Waste Land to a Scream: A Gay Science
Novel 006
6. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Nietzsche
A letter found missed the bodies, the Miracle of the Marnes somewhere between 10th-12th.
Written in French.
Ma cheri, ma petite chou. This little life all hours has dwindled to an oblique end and I fear that I show not cross the sleeve that separates the fans all our birth. I suppose I will never see Rochester where you were born. Nor show we voyage to the lands of Italy and partake of the splendors of all be your places that your collect speaks of. Instead, it is with solemn grace that I know that in a minute there are many days. Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. But think not of the future but of the past where we frolic towards the never-ending spring which lives within eternal life transfixed.
There are so many stories creeping past my lips, and countless seas have driven such oceans that are still graced. So, I must cram within these turgid words only a few recollections to crowd the splendor before it fades away into the abyss. Let me take one more moment to tell you why I so desperately love you, which I have not told you before.
When I was grasped with my youth I looked up to the nest on the church steeple and there I saw the two storks which ever tried to birth a hatchling and every year they did fail for reasons that I did not yet understand. Each year they set up their nest with supreme loving care because each year they thought that this year would be the time that they would finally deliver into this world a loving baby that would at the end fly away as a trio. With the Mother a piano and the father the cello with their offspring taking the part of the violin stripping and stretching to the highest reaches of the communion. From the beginning from the reaches of the klavier and echoed in the soft Majesty in the strings. And yet with each breakage they were left with nothing and then flew away to other climes. But then they finally poured forth the torrent and the young one of that year flounced and burbled with the life that made all the lean years worth its while.
What I did not tell anyone, neither Mama nor priest, was that one day the young bird nearly was tossed out of the nest, and I scrambled up. It was dark and both of the parents were asleep so it was only myself that could save the hatchling. Fortunately, I knew all of the ways up and down the chapel and ruinously set about crawling up the best avenue. I reached for the plaster akimbo. Then I reached for the slates of the top and saw the need for the graceful undulation of the valley that encompassed all that I had known. But I missed my hand hold and for a moment the entire slippage almost condemned me to eternal death, and I saw that it was the end with no breath testifying that I would live at all. But then the open canvas careened off of overhead and all was all the starry night. And at that moment I grasped the roof, though I do not know how, and spun the light fantastic, and that made the fledgling climb up on my fingers. It was terrible to feel the cracks and crevices which were entirely different from the strings of fluid bows. But in a moment the bird settled itself on the nest and then went to sleep as desperately asleep as one could imagine. and there I glanced celestial in the light and darkness in the sky.
But what was a quandary was that every day there afterward the mother talked at me and then the father with a different meter than before as if they were beginning to play the piano trio from a welling up in their throats.
In the distance, I could smell the yeasty bread and could imagine biting through the crust to be soft inside while I went my way to the lyceum to listen to the corrected pronunciation of the conjugation and declension in both Latin and French of the precision declined.
You may wonder why I picked this one event as the last thing I <garbled> and it is because of this: when first I saw you in 1913 I knew that you were lost and missed the marbled halls of the Palais Garnier there in the center of Paris poor bemused and be spoken and clearly not speaking for a much French at all. And I in the same way reached up on the steps to catch a fallen bird as if it were a lilac or a sunflower which only needed to be watered and cared for if it had some chance to bloom. because while you and I may be the smallest morsel of life there was as yet some hope that one have a gossamer chance to shine.
But now it is clear that the future is in the past. It steams out of a different gate from the Gare Saint-Lazare, and the wheels turn ever so slowly as the engine slowly engages the coupling rods in unison. Frisian frees all distractions as the engine turns coal to steam to give it power for its ascent. And that is all we have to attune our lives between. The seats that we were supposed to fill were empty and forlorn. A conundrum.
Adieu, Adieu, Adieu. My love.