Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage (Kurt Vonnegut Series) (26 page)

Hosanna in the highest.

A day of wrath, that day:

We shall dissolve the world into glowing ashes,

as attested by our weapons for wars

in the names of gods unknowable.

Thus I pray to Thee,

from whom all flesh did come.

Merciful Time, who buries the sins of the world, grant them rest.

Merciful Elements, from whom a new world can be constructed, moist blue-green, and fertile,

grant them eternal rest.

Let not eternal light disturb their sleep,

O Cosmos, for Thou art merciful.

Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness

on that dread day when the Heavens and Earth shall quake,

when we shall dissolve the world into glowing ashes

in the names of gods unknowable.

I am seized with trembling and I am afraid

until the day of reckoning shall arrive

and the wrath to come.

Hence I pray.

Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness

on that day of wrath, calamity, and misery.

Rest eternal grant them, O Cosmos,

And let not light perpetual

disturb their harmless sleep.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Munde,

neve lux somnum perturbet eorum.

Nihili vobis hymnus, Lapides volantes,

nihili votum irritum

in somnis in Jerusalem.

Attamen oro:

a te omnis caro venit.

Chrone, eleison.

Stoechia, eleisate.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Munde,

neve lux somnum perturbet eorum.

In die irae, in die illa,

solvemus saeclum in favilla,

testimonio nostris telis, factis in bella

in nominibus deorum ignorabilium.

Ne favilla contremiscat,

etsi aliquis Judex sit venturus,

cuncta tamquam stricte discussurus!

Nulla tuba, mirum spargens sonum

per sepulcra regionum,

cogat favillam ante ullum Thronum.

Favilla permaneat favilla,

quamquam vocata cum terrore accedere,

sicut in vita, ad aliquem Judicem vel Thronum.

Liber scriptus proferendus est

in quo totum continetur,

unde favilla judicetur?

Tunc, cum aliquis Judex sedebit

et quidquid latet apparebit,

is intelligat quod nil inultum remanserit.

Mors et Natura dicant quidlibet,

cum favilla ut favilla dormiat,

jussa se excusare alicui Judici.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus,

cum etiam justi sint damnati

bellis in nominibus deorum ignorabilium?

Factura tremendae majestatis

dator somni vel vigiliae,

tu fons fortuiti doloris vel pietatis,

dona mihi somnum innocentem.

Aleator carne,

tu es causa meae viae:

ne iterum jacias talos in illa die.

Frater meus, qui temere me amavit,

me redimere conatus est crucem passus:

tantus labor non sit cassus.

Ingemisco tamquam reus;

culpa rubet vultus meus:

supplicantem serva plure talis vigiliae.

Qui nee Mariam et latronem in cruce damnavisti

nee eis dimisisti,

mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt auditae,

sed sublimi negligentia efficies

ut perenni non cremer ullo igne.

Inter oves locum mihi praesta

atque haedos, nullos nullis separando,

relinquendo nostram favillam ubi cadet permixtam.

Ridiculosae frustrationis erit dies illa

sperantibus videre resurgentes ex favilla

reos judicandos.

Confutatis litigiosis,

ridiculosae frustrationi addictis,

numera me in delectatis.

Ridiculosae frustrationis erit dies illa

qua resurget ex favilla

judicandus—nee vir nee mulier nee natus—nemo reus.

Vos confido eis parcere, Lapides,

Tempus, Elementa.

Donate eis requiem. Amen.

Munde, factura tremendae majestatis,

libera animas omnium ad unum defunctorum

de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu;

libera eas de ore leonis,

ne absorbeat eas tartarus,

ut plane cadant in obscurum tranquillum et suave.

Noli caecare eas luce promissa in somnis Abrahae et semini ejus.

Hostias et preces tibi, Munde,

laudis obtulimus in milia annorum.

Dona nos tua perpetua negligentia fatorum,

quae sunt trans mortem, earum animarum quas hodie

commemoramus.

Vita satis erat ludi!

Fac eas de morte transire ad somnum.

Sanctum, sanctum, sanctum, Tempus, et Elementa;

pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria vestra.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Humiliati et stupefacti ille et illa, qui vitam experti sunt.

Hosanna in excelsis.

In die irae, in die illa,

solvemus saeclum in favilla,

testimonio nostris telis, factis in bella

in nominibus deorum ignorabilium.

Sid ad te precor,

a quo omnis caro venit.

Pium Tempus, quod sepelis peccata mundi,

dona eis requiem.

Pia Elementa, a quibus novus aedificari potest mundus,

humidus caeruleus fertilis,

donate eis requiem sempiternam.

Ne lux perpetua somnum perturbet eorum, Munde, quia pius es.

