Wittgenstein's Mistress

by David Markson

  Well, perhaps I did not think about it at all, in the usual sense of thinking.

  Still, when I went for my walk along the beach, or was picking up shells as I sometimes do, I must have said the word bricolage to myself a hundred times.

  Eventually I stopped saying it. So today what I have been saying is that the world is everything that is the case, instead.

  Oh, well.

  In the meantime I have also been wondering if one's reading of six pages in a history of music that was written for children, and had been printed in extraordinarily large type, can truly be considered as the reading of a life of Brahms?

  Or did I also read certain additional pages in the more genuine life of Brahms, such as certain pages about dancing girls, when I was setting fire to those pages in trying to simulate a seagull?

  Not knowing that there was a second copy of the identical book, with all of the pages still in it, still here in the house?

  Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.

  The world is everything that is the case.

  Hm.

  But I have just made one more connection that I had never thought about before either.

  Will the house that I am dismantling become the second house on this beach that I have burned to the ground?

  Granting that I am burning that house board by board, and that it will be quite some time before I have dismantled it fully enough to be able to consider it as having been burned to the ground, nonetheless the fact that I am doing exactly that would appear to be indisputable.

  One day that house, too, will look as if Robert Rauschenberg had gotten to it.

  There is the house that I dismantled board by board and erased to the ground, I will think in walking past.

  Doubtless by then I will also be erasing another house.

  Naturally I have been leaving out such things as stone chimneys when I have spoken about houses as still being houses even when they are no longer houses, by the way.

  Well, and plumbing.

  As a matter of fact one can still see a toilet fastened to pipes on the second floor of the house in which I knocked over the kerosene lamp.

  Even if there is no longer a second floor.

  There is the toilet on the second floor of the house that I burned to the ground, is what I will more truly think, in walking past. Or, soon I will be coming to the toilet on the second floor of the house that I burned to the ground.

  In SoHo, back at the beginning, I now remember that I used to empty bottled water into the tank, so as to still be able to flush.

  Any number of habits died hard, that way. For some period I continued carrying my driver's license and other identification, similarly.

  Naturally I will have stopped taking the path to the beach once it has become genuinely snowy here, on the other hand.

  Which is to say that I sometimes still do make use of a bathroom after all, even if in this case it is by having taken up a board from the bathroom floor.

  Perhaps I have not mentioned having taken up a board from the bathroom floor.

  I have taken up a board from the bathroom floor.

  In a manner of speaking, doubtless it might be said that I am dismantling this house, too.

  Although I have scarcely burned that particular board, which is in fact normally back in the identical place from which I have taken it.

  As often as it has appeared necessary, I have shoveled away part of the embankment just outside.

  Doubtless I had established some sort of similar hygienic arrangement in the house that I burned to the ground on the night that my rowboat disappeared, as well.

  In fact my rowboat did not disappear on the night that I burned that house to the ground.

  It was on that night that I happened to become aware of the rowboat's disappearance, which is something else altogether.

  Very possibly the rowboat had already been gone for days, since I had scarcely yet taken to looking out for it as I do now.

  I will not trouble to point out again how one's language is frequently imprecise in such ways.

  One morning I was similarly convinced that all seventeen of my watches had disappeared too, now that I think about it.

  What happened was that I woke up in a car beside the Pont Neuf, in Paris, and understood that I had not heard the alarms.

  Why have I been awakened by the sun coming in through my windshield, I wondered, instead of by my seventeen simultaneous buzzings?

  It was some moments before I remembered that I had divested myself of the watches on a different bridge altogether, some while before, I believe in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  Although I find it interesting that I can almost always make a distinction between periods when I was mad and periods when I was not, when one comes down to it.

  Such as when I read certain books out loud, as I did with Aeschylus and Euripides when I was living in the Louvre, which was always a conclusive sign.

  The Louvre is practically right beside the Pont Neuf, by the way.

  The reverse of that statement being equally true, obviously.

  In either case doubtless I was not yet living in the Louvre on the morning when I woke up in the car practically right beside it.

  Surely I would have had no reason to sleep in a car if I had already taken to burning artifacts and picture frames in the museum itself, which I unquestionably eventually did.

  Well, such as the frame from La Gioconda by Leonardo, for instance, from which the old varnish gave the smoke an astringent odor.

  Although the sun actually woke me in cars far more times than that once, to tell the truth.

  Frequently I watched the sun setting from cars, as well.

  The latter was especially true in Russia, of course, where I kept on driving into the west for day after day after day.

  Almost every one of the books I read about ancient Troy was a book that I read out loud, come to think about it.

  For some reason, a part I always liked was Odysseus pretending he was mad himself, so that they would not make him go to fight.

  How he pretended this was by sowing salt into the ground, while he was plowing.

