"The world is becoming a giant military base," wrote the great Latin American writer, Eduardo Galeano, "and that base is becoming a mental hospital the size of the world. Inside the nuthouse, which ones are crazy?"
Curtin was standing in the middle of the gallery lost in thought. An attendant came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Sir," he said, "it's closing time."
So out of the museum Curtin and his wife walked. They found a little French restaurant where they ate a delicious meal accompanied by fragrant wine. All his dilemmas disappeared for the nonce. He forgot the purpose of his long odyssey around town. While walking back to their hotel under a resplendent full moon, he was at peace. The world was beautiful, as he knew it was. As they undressed, he promised himself he would dream the answer to his quest and in the morning would visit our lady of the harbor and tell her his dream.
But morning came with no breakthrough. But he had promised the lady a last visit, at least to apologize and to ask forgiveness for his ignorance. He walked to Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. He glanced at his watch and realized he had first arrived here exactly twenty-four hours before. He was back where he started. He felt had gone in a circle and had no great insight to show for it. He glanced up to Our Lady a bit ashamed and entered the chapel. It was empty and silent. Curtin sat in a pew half-way down and let the silence envelop him as he meditated. He listened. Would she speak to him? Minutes passed, when he was startled by the sound of the door behind him opening. He heard footsteps as someone walked down the aisle. It felt like an intrusion, and he was irritated. A man slipped into the aisle next to him. It was the dead Leonard Cohen. He gave Curtin a wry smile. He didn't look any different. He said nothing and looked straight ahead. Then he started singing his angelic song, and Curtin knew he had arrived at an answer beyond explanation, but one that went so deep it didn't need one. The power of song; that was it. Curtin had long felt but never expressed that nothing moved and unsettled him more than songs, and so he had both fled and embraced them in an alternating cycle of futility down his days. Now his tears were tears of joy that overwhelmed him as he listened to Leonard sing "Suzanne."
He wishes to share with you such beauty, and wonders what Henry Adams would think. No doubt our lady of the harbor, Notre Dame, was enchanted.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here is Leonard Cohen, alive and well, singing Suzanne.
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