‘[T]he viburnum sprig had enormous philosophical significance. It was “in excess” in our world. If I had taken a branch from any forest in America and brought it here, I would not have changed the number of branches on earth. But in bringing that sprig of viburnum from Saint Beregonne’s Lane I had made an intrinsic addition that could not have been made by all the tropical growths in the world, because I had taken it from a plane of existence that was real only for me. 

‘I was therefore able to take an object from that plane and bring it into the world of men, where no one could contest my ownership of it. Ownership could never be more absolute, in fact, because the object would owe nothing to any industry, and it would augment the normally immutable patrimony of the earth …

‘My reasoning flowed on, wide as a river, carrying fleets of words, encircling islands of appeasl to philosophy; it was swollen by a vast system of logical tributaries until it reached a conclusive demonstration that a theft committed in Saint Beregonne’s Lane was not a theft in the Mohlenstrasse. 

‘Fortified by this nonsense, I judged that the matter was settled. My only concern would be to avoid the reprisals of the mysterious inhabitants of the street, or of the world to which it led. 

‘When the Spanish conquistadores spent the gold they had brought back from the new India, I think they cared very little about the anger of the faraway peoples they had despoiled.’

• Jean Ray, ‘The Shadowy Street’/’The Tenebrous Alley’

‘[I]t remains a mystery where this surplus originated.’

• Marx, Capital Vol. 3

Capital accumulation as: a pioneering sortie into a magical realm; a theft that is not a theft; regrettably generative of opaque angers.