She wasn’t one of those who underline as they please with broad strokes, writing whatever takes their fancy; instead, through her signs, she was weaving a secret story, in quiet tones, slight cues, like a soft whisper accompanying the silent letters, and I was once more listening to her husky, risqué voice in my ears, her face luminous against the pillow, memories of that kind. Sometimes she would underline a single word, dynamite, for example, and a few pages later, the word cool. It’s easy to recognize a woman’s soul from the way she marks up a book (thoughtful, meticulous, personal, provocative), for if you love someone, even the discreet signs she leaves in a book resemble her.
Guided by Ida, Conrad’s novel revealed an intrigue at once evident and under the surface. An anarchist in London decides to blow up the Greenwich Mean Time clock in order to draw the attention of the powerful and awaken the downtrodden and the exploited. (In the Paris Commune, the rebelling workers shot up all of the clocks in the city.) The attempt fails, but the novel diverges toward the central character (who is nevertheless secondary in the book), the Professor. A professional revolutionary who has abandoned a stunning academic career in order to join an anarchist group and lead its actions. Ida turned him into the center of interest: The conviction (she’d written it in her birdlike handwriting in the white space at the top of the page).
The Professor was lacking in the social grace of resignation: he wouldn’t submit to the imperative of what was given (emphasis mine); he was a rebel, working in service of the Idea and the Cause. He lived in the subversion of values, the way a hermit lives inside his mystical visions, and he had turned his isolation into the condition of political impact. “I’ve the grit to work alone, quite alone, absolutely alone. I’ve worked alone for years.” Those words were underlined with a wavy line (as if she’d been startled by something while reading them or she’d been underlining them while in the restless car of a New Jersey Transit train).
And then, farther along, the same underlining once more revealed the theory that upheld direct action; there was no need to propose a perfect future society, no need to appease the hopes of the beautiful souls; the poor, the humiliated, and the sorrowful weren’t the pretext for action by those who want to be understood—and accepted—by the system; there was no need to demand anything, only the need to attack the center of power directly with a clear and enigmatic message. “No one can tell what form the social organization will take in the future. Then why indulge in prophetic fantasies?”
I remember that I set down the book and went out to walk around the empty hallways of the building like a sleepwalker. The disjointed fragments that Ida was linking together in the novel were forming a fabric that—when held up to the light—revealed the figure of Munk; not the truth, only the connection between two unknowns that, when placed side by side, produced a revelation. She gave me the book before she was murdered! Was it a warning? So she’d known? Was I in danger?
There were no nuts left, so I resorted to eating stale cookies, a square Danish kind that seemed to be made of cardboard. I understood what Ida was pointing to: it was a spiderweb, a net, Ariadne’s thread; and so I began to isolate the underlined sentences and extract an ideology.
Attacks on political figures are predictable and are among the habitual objectives of revolutionary violence. They no longer shock anyone; they are the rules of the game and have almost become natural acts, especially after the scandalous deaths of successive leaders, princes, and magistrates.
Now let us consider another kind of attack, for example against a temple or a church. No matter how subversive or political the intention, people would immediately ascribe to it the character of a clear manifestation of anti-religious hate. And that explanation would diminish the apparent sense of alarm and meaninglessness that we wish our actions to have.
A criminal attack on a restaurant or theatre would likewise be explained by a non-political passion; it would be presented as the exasperated rancor of an unemployed man or as an act of social resentment by an outcast who seeks revenge for a secret grievance. Society would immediately soothe itself: “Oh, it’s mere class hate,” or they would say: “Oh, it’s a consequence of religious fanaticism.” We must not allow them to be able to find a meaning behind our attacks.
All this is used up, it no longer functions, it is not instructive. Society has its archive of spiteful causalities to explain away revolutionary actions. We on the other hand must seek the pure act, which can neither be understood nor explained but provokes stupefaction and anomie.
We must attempt an action that unsettles common sense and exceeds the stereotypical explanations of the newspapers. We must not allow society to be able to explain the things we do. We must carry out an enigmatic, inexplicable, almost unthinkable act. Our actions must be at once incomprehensible and rational.
Gentlemen, our political target must be scientific knowledge; it is upon this knowledge that the structure of power is upheld.
Thus, in this age of brutality and noise, we will at last be heard.
Today everyone believes in science; they mysteriously believe that mathematics and technology are the source of their well-being and material prosperity. That is modern religion.
Attacking the foundation of general social belief is the revolutionary politics of our era.
