Come on! Why does he say “if I had pinched it,” “if I had chucked it”. .? Why does he say this when he knows that in order for him to pinch, in order for him to chuck, he would have to be. . precisely: not himself, but rather a fundamentally different someone — — He’d have to have been the hero of the idyll by the pool, the one from whom shame backs away, and not the one who was hiding behind that other one. — — The cowardly him, him the coward, for he is cowardly, and the best proof that he’s cowardly is that he’s incapable of even imagining himself as a thief. — And look, look what the heroic variant of the bracelet he had stolen has transformed into: a paradise from which he has been expelled, and toward which he dolefully turns. He is fleeing, fleeing, but what a tough flight this is, through all those “as thoughs” and “ifs”. .
As though, once I’d chucked the bracelet. . — . . if I’d brushed Zinaida off. . — . . if I’d only answered the innkeeper, what would he have heard in response to his. .
Yes, in response to his “you would have to allow yourself to be searched”! But how had he actually responded? Tell them how you reacted, sir! Were you outraged? For a moment ago you were all set to be outraged! Scoundrel! Walking crooked highways and making yourself out to be a mountaineer! Let’s be frank for a moment, okay? There was no outrage. Horror! The horror that in the meantime they would still find the bracelet on you; the horror that they might even set it up deliberately to “find” it. And how, sir, do you handle the noble, martyr-like heroism of spurned innocence? But that’s just it: there isn’t a trace of the noble heroism of spurned, martyr-like innocence in you; in you there’s only a shimmer.
At last, then, he has touched the end of the proper thread! He was so proud of this that it cheered him up, even though he’d already foreseen where this thread would lead him. . So then how did it happen? How did it happen?
First of all, there’s him, innocent as a babe, who knows that the Steels are searching upstairs for some kind of jewelry, he who had been there when it had gone missing and had left in a huff, regardless of the fact that he had a feeling, and precisely because he had a feeling, that “he was somehow behind this business.” — And there’s the innkeeper, that pipsqueak of an innkeeper. And there’s the “you would have to submit to a search” from the Lord Innkeeper, who in no way anticipated that with his “you would have to submit to a search” he would sire a Zeus from whose head, hardly having shaken himself off in God’s world, sprang beautiful Pallas, in beautiful armor.
“My name is horror, you big shot, and I’m coming for you. So you no longer seem to know what transpired back there (she pointed upstairs), when you were thieving. Ah,” she whined, “you thought you were in the clear, right, that no one caught on. . ah! Ah! — haven’t you looked at yourself? Don’t you know what a sleepwalker looks like when he’s shuffling through a throng? No, you don’t know! No, you don’t know that it’s impossible not to notice a pilfering thief — no, innocent-as-a-babe, you don’t know. So let me help — I’m a good helper — I speak the truth: you steal, with a thievery so inept a state prosecutor should make a speech about it. With a thievery so inept they froze. Of the lot, you’re the only one still going. The others — look! — tragicomic statues; only the heads still move, writhe, one after the other, after you. You’re on the steps, you’re in the yard, you’re waiting for your grub, you’re luxuriating in your reading — and there (she’s pointed at the window) the whole time, the cast of Sleeping Beauty have their heads toward the door, let’s say, following a mystical wisp. How long will this last? How long will the living stand there playing the roles of pillars of salt, if it’s not the doing of magic? Sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, something will come of it: a voice above all, some kind of voice, and it’s already been raised, too. What would you suppose it says? What else could it say? ‘It’s obvious he’s the one,’ the voice says. A sentence like the mineral irritant in a supersaturated solution, from which all kinds of things now precipitate; oh, all kinds of things, and with haste, I assure you: a bit of hypocritical mob anger, a lot of general scorn, and a thick druse of sadistic pleasure that’s looking forward to something. Pleasure is the etchant of collective consciousnesses. The group grants its prisoners their freedom. It’s given them their civilian packs! Freedom! Freedom! Once again we can be wicked according to our own individual genius. Only to remain momentarily lodged in motionless rapture over the powerful reflectance of the cast in ruins. Ah, reality, unleashed by interconnected forces, will unfortunately not reach that in which it delights: no, too bad, the thief will not be quartered. We will settle for a suitable stupor; for a stupefying conviction. Ah, a stupefying conviction! The argument — a mace. No, the thief will not be quartered; they don’t do that anymore. But he’ll get the club. Beautiful, too, is the image that he might slide into the trap himself. And maybe he’s a masochist! Oh, the image of a public confession — Russian style! But first of alclass="underline" shouldn’t we telephone the police station?”
“And who is he?” asked the neurasthenic young woman from the room opposite.
“Well, he still hasn’t registered yet.”
“You’d better hurry up with it. As the proprietor, you could have some official unpleasantness.”
“Watch out,” the horror says, the beautiful horror in armor, “watch out, you’re going to have a hard time.” The group’s mineralesque cruelty is relishing the phenomenon; the corroded group tears it into instances. The “stealing phenomenon” had been mesmerically beautiful; instances of stealing are merely interesting. You were that through which something happened; now you are merely that which has carried something out. Watch out, you’re going to have a hard time. Mr. Steel, the out-of-shape athlete, has made the supreme pronouncement that you are a thief, and that’s that; Mrs. Steel is about to have a hysterical fit at the obsessive thought that you’re a communist rather than a thief; a sprig of doubt has shot up in the ailing sister; scraps of charity have stolen into the faith of the neurasthenic young woman (“he’s a thief”), a charity drilled into her in her youth. The herd has to be grappled with, but how do you get people to understand you?
The herd had been put through “the case”; it disintegrated into people, and they were judging it. Watch out, you’re going to have a hard time. The herd was dense, you could grab hold of it by something. But what can you do with a mercurial tangle of enemies? For that matter, where have they all gone? They’ve dispersed, like savages into an ambush. Extras being unnecessary for the time being, they’ve attentively withdrawn to the wings.
While you’re filling out the registration, while the innkeeper is serving you the ruling of the herd that has long since gone (he is serving it up as coyly and cagily as he would his own scorched vittles), the Steels are searching. Automatically, not in earnest, maybe with a scrunched memory of catechism at Sunday school, but under the imperious and rheumy gaze of civic “honor.” Now pay attention, you heard right: “it’s here” (it’s the gentleman’s sister); “it’s here”: something like a stick hitting a rock, and rapidly. Yes, now also a spluttering waterfall of the panicked words “Only how could we have forgotten it!” — “Gina gave it to me to hold so that it wouldn’t slide off her arm.” — “We’ve treated him unfairly.” (Let’s not forget: we’re talking about a sick woman, a delicate woman.) — “What now? We must give him satisfaction! He’s innocent!” — You heard right, yes, but don’t count on it. On the contrary, watch out all the more, things are going to get tough. Have you forgotten the rheumy gaze of civic honor? Have you forgotten the out-of-shape athlete who declared you a thief now and forever, and that’s that? The gentleman’s delicate sister cried out; Mr. Steel, who anticipated it, makes do with a whispery tantrum, but that, too, is a blow against the rock, merely a blow that enshrines the quiet.