The Floating Opera

Todd mulls over Marxism and how objects and people can change over time. When water gets cold enough, it turns to ice. When people get old enough, they die. He wonders where Mister Haecker went. It seems likely the elderly man went to be alone.

Todd leaves the Hotel Dorset, embracing the hot day again. He continues to consider his epiphany from his conversation with Mister Haecker—that nothing has intrinsic value:

All my life I’d been deciding that specific things had no intrinsic value—that things like money, honesty, strength, love, information, wisdom, even life, are not valuable in themselves, but only with reference to certain ends—and yet I’d never considered generalizing from those specific instances. But one instance was added to another, and another to that, and suddenly the total realization was effected—nothing is intrinsically valuable; the value of everything is attributed to it, assigned to it, from outside, by people (170-171).

Todd doesn’t consider himself a philosopher but is pleased with himself for reaching this conclusion about life. His decision to end his life is personal, but now, it also feels philosophical. He encourages the reader to consider it for themselves.