#0530

someone sent kirby a present! what’s inside?

彼のことは気に入っている。根が陰でめちゃくちゃ捻くれていて、世の中穿った見方しかできないのであろう、そういうの全部。そして、気に入った異性を家に入れるために、部屋を必死に片付ける自分のことも嫌いじゃない。

最寄りのコンビニで買う、缶チューハイ2本とコンドーム。レジの店員が顔見知りなので居心地が悪い。「同学歴の奴より頭いいから」と言い放つ、彼の自尊心がすきだ。事実、賢いのは話していればわかるし、「こういう発言をナルシストだと思わないで理解できる人を選んでる」とも言われた。「セックスしなけりゃ会わないけど、これも友情じゃない？ちゃんと会話できるし」なんて、切ないからやめてよ。いっそ、頭からっぽだと思われて、会話も交わさずセックスだけするほうがよほどましだ。

最中、いきなりSpotifyをかけ始める。この曲誰ですか、と聞けば、自分でShazamして、と返される。わたしがわかったのは唯一Qrionだけ。

Hello and thank you, @inherentweisz! Glad to answer your question.

Ishmael claims that Bertrand proposed to Beatrice with the same ring as Lemony:

“This ring,” he said, “once belonged to the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, who was also the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, and so on and so on and so on. Eventually, the last Duchess of Winnipeg joined V.F.D., and gave it to Kit Snicket’s brother. He gave it to your mother. For reasons I still don’t understand, she gave it back to him, and he gave it to Kit, and Kit gave it to your father, who gave it to your mother when they were married. She kept it locked in a wooden box that could only be opened by a key that was kept in a wooden box that could only be opened by a code that Kit Snicket learned from her grandfather. The wooden box turned to ashes in the fire that destroyed the Baudelaire mansion, and Captain Widdershins found the ring in the wreckage only to lose it in a storm at sea, which eventually washed it onto our shores.”[The End, Chapter Ten]

Now, half of this story holds up with the events described in “The Beatrice Letters”. The ring was indeed the ancestral heirloom of the Winnipeg duchy, Lemony and the Duchess of the time were friends and he did end up proposing to Beatrice with that ring, and she did give it back to him. So the first part of the story checks out and Ishmael is a pretty well-informed person in general as he gets information from all over the world.

Some circumstances of the story are a tad mysterious, though, but Ishmael acknowledges that. Each of the events could however be explained:

The ring used to be a traditional wedding ring in the family, and inherited from mother to daughter until the current holder of the title, R.

R., as a lesbian (see this article for the reasoning behind it) could not produce an heiress according to traditional nobility laws, so rather than see the ring go to waste, she gave it to her best friend Lemony as he planned to marry Beatrice.

Beatrice ended up turning down the proposal (the reason why is indeed left ambiguous by Daniel Handler and Lemony Snicket alike) and returned the ring to Lemony.

Lemony was on the run and refused to marry another woman, so he gave it to his sister with the understanding she would marry one day.

Kit was not over her (controversial/implied) relationship with Olaf and didn’t feel ready to marry him or any other man, so she gave the ring to Bertrand as he wanted to marry Beatrice.