murmured in a gentle voice, perhaps trembling with a foreboding of my refusal, “At least, let me blow you a little.”
The next time I met Stilitano I had a few thousand Belgian francs and a gold watch. I first thought of telling him about my exploit so that it might annoy him, and Robert too. Then gradually, as my walk slowed up, I became less vainglorious. I decided to remain the sole repository of this adventure. I—−and I alone — knew what I was capable of. I concealed my booty. It was the first time I had seen the kind of face people made when I robbed them: it was ugly. I was the cause of such ugliness, and the only thing it made me feel was a cruel pleasure which, I thought, was bound to transfigure my face, to make me resplendent. I was then twenty−three years old. From that moment on, I felt capable of advancing in cruelty. The possession of the money and the watch eliminated any remains there might have been of my taste for wretched poverty. (Without destroying the taste for unhappiness, but for pompous unhappiness.) Nevertheless, I profited, so as to persevere in cruelty or indifference to the suffering of others, from my rigorous discipline in begging. I provoked fresh aggressions. They succeeded. I was thus spared the shifty condition of the shame−faced thief. For the first time I went after man. I fought him openly, unmasked. I felt myself growing vibrant, mean, icy, stiff, gleaming, cutting, like a sword blade. No one, neither Stilitano nor Robert, noticed this transformation. They lived in a comradely partnership, looking for women or neglecting them in each other's company. My attitude to Stilitano did not change. I displayed the same deference and Robert the same impertinence toward him. Did my friend's voice, words and gestures cover me over so that I might be protected by a hero's armor, the personality of Stilitano, in whose depths what was most precious in me kept watch and maintained order, or did I use them as one touches relics whose magic is urgently needed? It was Stilitano who fought in my place. He was ready to drink with the queers, he preened himself in their presence, he skinned them. He haunted me. It pained me to know this, but I also knew that had I been proudly rid of this support I would have collapsed. As for him, he was unaware of what secret purpose I was making him serve and that he was what is called the homeland: the entity which fights in the soldier's place and sacrifices him. I trembled as I went down the stairs from the room where I had just made the client hand over his money, for Stilitano was withdrawing from me, at headlong speed. When I counted my swag, it was no longer with the idea of offering it to him. So I was alone.
The Thief's Journal 82