“Me? Marry a queer?”

Botchako’s face expressed exaggerated disgust. There was no reason for Lou to talk as he did, for though the pimps and the crashers, who formed distinct groups, did speak to each other about trivial matters having to do with work and life in common, they never took the liberty of going too far. I was waiting for Botchako to go for Lou, but he turned away and spat. Lou smiled. There was a movement of hostility in the group of crashers. I looked at Bulkaen. He was smiling and shifting his gaze back and forth from Botchako to the jerk. Amused perhaps. But I dared not think I was in the presence of two guys (Bulkaen and the queer) who were basically identical. I was watching Bulkaen to see his reaction to the queer’s gestures. I tried to detect a correspondence between their gesticulations. There was nothing mannered about Bulkaen. His excessive vivacity made him seem somewhat brutal. Was he carrying within him an abashed and quivering fag who resembled the pathetic jerk that everyone despised?

Would he love me? My spirit was already flying off in quest of my happiness. Would some unexpected happening, some blunder, alike and equally miraculous, link us by love as he was linked with Rocky? He related the great event to me later on. I translate his language: Rocky and he had met at Clair-vaux Prison. They were released the same day and decided to work together. Three days later, their first burglary made them rich: a wad of banknotes. “Sixty thousand francs,” said Bulkaen. They left the rifled apartment and went out into the street and the night, floating with elation. They dared not count and split the booty in the lighted street. They entered the garden of the Square d’Anvers, which was deserted. Rocky took out the bills. He counted them and gave thirty to Bulkaen. The joy of being free and rich gave them wings. Their souls tried to leave their cumbrous bodies, to drag them heavenward. It was real joy. They smiled with glee at their success. They rose to the occasion, as if to congratulate each other, not upon their skill but their luck, as one congratulates a friend who has come into money, and this happy impulse made them embrace. Their joy was so great that there is no knowing its essence. Its origin was the successful job, but a small fact (the embrace, the accolade) intervened amidst the joyous tumult, and despite themselves it was this new fact that they considered the source of the happiness which they named love. Bulkaen and Rocky kissed. They could not break away from each other, for happiness never produces a movement of withdrawal. The happier they were, the more deeply they entered each other. They were rich and free—they were happy. They were in each other’s arms at the moment of deepest happiness: they loved each other. And as this merging was energized by the mute fear of being caught, and also because their mutual solitude made them seek a friend as a shelter in which to hide, they married.