011 // audio
[Back to audio. Erik's voice is soft, contemplative, almost as though he is speaking to himself.]
Such a little thing you all take for granted. For it is the little things which, when denied, are most noticed. None of you miss being geniuses, or suffer for your artistic failings. If you had never seen Paris, the Taj Mahal, heard Don Giovanni, you would count yourselves none the worse off. But take away bread and you starve. Take away...
For one used to starving, the mere scent is alluring, the taste overwhelming. And what a normal man might call a meal is a surfeit. I have never courted ignorance, for I am not built that way. But the ignorant are happier and, it seems, not merely because they know nothing. The world rewards their ignorance with exactly that which the greatest intellect cannot manufacture.
Barge, if you wish to convince me of my kinship to this rabble, I must say you are failing.
[Erik takes up his violin again, the tune now entirely his. Mournful and longing, his technique flawless.]
Such a little thing you all take for granted. For it is the little things which, when denied, are most noticed. None of you miss being geniuses, or suffer for your artistic failings. If you had never seen Paris, the Taj Mahal, heard Don Giovanni, you would count yourselves none the worse off. But take away bread and you starve. Take away...
For one used to starving, the mere scent is alluring, the taste overwhelming. And what a normal man might call a meal is a surfeit. I have never courted ignorance, for I am not built that way. But the ignorant are happier and, it seems, not merely because they know nothing. The world rewards their ignorance with exactly that which the greatest intellect cannot manufacture.
Barge, if you wish to convince me of my kinship to this rabble, I must say you are failing.
[Erik takes up his violin again, the tune now entirely his. Mournful and longing, his technique flawless.]