Hotel Memling, Bruges, 12 December 1931 at 4:10 in the morning
Ciscosmith: I shot myself in the jaw with my VA Luger pistol at five o'clock this morning. But I see you, my dear friend! I am so touched that you care so much! Yesterday on the tower's lookout at sunset. It just happened that you didn't see me first. As soon as I stepped up the last few steps, I saw the silhouette of a man leaning on the balcony, staring out at the sea - recognizing your beautiful gabardine coat and distinctive velvet hat. Take one more step and you can see me huddled in the shadows. You pace north - just turn in my direction to spot me. I mustered up all my courage to see you as much as I could - for a minute. —Then backed up and hurried downstairs. do not be angry. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to come to me. Did you come on the Queen of Kent?
These questions are all pointless now, aren't they? It wasn't entirely a coincidence that I saw you first, no. The world is a shadow play, an opera, and everything written in these scripts is magnified. Don't get too mad at my character. No matter how much I explain, you won't understand. You're a brilliant physicist, and all your friends at Rutherford say you have a bright future, and I'm pretty sure of them. But you fail to understand some basic principles. Healthy people cannot understand hollowed out, incomplete people. You'll try to list all the reasons to live, but I left them at Victoria Station at the beginning of the summer. I sneaked back from the observation deck, and I can't let you blame yourself for not being able to dissuade me. You might still be anyway, but Sissmith, don't, don't be so stubborn.
Again, I hope you're not too disappointed to find me leaving the Royal Hotel. The manager heard that Mr. Walplanco had come to see me. He said he had to ask me to leave because there were too many reservations. Bullshit, but I accept that pretense. The nasty Frobisher wanted to lose his temper, but the composer Frobisher needed peace in order to finish the sextet. Paid in full - Jansh's last payment had been spent - and packed in a suitcase. Wandering aimlessly through winding alleys and through frozen canals, I finally came across this seemingly abandoned hostel, living in a barely-there corner under the stairs. The only decoration in my room was an ugly "Smiley Knight" portrait, too ugly to be stolen and sold. Through the dirty windows, I could see the run-down windmill, the steps of which I took a nap on my first morning in Bruges. is the same room. It's amazing to think about. We've been going in circles.
I know I can't see my twenty-fifth birthday. At least one time I was ahead of schedule. Lovelorn, help-seeking, all sentimental tragic actors are fools rushing to kill themselves, like amateur bandleaders, which gives suicide a bad name. True suicide is a well-paced, well-trained, inevitable event. People say, "Suicide is selfish." Professional priests like Pate describe it as a cowardly attack on life. Fools support this plausible statement for different reasons: to escape all kinds of condemnation, to impress his audience with his moral qualities, to vent his anger, or simply because he doesn't have some of the experience it takes to develop sympathy pain.
Suicide has nothing to do with cowardice - it takes a lot of courage. The Japanese have the right idea. No, selfish things are just to save family, friends, and enemies a little introspection and make others suffer into intolerable ways of living. The only selfishness lies in forcing strangers to witness an unsightly scene that will make life difficult for them in the future. So I'd make a thick hood out of a few towels, and use it to reduce the sound of the shot and to suck blood. I would kill myself in the tub so I don't stain the carpet. I put a letter under the door of the manager's private office last night - he'll see it tomorrow morning at eight - telling him about the change in my living situation, and if all goes well, an innocent waitress won't have to suffer unpleasantness Frightened experienced. You see, I do think of little people.
Sissmith, don't let them say I killed myself for love, that's absurd. Just had a momentary crush on Eva Kromlink, but we both knew who the only love in my short, happy life was. In addition to this letter and the rest of Ewing's books, I have arranged to send a folder to your accommodation at the Royal Hotel with my complete score. Use Jensh's money to pay for the publication and send a copy to everyone on the attached list.
But you can't let my family get any of the originals anyway. Pate would sigh and say "it's not the Symphony of the Heroes" (note: Beethoven's work, also known as the Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major.), is it", and shove it into a in a drawer; but it is an incomparable work: a parody of Scriabin's White Mass, Stravinsky's Lost Footprints, and crazier Temporary chromatic notation used by Debussy. But actually, I don't know where it came from. waking dream. I can't write anything that's 1% good about it anymore. Wish I was talking big, but I'm not. The Cloud Atlas Sextet carries my life, is my life, and now I am a firework dissipating into the atmosphere; but at least I was a firework.
People are really hateful things, and would rather be a musical note than be a big pipe with a semi-solid stuff stuffed in it that ticks and can't be used anymore after a few decades. The Luger pistol is here. Thirteen minutes left. It's natural to feel scared, but I like the ending more. Like Adrian, an electric tension made me realize I was dying. So proud that I got this done. inevitability.
Take away some of the beliefs posted by the babysitter, the school, and the country, and you will find the truth that will never be removed from a person's heart. The Roman Empire will decline again, and Cortes (Note: (1485-1547) Spanish colonists, conquered Mexico in 1523.) will once again ravage the city of Tenochtitlan (Note: Medieval Mexican Aztec activities center, today's Mexico City.), Ewing will sail away again, Adrian will be blasted to pieces again, and you and I will once again sleep in Corsica. Under the stars, I will come to Bruges again, fall in love with Eva again, fall out of love again, you will read this letter again, the sun will be cold again. When Nietzsche's phonograph record ends, Satan will play it again for the endless truth of eternity.
Time cannot affect such rest. We won't be dead long. My birth, the next reincarnation, will come as soon as my Luger pistol sets me free. Thirteen years from now we'll meet again in Gresham, and in ten years I'll be back in this room with the same gun, writing the same letter, what I've decided to do and what my six The ensemble is just as perfect. So beautiful, it must have comforted me in this silent moment. Touching the scene is sad, only a thousand lines of tears
RF
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