Nineteen Hundred: All that city. You just couldn't see the end to
it. The end? Please? You please just show me where it ends? It was all
very fine on that gangway. And I was grand too, in my overcoat. I cut
quite a figure. And I was getting off. Guaranteed. There was no problem.
It wasn't what I saw that stopped me, Max. It was what I didn't see.
You understand that? What I didn't see. In all that sprawling city there
was everything except an end. There was no end. What I did not see was
where the whole thing came to an end. The end of the world...
Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end. You know there are
eighty-eight of them, nobody can tell you any different. They are not
infinite. You are infinite. And on these keys the music that you can
make is infinite. I like that. That I can live by.
You get me up on that gangway and you're rolling out in front of me a
keyboard of millions of keys, millions and billions of keys that never
end, and that's the truth, Max. That they never end. That keyboard is
infinite. And if that keyboard is infinite, then on that keyboard there
is no music you can play. You're sitting on the wrong bench. That's
God's piano.
Christ! Did, did you see the streets? Just the streets… There were
thousands of them! And how do you do it down there? How do you choose
just one? One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own, one
landscape to look at, one way to die...
All that world is weighing down on me, you don't even know where it
comes to an end, and aren't you ever just scared of breaking apart at
the thought of it? The enormity of living it?
I was born on this ship, and the world passed me by, but two thousand
people at a time. And there were wishes here, but never more than fit
between prow and stern. You played out your happiness, but on a piano
that was not infinite. I learned to live that way.
Land? Land is a ship too big for me. It's a woman too beautiful; it's a
voyage too long, a perfume too strong. It's a music I don't know how to
make. I could never get off this ship. At best, I can step off my life.
After all, I don't exist for anyone. You're an exception, Max, you're
the only one who knows I'm here. You're a minority, and you better get
used to it. Forgive me, my friend, but I'm not getting off.
- Legand Of 1900
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
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