Libera me, Munde, de vigilia aeterna

in illa die tremenda quando caeli movendi sunt et terra,

dum solvemus saeclum in favilla

in nominibus deorum ignorabilium.

Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo,

dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira.

Itaque oro.

Libera me, Munde, de vigilia aeterna

in illa die irae, calamitatis, et miseriae.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Munde,

neve lux perpetua somnum innocentem perturbet eorum.

There was a time when clerical workers, if they were of a mind to, were allowed to put up funny or even impudent signs on walls near their desks, and such signs could be bought in what were then called “five-and-ten-cent stores.” One of these, I remember, was:

I may have seen that prefab joke for the first time at the Vonnegut Hardware Company in Indianapolis, where I used to work in the summertime in order to pay for clothes, dates, and petroleum. The store was owned by another branch of the family.

Then as now it was widely held that a person doing remarkably fresh work in the arts actually had to be crazy. What mentally healthy person could have thoughts that unusual? For a brief time, when my father was a boy, it was believed that there was a connection between tuberculosis and genius, since so many famous artists had TB. The early stages of syphilis were also rumored to be helpful. And E. B. White, the late writer and great editor of
The New Yorker
, said to me one time that he didn’t know of any male author of quality who wasn’t also a heavy drinker. And now, as though we needed any further proofs that creative persons are beneficiaries of disease, we have this volume of first-rate writings by the formerly or presently or since dead mentally ill, none of them, however, famous.

To me, though, and I have been in the writing business for a long time now, this book proves only two things: first, that more good writing is being done than we can afford to publish and find time to read, and second, that creative people have thoughts unlike those of the general population because they have been culled or feel they have been culled from that general population. The sequestering of some of us in mental hospitals is simply one of countless culling processes which are always going on. Tuberculosis or syphilis or a felony conviction or membership in a despised race or faction or a bad appearance or a rotten personality can get you culled as surely as a fancy nervous breakdown.

In order to be remarkably creative, though, it is not enough for a person to be culled or feel culled. He or she must also be gifted, as are all the contributors to this anthology. I have taught creative writing to all sorts of student bodies, ranging from those at Harvard University to teenagers at a private school for the disturbed or learning-disabled. It is my conclusion that the percentage of persons with literary gifts is nearly the same for almost any sort of gathering. So I would be surprised if that percentage, always a small one, were significantly higher or lower in a mental institution.

Again: It is culling, whether real or illusory, rather than disease which is the source of inspiration. I would not be surprised, however, if it turned out that gifted people culled for mental illness have given the world more works of art worth saving than those culled for other reasons. That would make sense, since nobody can feel as steadily and alarmingly excluded from the general population as they have felt. The rest of us make them the World’s Champions of Loneliness. The word
egregious
(“outside the herd”) might have been coined for them.

I quote the poet Kris Kristofferson: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” There find encapsulated the benefit to a gifted person of being culled. Having nothing left to lose frees people to think their own thoughts, since there is no longer anything to be gained by echoing the thoughts of those around them. Hopelessness is the mother of Originality.

And the three lovely daughters of Originality in turn, the granddaughters of Hopelessness, as this volume demonstrates, are Hope, the Gratitude of Others, and Unshakable Self-respect.

Dear Dean Paul H. Jones—

Our friend Ollie sent me a copy of your letter to him, written immediately after my speech out there.

I am a fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic (“Freethinker”). Like my essentially puritanical forebears, I believe that God has so far been unknowable and hence unservable, hence the highest service one can perform is to his or her community, whose needs are quite evident. I believe that virtuous behavior is trivialized by carrot-and-stick schemes, such as promises of highly improbable rewards or punishments in an improbable afterlife. (The punishment for counterfeiting in Henry VIII’s reign, incidentally, was being boiled alive in public.) The Bible is a useful starting point for discussions with crowds of American strangers, since so many of us know at least a little something about it. It has the added virtue of having for contributors at least two geniuses—Moses and Christ.

Jesus is particularly stimulating to me, since he noticed what I can’t help noticing, that life is so hard most people are losers or feel like losers, so that a skill essential to most of us, if we are to retain some shred of dignity, is to show grace in defeat. That to me is the lesson he taught while up on the cross, whether he was God or not. And he was neither the first nor the last human being, if that is what he was, to teach that while in unbelievable agony.

As for the preaching of formal Christianity, I am all for it. As you saw with your own eyes, I myself have done that, and have done it without pay here in Baghdad on the Subway at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and St. Clement’s Church. My St. Clement’s sermon can be found at the end of my book
Palm Sunday
, which also contains my words at Lavina Lyon’s funeral out that way.

What I can’t stand are sermons which say that to believe in the divinity of Jesus is a way to
win.

Fraternally yours,