"I interrupted this letter to sketch some of the middle section of the
fourth movement and I have wasted a precious week following a false
trail. And of course the thought persists that it may not have been a
false trail at all, but the right one; the business of saying something
is a perpetual wrestle with doubts.
"We leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination--Portsmouth probably
and then somewhere in Maine, hoping to wrench from fate the time to
finish the score. It seems more than a little pompous to continue my
explanation. The Grass, the United States, humanity, God--whatever we
write about we write about the same things.
"Still there is a limit to individual perception and it seems to me my
concern--at least my musical concern--is enclosed by Canada and Mexico,
the Pacific and Atlantic. So, rightly or wrongly, even if the miracle
occur and I do finish in time, I cannot leave. A short distance, such a
short distance from where I scribble these words, Vanzetti died. No more
childish thought than atonement was ever conceived. It is a base and
baseless gratification. Evil is not recalled. So I do not sentence
myself for the murder of Vanzetti or for my manifold crimes; who am I to
pass judgment, even on me? But all of us, accusers and accused,
condemners and condemned, will remain--forever indistinguishable. If the
requiem for our faults and our virtues, if the celebration of our past
and the prayer for our resurrection can be orchestrated, then the fourth
movement will be finished. If not--