Page 91 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
it under the eyes of the cops. Bernard knew about my life and never reproached me. Once, however, he tried to justify his being a cop; he talked to me about morality. From the mere viewpoint of the aesthetic consideration of an act I could not listen to him. The good will of moralists cracks up against my dishonesty. Though they may prove to me that an act is detestable because of the harm it does, only I can decide, and that by the song it evokes within me, as to its beauty and elegance; only I can refuse or accept it. No one will bring me back to the path of righteousness. At most, someone might undertake my artistic re−education— at the risk, however, of the educator's being convinced and won over to my cause if its beauty is proved by the more masterly of the two personalities.
“I'm not blaming you for being a cop, you know.” “It doesn't bother you?”
Knowing it would be impossible to explain to him the dizziness which hurled me toward him, I felt a malicious desire to hurt him.
“It does annoy me a little.”
“You think you don't need courage to be in the police? It's more dangerous than people think.”
But he was talking about physical courage and danger. Besides, he asked himself few questions. With rare exceptions (Pilorge, Java, Soclay, whose faces, though suggesting rugged virility, conceal muddy swamps, like the tropical regions known as muskegs) the heroes of my books and the men I chose to love had the same bulky appearance and the most immoral serenity. Bernard resembled them. Wearing a ready−made suit, he had the exaggerated elegance of the typical man of Marseilles whom he poked fun at. He wore tan shoes with rather high heels that forced him to arch his whole body. He had the handsomest wop mug I ever saw. Happily I found in him the very opposite of the loyal and steadfast qualities found in movie cops. He was a real bastard. With all his defects, what a wonderful knowledge of the heart he might have had, and what kindness, had he managed to be intelligent!
I would imagine him chasing a dangerous criminal, catching up with him the way a rugby player throws himself on the opponent who has the ball, holds him around the waist and is dragged along by him, his head pressing against an enemy thigh or fly. The thief would hold fast to his treasure; he would protect it; he would struggle a while; then, the two men, unable to ignore the fact that they had the same solid and utterly fearless bodies, and the same souls, would exchange a friendly smile. Imposing a conclusion upon this brief drama, I would hand the bandit over to the detective.
What obscure desire was I obeying in requiring (and so fervently!) that each of my friends have his double in the police? I adorned neither hoodlum nor cop with the knightly virtues ascribed to heroes. One was never the shadow of the other, but as both seemed to me to be outside society, rejected and cursed by it, I wanted perhaps to mingle them so as to make more precise the confusion in which they are merged by the average man when he says: “Cops aren't picked from among choir boys.”
If I wanted my policemen and hoodlums to be handsome, it was in order that their dazzling bodies might avenge the contempt in which you hold them. Hard muscles and harmonious faces were meant to sign and glorify the odious functions of my friends and to impose them upon you. Whenever I met a good−looking kid, I would tremble at the idea that his soul might be noble, though I tolerated the idea that a scurvy and despicable soul might inhabit a puny body. Since rectitude was your domain, I would have none of it, though I often recognized its nostalgic appeal. I had to fight against its charms. Criminals and the police are the most virile emanation of this world. You cast a veil over them. They are your shameful parts, which, however, I call, as you do, noble parts. The insults exchanged by enemies bespeak a feigned hatred. They seem to me
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