  Somebody very shrewdly put Odysseus's little boy into one of the furrows, however, and naturally he did not plow his little boy.

  Tiepolo painted this also, I believe. The Madness of Ulysses, being what he called it.

  In fact I am quite certain that the painting is in the same museum with The Rape of Helen, even if I cannot remember which museum that is.

  Possibly I should point out that Odysseus and Ulysses were the same person. For some reason the Romans changed his name.

  Well, doubtless they did this for the identical reason that the Spaniards changed El Greco's name. Even if Odysseus seems hardly as difficult to pronounce as Domenikos Theotocopoulos.

  La Gioconda is another name for the Mona Lisa, of course.

  In the Odyssey, while he is waiting for Ulysses to come home, the same little boy goes to visit Helen and Menelaus, in Sparta, and Helen has a splendid radiant dignity.

  Then again the little boy is hardly so little by then, it having been ten years for the war and still another ten with Odysseus being a tourist.

  This is the same twenty years during which Penelope is said to have spent her time weaving, naturally, if one wishes to believe that.

  I doubt that I believe one word of it, myself.

  Penelope and Helen were cousins, incidentally.

  The things one knows.

  Well, this making her Clytemnestra's cousin too, of course, Helen and Clytemnestra having been sisters.

  Although what I am now thinking about is the scene in which Odysseus has himself lashed to the mast of his ship, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.

  For some reason this story reminds me of something, even though I cannot remember what it reminds me of
.

  Telemachus is the little boy's name, by the way. Although I believe I mentioned this a good many pages ago.

  The name of the friend for whom Achilles weeps is Patroclus, which on the other hand I am quite certain I did leave out.

  My last lover was named Lucien. I find it interesting that I have not included the name of a single one of my lovers in any of these pages, either.

  Possibly those paintings by Tiepolo are in the Hermitage, at which I spent several days before leaving for home across Russia in the opposite direction.

  As a matter of fact they are in Milan, where I saw them on the very day when I was so saddened by The Last Supper.

  Where I watched the sunsets on that return trip, naturally, was more often than not in my rearview mirror.

  Which would have made them images of sunsets rather than sunsets, come to think about it. And with the left side being the right, or vice versa, although one was doubtless less conscious of this with sunsets than one would have been with Michelangelo's notebooks.

  Doubtless I was much more interested in keeping a weather eye out for Anna Karenina in either case, since I was naturally still looking, at the time.

  Have I mentioned looking in Amsterdam, New York, or in Syracuse, or in Toledo, Ohio?

  Meanwhile I have no idea why rearview mirrors should remind me that I was feeling a certain depression, yesterday.

  In fact I have perhaps omitted to indicate that that was yesterday.

  Last evening's sunset had a certain stillness about it, as if Piero della Francesca had done the color.

  What I woke up to this morning were the lilacs, breathing them all over the house.

  Later, I washed myself with some of the water I had brought in from the spring.

  I am still wearing the underpants I wore yesterday, however.

  This is because even though I went to the spring twice, on both trips I walked right past my laundry, which is spread across bushes.

  To tell the truth, I am still feeling a touch of that same depression, as well.

  Possibly what I had been thinking about yesterday was the tiny, pocket sort of mirror that had been beside my mother's bed, although I do not remember having thought about that yesterday.

  There is a distinction to be made between this sort of depression and the depression I generally felt while I was still doing all of that looking, by the way, the latter having been much more decidedly a kind of anxiety.

  Although I believe I have noted that.

  One day I appeared to have finally stopped looking, in any event.

  At the intersection of Anna Akhmatova Street and Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov Mews, perhaps this was.

  Doubtless it would have been around that same time that I stopped reading out loud, also. Or in any case surely tearing out pages after having finished their reverse sides, so as to be able to drop them into the fire.

  What I did later, with the pages from the life of Brahms, was to toss those into the breeze in the hope that the ash might take flight.

  In Cádiz, where he was once writing his poems while living for a certain period near water, Marco Antonio Montes de Oca had a seagull which came to his window each morning, to be fed.

  It was Lucien, in fact, who told me that. Lucien was once acquainted with William Gaddis also, I believe.

  Though perhaps it was William Gaddis who lived for a certain period near water in Cádiz, and had a pet seagull.

  The cat in the Colosseum was black, I am next to positive, and held up one paw as if it had hurt itself.

  Nothing that I am writing in these moments should cause me to continue to feel depressed, I do not believe.

  Although I am perhaps just enough disturbed by these underpants to have let that become a sort of nuisance factor.

  I have just gone out for fresh underpants.

  What I more exactly did was change while I was out there. There is always something pleasurable about changing into garments that are still warm from the sun.

  Which will perhaps explain why I again left everything else on the bushes, in fact.

  Then again, some of it may well remain there indefinitely, since I generally wear nothing at all, summers.

