Most of his recipients would merely shrug their shoulders, he knew, whatever the nature of his gift, however extraordinary its qualities; then again, many would never even find them, or perhaps would assume that the objects were in fact their own possessions. But even if this were the case, Maximilian delighted in the fact that he had discovered another way to quietly alter the prevailing formations of social reality. To shift matter from one location to another, causing tiny disruptions in the accepted patterns of the city: this was his modest aim.
After a day spent in his habitual solitude, Maximilian sometimes found it a perverse sort of thrill to join the stream of humanity from 4:30 to 6:00 P.M., to steep himself in the tension generated by this manic convergence of workers joined together each day in order to ensure their collective survival. Even without distributing any of his objects, he felt as if he were engaged in silent communion with the populace simply by having placed his body amongst them, a location in which he could listen and observe. Surveying their faces for signs of familiarity became his own sort of comforting ritual. He liked to be part of the crowd, keeping his secrets to himself, lurking at the periphery, undetected. It soon reached the point where these expeditions were the high point of his day. He would wait the length of an afternoon in eager anticipation, unoccupied, anticipating the moment when all the offices would close and empty of their workers.
He chose to end this particular phase of his life’s work when his eagerness began to be disrupted by bouts of paranoia. Nothing had actually changed, indeed he had met with nothing but success, but the early panic he had found the confidence to ignore now began to eat away at his own comfort, and he started to feel genuinely at risk whenever he boarded a train. Many times he would tell himself that this was absurd, especially considering the far greater dangers posed by his counterfeiting activities, but to no avail. His rush-hour activity had something of the sense of a physical violation about it, however minor. It was to this that he attributed his growing anxiety. And so he turned to other pursuits.
Occurrences of an Afternoon of Leisure
(1959)
(a series of thoughts, observations, queries, possibilities, and events encountered on the twenty-ninth of october)
12.00 P.M.
Maximilian sat in his armchair at home, legs crossed, pipe smoking, pondering.
12.01
He considered the many kinds of chairs in the world and their vastly different arrangements. This led to thoughts regarding the extent to which the style of chair sat in, and its precise spatial attributes, might determine the nature of the thoughts produced when seated in those particular conditions.
12.16
Flicking through a full-colour magazine feature on life in the Riviera, he found that these gaudy images appealed to him far more than the accompanying text, and it was to these that he directed his full attention, after reaching the middle of the second paragraph.
12.18
A soft, almost intangible belch escaped from within.
12.24
Imagining the commencement of a new life in a crofter’s cottage, three miles away from the nearest human being.
12.27
Lying on his belly, he bent both legs and raised them into the air, holding on to his feet with both arms outstretched behind. He kept this position for a full two minutes, a rough approximation of the yoga posture Dhanurasana.
12.34
Closing his front door behind him he began to whistle a cheerful tune entirely of his own invention as he commenced an unhurried stroll towards the West End.
12.37
Observations of a shadow thrown from a bench in the shape of a rhomboid.
12.41
Encounter with a film poster blazoned with gigantic red letters, a screaming woman wearing a yellow dress, rushing waters, aeroplanes, tanks, ranks of buildings tumbling into rubble or being consumed by fire.
12.44
He bent down to tie up his left shoelace (in order to match the strength of the knot with that of his right shoe).
12.53
He wondered if it was possible to re-establish naïveté after a certain level of self-consciousness had already been attained, or would this always then be a false naïveté, an impossible attempt at reversing what had been indelibly fixed?
1.17
Officious air of typists eating sandwiches during their lunch hour.
1.22
Screwing up a waxy ball of paper, Maximilian aimed it at the mouth of a rubbish bin and launched it into the air.
1.24
The irritating way in which toothpicks become soft and useless almost immediately upon contact with the teeth.
1.26
Impertinent faces of the riders of horses featured in equestrian statues. The lack of imagination in all public sculpture.
1.32
A cold glass of pineapple juice placed to his lips.
1.41
Concerns about his shaving technique after detecting hairs sprouting from the skin covering his lower jaw.
1.52
Halting momentarily, he considered the commotion at a building site, a frenzy of hammer blows. An enjoyable sense of witnessing minor yet historical changes in one’s environment.
1.58
An old man, with prominent boils and flaring eyes, seen pacing up and down the street and muttering quite audibly to himself about partridges.
2.04
Maximilian turned right off of Tottenham Court Road and onto Oxford Street.
2.06
Aeroplane glimpsed in the sky. Aviation daydream interlude.
2.08
A little girl beaming and holding a green balloon attached to a length of string.
2.15
Italian Gents Hairdressers—a giant comb and pair of scissors, crossed over each other, filling the entire window. Barbers within producing monologues about mortality and horseraces. Swirling red-and-white striped pole jutting out from shop sign.
2.17
Obnoxious displays of the accoutrements required for contemporary existence. Nothing more inspirational or remarkable on offer than that.
2.18
Everywhere the constant streaming of bodies, all neatly buttoned up, choking out each inner fire.
2.23
Shopping expeditions being undertaken for who-knows-what nefarious purposes.
2.27
Overcast skies casting a pallid gloom on all lying underneath them. At least rain would be decisive.
2.34
The possibility of inventing entirely new ways of spending afternoons. To become a seer of