|
Correspondence from Leah Hirsig to Blanche Conn
Cefalù, Sicily
[circa February 1924]
Dear Blanche Conn,
We have no individual monies. The money you sent was used for the one who needed it most, namely myself, so that I might have the benefit of a holiday. . . . I went to the Desert and had the most delightful 10 days recuperating. With the Beast's loving care I recovered a good deal of my lost health, in fact, so much so that it became possible for him to leave me in Tunis, more or less penniless, so that he could go to Paris to attend to necessary work there and get into communication with the world once more.
We worship the sun as the source of light of the world. We worship Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the God of War and Vengeance who is the speaker in the third chapter of The Book of the Law and whose Prophet is The Beast 666, commonly called Aleister Crowley. But the unkindest cut of all is your suggestion that I 'be sent back home' to re-tie myself to the drudgery which you commended to me so highly for leaving! Firstly, there is no 'back home'. Though I had a flat, furniture, cut-glass, a salary, and a very good housekeeper in the form of my mother, I never knew a home till I came here. I have no personal possessions here—not even a lock on my door—and all sorts of people blow in and stay a while, people with whom I seem to have nothing in common—no privacy in the ordinary sense of the word—yet I am free as a bird and not a libertine!
The fact that a position is 'sheltered' is certainly not a point in its favour. You yourself know that it's a hell of an existence and the only reason one sticks to it is that one gradually becomes more and more dependent on the sure thing; one develops and nurses Fear of the Unknown. And 'Fear is failure and the forerunner of failure'.
Even if I had been deserted, neglected, abused, doped etc. ad infinitum, in this awful 'Hell Hole of Devil Worshippers' I should have started a peanut stand in Paris rather than to have gone back to my raised salary as a music supervisor.
I am rapidly completing my cure and hope to be ready for action in a very short space of time. 'ONLY ONCE DOES THE GREAT ORDER KNOCK AT ANY ONE DOOR.' Are you ready to open that door, or are you going to bind yourself to existing conditions, conditions which are giving the last kick before they disappear forever?
|