  Once, I actually left out certain items which became frozen, when an early frost surprised me.

  By the time I remembered to go for them, I was able to stand several of my wraparound denim skirts upright on the ground.

  Skirt sculptures, one might have considered them.

  And there can be no doubt at all that I had gotten rid of my anxiety by then, since I was even able to be amused by the concept.

  Apparently, one day I had been looking and then one day I was not, as I have said.

  Although very likely it was hardly that simple either.

  Doubtless I had not even realized that anything had changed, for some time.

  For some time I have been watching the sun go down every evening without anxiety, is perhaps what I finally one evening remembered to think.

  Or, the eternal silence of these infinite spaces no longer makes me feel like Pascal.

  I doubt very seriously that I thought that.

  Sculpture is the art of taking away superfluous material, Leonardo once said, if that is at all relevant?

  Although it was not Leonardo who said it but was Michelangelo.

  And on third thought I believe that Leonardo did not put snow into one of his paintings after all. Certain whitish rocks in mist, were what I had had in mind.

  Quite possibly Tiepolo did not paint either of those two paintings either, now that I think about it, although in this instance all I mean is that Tiepolo had a great many assistants in his workshop, and so may have done no more than the preliminary sketches.

  Though as a matter of fact he also did, or did not, do a painting of Agamemnon sacrificing poor Iphigenia to raise winds for the Greek ships.

  Painting is not my trade, is another thing that Michelangelo once said. When he said this was when a pope told him that the Sistine Chapel might look more agreeable with some pictures up on top.

  Perhaps this was the same pope who once offered Michelangelo his chair, out of respect. This was a very significant moment in the history of art, since nothing of the sort had ever happened with an artist before.

  I serve him who pays me, is something that Leonardo did say instead of Michelangelo, on the other hand. Doubtless there is a way in which this moment had its significance in the history of art, as well.

  Actually, Tintoretto once threatened to shoot a critic with a gun, which many artists would have perhaps felt was a more significant moment than both of those put together.

  And possibly it was only one of the Medici, who let Michelangelo sit down. Still, one would be pleased if the pope was not the same pope who made people burn Sappho's poems.

  When I state that any of these things were done or said, incidentally, what I more truthfully mean is that they were alleged to have been done or said, of course.

  As it was similarly alleged that Giotto once painted a perfect circle freehand.

  Although I happen to believe it categorically about the circle, most of such tales being harmless enough to believe in any event.

  Well, and I also see no reason not to believe that Piero di Cosimo would hide under a table when there was lightning. Or that Hugo van der Goes was not able to paint religious paintings in a church unless friars sang psalms to keep him from sobbing all day.

  Piero di Cosimo is not to be confused with yesterday's sunset, by the way, which was a Piero della Francesca, nor is Hugo van der Goes to be confused with Rogier van der Weyden, whose Descent from the Cross is so badly lighted at the Prado.

  Well, nor with Vincent Van Gogh, whose sunset was some days before Piero's.

  Which symphony is it, by Shostakovitch, in which one can practically hear the tanks coming off the assembly line?

  In any event all that any of these stories would appear to add up to, one suspects, is that many more people in this w
orld than one's self were never able to shed certain baggage.

  Surely walking halfway across Naples to add one brushstroke to a wall is a form of baggage itself.

  Doubtless cutting off one's ear is one too, if paradoxically.

  Well, as is eating one's lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower. Or even lurking at windows.

  Nonetheless, what would appear to remain the case on my own part is that one day I had baggage and then one day I did not.

  Although very likely it was hardly that simple either.

  Accouterments, I did get rid of. Things.

  Conversely I can even now still call to mind the last four digits of Lucien's telephone number from all of those years ago.

  Or recite the several rumors about Achilles and Patroclus having been more than just dear friends.

  In fact I have just even quoted Friedrich Nietzsche.

  Actually, it was almost an hour ago when I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche, who was really Pascal.

  Where I have been was at the spring again. This time I decided I may as well bring in everything.

  Nor am I any longer depressed, incidentally, which I now understand that I had not been to begin with, having only been out of sorts.

  Which is to say that I had changed into those fresh underpants perhaps fifteen minutes earlier than I ought to have, having now had to change again, having just gotten my period.

  I have no intention of looking back to see what I wrote about inconsequential perplexities now and again becoming the fundamental mood of existence. Or about certain unanswerable questions becoming answerable.

  Oh, well.

  At any rate everything that had been washed is now in my upstairs bedroom.

  For a moment or two, before I came back down, I looked out of the rear window.

  I do not often look out of that one, which is not the one from which I watch the sun go down.

  What I was looking at was the other house, which is deep in the woods some distance from here.

  I do not believe I have ever mentioned the other house.

  What I may have mentioned are houses in general, along the beach, but such a generalization would not have included this house, this house being nowhere near the water.