Qiu Miaojin - Last Words from Montmartre

Yong,

The only person I ever gave myself to completely has betrayed me. Her name is Xu. Even Bunny (the crystallization of our three years of marriage, whom she left with me in Paris to keep me company) departed this world suddenly, and all of this happened within the space of forty-five days. Now Bunnys cold body is resting peacefully near my pillow, and the little stuffed pig that Xu sent me is resting against Bunnys body. All last night I cried silently under the covers, holding Bunnys pure white corpse in my arms.

Yong,

My sorrow, my day upon day and night upon night of relentless grief is not for the mess the world is in, and its not for my own mortality; its for my delicate heart and the wounds it has had to endure. I grieve for all the suffering it has endured. I agonize over all that I have given to others and to the world, even as Ive failed to live better myself. Its not the worlds fault; its my fragile hearts fault. Were not exempt from the worlds injury, so we are doomed to suffer spiritual illness over time.

Yong,

Like you, I have an ideal love that cant be realized. I devoted myself to someone completely, but it was something the world couldnt accept. My devotion was so minor in the world that it was hardly worth mentioning; it was a joke. How could this fail to wound the delicate heart? Yong, let there be no more mutual hurt in the world, all right? Cant we just stop playing these hurtful games altogether?

Yong,

I dont want to fabricate a perfect love anymore. I just want to live a little better. To not be hurt anymore, and to not hurt others. I dont like it that theres so much wounding in the world. If there persists in being so much wounding in the world, I dont want to live in it. My need for true love isnt so important now. The important thing is to lead a life where no one can wound me anymore.

Yong,

Youre someone I now trust and feel close to. But how can my sorrow ever end when Im so alone here? Even if I were to reconcile with everyone in the world Ive ever hurt and whos hurt me, would my sorrow end? Why is there so much hurt in the world? My soul has already endured so much wounding. Can it sustain more? How can it assimilate so many wounds? Will it be able to assimilate the wounds and then move on and make a fresh start?

Yong,

Maybe the world has always been the same, maybe it has always crushed to bits anything you hoped it would not crush. But its not the worlds fault, its still the same world that keeps crushing down. Its not the worlds fault, its just that Ive been wounded; can I really assimilate all these wounds? If I cant assimilate them, then the wounds will stay open. Can my sorrow and my wounds be released, can they be consoled? At my core, can I really accept these things about life and grow stronger?

Yong,

With you standing by my side I am not alone. You lead your life just like I do. You understand my life and love me deeply. But dont I have to change? I dont know how Ill change. I want to become someone else. This is the single best thing I could do for myself. I know that I have to change my identity, live under an assumed name. I have to cry. I have to live by transforming myself into someone else.

Yong,

I dont long for an eternal, perfect love anymore. Its not that I have stopped believing in it. The two times in my life I couldve had eternal, perfect love both wilted on the vine. Ive ripened, wilted, fallen. Yong, Ive burned completely, Ive already bloomed fully. The first wilted because I was still too immature and missed my chance, and the second wilted prematurely because I was overripe. But even if I only blossomed for a split second, I blossomed fully. Now all I have left to do is to accept and face the facts about these two crippled loves. Because I am still alive.

APRIL 27

Xu,

It is now three in the morning on April 27, 1995. It is nine oclock in the morning for you in Taiwan. Bunny died at midnight on the twenty-sixth, so it has been twenty-seven hours since Bunnys death. I havent buried the body yet. Its still in the tiny coffin here, keeping me company in my room. On your advice I didnt throw Bunny into the Seine. I will find Bunny a little grave site. I still havent found the right place.

For twenty-seven hours all Ive done is lie here in bed, as if keeping vigil while Bunny dies all over again. Ive shut myself in my room to indulge in thoughts of you and Bunny. For more than a month now I havent been able to think about you without feeling wounded and resentful because needing or desiring you would hurt even worse, nor have I been able to pour my heart out to you in writing like I used to, because as Ive told you, the letters I write to you are themselves a fierce form of desire.

Ive made up my mind not to let Bunny die in vain. I want Bunnys death to mean something. Otherwise I wont survive it, I wont be able to handle it, I wont be able to go on living. I tell myself that maybe Ill write Bunny a book and stop recounting things to you and thus shut away our love or that Ill keep loving you, for Bunny, loving you unconditionally, and keep writing you another set of letters like the ones I wrote to you at the end of that year, a perfectly unrestrained symmetry of words smoldering with love.

In one heartbeat Ive addressed thirty envelopes. These are the letters I will write to you this month. I want to concentrate the way I did at the end of last year and write you letters again.

I envy you. I envy that you are loved completely by a beautiful soul, and that this love can still grow, still adapt, that it can recover from catastrophe, still vital and capable of giving birth to new things.

Please dont feel burdened by this. Its just that I still have so much to give; I want to give you everything there is to give. The sweet juice has yet to be completely squeezed from the fruit. All the hurt has not yet severed the cord Ive tied to your body, so Ive returned to your side to sing for you. You nearly severed it, but a gossamer filament is still suspended there. I dont know when youll make the final, lethal cut, but before that happens I will cling to you and sing with all my heart.

Xu, its my turn to be the ox. Youve been my ox for so long. You used to say that it was a blessing to be the ox. I beg you, please dont do anything to drive it away, okay? Im willing to be your ox, so you just have to make a comfortable place for it to stay, okay? You may be cruel, but could you bear to drive away the ox that you have loved, the one who has loved you for three years? Could you bear to drive it away in agony, never to return, never to exist again? Is this old ox really not worth your tenderness, your care? Ive loved you madly for three years now. For three years Ive given myself to you utterly, loving you completely and totally. Now my hairs a mess and I cant put one foot in front of the other, but Im prepared to return to your side and keep on loving you. Is this ox just any old beast? Tell me, if you feed and nurture an ox that has already proven itself, wont it produce for you the kind of livelihood, life, and love that you want?