Page 99 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
the dust was a bank of flowers whose primroses grew big enough to be daisies through which the wind blew. Only one arm remained visible and moved, but the wind stirred all the grasses. Soon all the victor could see was a single hand making a clumsy sign of farewell and hopeless friendship. Eventually the hand disappeared, caught in the flowering compost. The wind died down slowly, regretfully. The sky grew dark after having first lit up the eye of the brutal and murderous young soldier. He did not weep. He sat down on the flower−bed that his friend had become. The wind stirred a bit, but a bit less. The soldier brushed his hair from his eyes and rested. He fell asleep.
The smile of tragedy is also governed by a kind of humor with respect to the Gods. The tragic here delicately flouts his destiny. He fulfills it so agreeably that this time the object is not man but the Gods.
Having already been convicted of theft, I can be convicted again without proof, merely upon a casual accusation, just on suspicion. The law then says that I am capable of the deed. I am in danger not only when I steal, but every moment of my life, because I have stolen. My life is clouded by a vague anxiety which both weighs upon it and lightens it. To preserve the limpidity and keenness of my gaze, my consciousness must be sensitive to every act so that I may quickly correct it and change its meaning. This anxiety keeps me on the alert. It gives me the surprised attitude of the deer caught in the clearing. But the anxiety also sweeps me along, like a kind of dizziness, makes my head buzz and lets me trip and fall in an element of darkness where I lie low if I hear the ground beneath the leaves resounding with a hoof.
I have been told that among the ancients Mercury was the god of thieves, who thus knew which power to invoke. But we have no one. It would seem logical to pray to the devil, but no thief would dare do so seriously. To come to terms with him would be to commit oneself too deeply. He is too opposed to God, Who, we know, is the final victor. A murderer himself would not dare pray to the devil.
In order to desert Lucien I shall organize an avalanche of catastrophes around the desertion so that he will seem to be swept along by them. He will be a straw in the midst of the tornado. Even if he learns that I have willed his misfortune and hates me, his hatred will not affect me. Remorse, or the expression of reproach in his lovely eyes, will have no power to move me, since I shall be in the center of a hopeless sadness. I shall lose things which are dearer to me than Lucien, and which are less dear than my scruples. Thus, I would readily kill Lucien to engulf my shame in great pomp. Alas, a religious fear turns me from murder and draws me to it. It might transform me into a priest, and the victim into God. In order to destroy the efficacy of murder, perhaps I need only reduce it to the extreme by the practical necessity of a criminal act. I can kill a man for a few million francs. The glamor of gold can combat that of murder.
Was the former boxer Ledoux dimly aware of this by any chance? He killed an accomplice in order to avenge himself. He created a disorder in the dead man's room to make it seem like theft and, seeing a five−franc note lying on the table, Ledoux took it and explained to his astonished mistress:
“I'm keeping it for luck. Nobody'll say I committed murder without getting something out of it.”
I shall fortify my mind rather quickly. The important thing, in thinking about murder, is not to let your eyelids droop or your nostrils pucker tragically, but to examine the idea very leisurely, with your eyes staring wide−open, drawn up by the wrinkling of your forehead as if in naive astonishment, in wonder. No remorse, no prospective worry can then appear at the corner of your eyes, nor can precipices hollow out under your
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