black as his, banged my elbows and hips just as hard, but at least mine was not the only ruined evening in Bruges, and I yelled, kicking his ribs once for each word, before half-running, half-hobbling off on my whacked ankle, “Love hurts!”
Am in better spirits now. Hardly remember what E. even looks like. Once, her face was burned into my idiotic eyes, saw her everywhere, in everyone. Grigoire has exquisite fingers, long and pliant. Robert Schumann maimed his hands by tying weights to ’em. He thought it’d increase his range at the keyboard. Majestic string quartets but what a bloody fool! Grigoire on the other hand possesses perfect hands by birth but probably doesn’t know a crotchet from crochet.
Forgot about this unfinished letter, well, half-forgot, it got buried under my piano MS & too busy composing to fish it out. Icy seasonal weather. Half the clocks in Bruges have frozen fast. So, now you know about Eva. The affair hollowed me out, but what, pray, resounds in hollows? Music, Sixsmith, let there be Music and behold. During a six-hour fireside bath last night I scored 102 bars of a funereal march based on “Ode to Joy” for my clarinetist.
Another visitor this morning; haven’t been this popular since that notorious day at the Derby. Woken at noon by a friendly but firm knock-knock-knock. Called out, “Who’s there?”
“Verplancke.”
Couldn’t place the name, but when I opened the door, there stood my musical policeman, the one who had lent me the bicycle in my old life. “May I come in? Je pensais vous rendre une visite de courtoisie.”
“Most certainly,” I replied, adding rather wittily, “Voila qui est bien courtois, pour un policier.” Cleared him an armchair & offered to ring for tea, but my visitor declined. Couldn’t quite conceal his surprise at the untidiness. Explained how I tip the maids to stay away. Can’t abide having my MS touched. M. Verplancke nodded in sympathy, then wondered why a gentleman might check into his hotel under a pseudonym. An eccentricity inherited from my father, I said, a notable in public life who prefers to keep his private one private. Keep my own vocation similarly hush-hush so I’m not put upon to tinkle the ivories during cocktail hour. Refusals cause offense. V. seemed satisfied with my explanation. “A luxurious home away from home, Le Royal.” He glanced around my sitting room. “I did not know amanuenses were so well paid.” Admitted what the tactful fellow doubtless already knew: Ayrs and I had parted company, adding I have my own independent income, which a mere twelve months ago would have been the truth. “Ah, a bicycling millionaire?” He smiled. Tenacious, isn’t he? Not quite a millionaire, I smiled back, but, providentially, a man of sufficient consequence to afford Le Royal.
He got to the point at last. “You’ve made an influential enemy during your short residency in our city, M. Frobisher. A certain manufacturer, I think we both know of whom I speak, made a complaint to my superior about an incident a few nights ago. His secretary—a very fine harpsichordist in our little group, in fact—recognized your name, and deflected the complaint to my desk. So here I am.” Took pains to assure him it was all an absurd misunderstanding over a young lady’s affections. Charming fellow nodded. “I know, I know. In youth, one’s heart plays piu fortissimo than the head. Our difficulty is, the young man’s father is banker for several of our city elders and is making unpleasant noises about charging you with battery and assault.”
Thanked M. Verplancke for his warning and tact, and promised to keep a lower profile from now on. Alas, not so simple. “Monsieur Frobisher, don’t you find our city intolerably cold in winter? Don’t you think Mediterranean climes might better inspire your Muse?”
Asked if the banker’s anger might be appeased if I gave my word to leave Bruges within seven days, after my sextet’s final revision. V. thought yes, such an understanding should defuse the situation. So I gave my word as a gentleman to make the necessary arrangements.
Business concluded, V. asked if he might have a preview of my sextet. Showed him the clarinet cadenza. He was unnerved at first by its spectral and structural peculiarities, but spent a further hour asking perceptive questions about my semi-invented notation and the singular harmonics of the piece. As we shook hands, he gave me his card, urged me to post a published copy of the score for his ensemble, and expressed regret that his public persona had had to impinge upon his private one. Was sorry to see him go. Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.
So you see, I must put my final days to good account. Don’t worry about me, Sixsmith, I’m quite well, and far too busy for melancholia! There’s a sailors’ tavern at the end of the street where I could find companionship if I chose (one catches salty boys going in and out at any hour), but only music matters to me now. Music clatters, music swells, music tosses.
Sincerely,
R.F.
HOTEL MEMLING, BRUGES
QUARTER PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING, 12th—XII—1931
Sixsmith,
Shot myself through the roof of my mouth at five A.M. this morning with V.A.’s Luger. But I saw you, my dear, dear fellow! How touched I am that you care so much! On the belfry’s lookout, yesterday, at sunset. Sheerest fluke you didn’t see me first. Had got to that last flight of stairs, when I saw a man in profile leaning on the balcony, gazing at the sea—recognized your natty gabardine coat, your one and only trilby. One more step up, you’d have seen me crouching in the shadows. You strolled to the north side—one turn my way, I would have been rumbled. Watched you for as long as I dared—a minute?—before pulling back and hotfooting it down to Earth. Don’t be cross. Thank you ever so for trying to find me. Did you come on the
Questions rather pointless now, aren’t they?
Wasn’t the sheerest fluke I saw you first, not really. World’s a shadow theater, an opera, and such things writ large in its libretto. Don’t be too cross at my role. You couldn’t understand, no matter how much I explained. You’re a brilliant physicist, your Rutherford chap et al. agree you’ve got a brilliant future, quite sure they’re right. But in some fundamentals you’re a dunce. The healthy can’t understand the emptied, the broken. You’d try to list all the reasons for living, but I left ’em behind at Victoria Station back in early summer. Reason I crept back down from the belvedere was that I can’t have you blaming yourself for failing to dissuade me. You may anyway, but don’t, Sixsmith, don’t be such an ass.
Likewise, hope you weren’t too disappointed to find me gone from Le Royal. The manager got wind of M. Verplancke’s visit. Obliged to ask me to leave, he said, on account of heavy bookings. Piffle, but I took the fig leaf. Frobisher the Stinker wanted a tantrum, but Frobisher the Composer wanted peace and quiet to finish my sextet. Paid in full—bang went the last Jansch money—and packed my valise. Wandered crooked alleys and crossed icy canals before coming across this deserted-looking caravansary. Reception a rarely manned nook under the stairs. Only ornament in my room a monstrous Laughing Cavalier too ugly to steal and sell. From my filthy window, one sees the very same dilapidated old windmill on whose steps I napped on my first morning in Bruges. The very same. Fancy that. Around we go.
Knew I’d never see my twenty-fifth birthday. Am early for once. The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateur conductors. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness. So I’ll make a thick turban from several towels to muffle the shot and soak up the blood, and do it in the bathtub, so it shouldn’t stain any carpets. Last night I left a letter under the manager’s day-office door—he’ll find it at eight A.M. tomorrow—informing him of the change in my existential status, so with luck an innocent chambermaid will be spared an unpleasant surprise. See, I do think of the little people.
Don’t let ’em say I killed myself for love, Sixsmith, that would be too ridiculous. Was infatuated by Eva
