Wittgenstein's Mistress

by David Markson

All one can see of it from that upper rear window is a corner of its roof.

  In fact I was not aware of the other house at all, when I first came to this one.

  Once I did become aware of it, I understood that there would also have to be a road leading to it from somewhere, of course.

  Yet for the life of me I was not able to locate the road, and for the longest time.

  Looking for it, what I did first was drive the pickup truck along the road one takes to the town, turning off at every other road I came to.

  Every one of those roads led to a house which was on the beach, however, and as I have said, this house is not on the beach.

  I should perhaps add that when I say I followed the road one takes to the town, there is a manner of speaking in which I was not doing that at all.

  The road one takes to the town being naturally also the road one takes away from the town, and it is in that opposite direction that the house can be seen from my upper rear window.

  Possibly I did not really need to make that distinction.

  In any case my failure to locate the road eventually began to become a wholly new sort of perplexity in my existence.

  Unquestionably there has got to be a road leading to that house, I more than once said to myself.

  Still, no matter how many times I drove back and forth, I was not able to locate it.

  One morning I finally determined to make a major project out of doing so, for all that I was convinced I had put an end to such things as major projects.

  Today I am going to locate the road leading to that house no matter what, was what I finally determined.

  How I had been looking before this was in the pickup truck, as I have said. How I decided to do so that morning was by walking directly through the woods to the house.

  And naturally by this identical procedure I will have also walked directly to the road, being what I obviously now had in mind.

  Indeed, I had been just enough distracted by the entire proposition so that the logic in this notion delighted me.

  In fact what I additionally told myself was, as quickly as I get to the house I will next follow the road to wherever it comes out, and thus will have eliminated any trace of the mystery altogether.

  The road came out at the road one takes in the direction away from the town.

  Well, when I say came, obviously I mean comes, since to this day the road naturally remains exactly where it had been all the while.

  The fallen tree naturally remains exactly where it had been all the while, as well.

  Good heavens. And how long had I permitted myself to fret over not locating that road?

  Surely I had driven past that fallen tree no less than six or eight times.

  And meanwhile no sooner had I solved the problem than I understood that I no longer had any interest in the road whatsoever, of course.

  Nor do I have very much interest in the house either, to tell the truth.

  Except as perhaps something to gaze at the corner of the roof of, on certain occasions, as I just now did.

  It is likely that I will now bleed for weeks, incidentally. Or at least stain for that long.

  This is a matter of hormones, doubtless, and of change of life.

  My hands would appear to indicate that it is time for this. Being a painter, one learns to read such things as the backs of hands.

  Even if I rarely did portraits.

  That other house is quite ordinary, by the way.

  Well, except for being the only house in the vicinity which was constructed for people who preferred a view of the woods to a view of the water, obviously.

  I imagine I can understand such a preference. It is hardly my own preference, but I imagine I can understand it.

  Then again one would get little more than an inference of the sunset at best, over there, even from the upper windows.

  Well, I have looked. Which is a thing one might do.

  Although what I was more truthfully looking for was to see if one could see my own house from there.

  This is a thing one might do, as well.

  One cannot see this house from that one.

  Obviously, this is a result of nothing more than where windows happen to be situated. Still, one could easily let it become a perplexity of a sort too, should one be so inclined.

  After all, why on earth should one be able to see one house from another, but not vice versa? Surely there is no difference in the distance between this house and that, and that house and this?

  Once, in the Rijksmuseum, I brought in new speakers for my phonograph. What the directions told me to do was to make certain that the two speakers were equidistant from each other.

  One certainly had to wonder what the person who wrote the instructions could have believed he meant by that.

  Well, or the person who had translated the instructions from the Japanese.

  No matter where one situated them, how could there be any way in which any two objects could be any distance from each other except equidistant?

  Even if there were some miraculous manner in which I were able to move this house, for instance, surely it would still end up being exactly the same distance from the other house that the other house would be from this.

  Although in that case this one might at least land where it could finally be seen from the other after all.

  As a matter of fact I actually once did see this house from that one anyway, now that I think about it.

  What happened was that there was a fire in my potbellied stove, on an afternoon when I decided to take a walk through the woods.

  Looking back, I could see the smoke above the trees.

  There is my house, being what I thought when I looked.

  I have noted the persistence of this sort of thinking before, I believe.

  Doubtless I would have expressed an identical thought on the night when my earlier house was turning into little more than an upside down glow on the clouds, in fact, had I had a rowboat to express it in at the time.

  Perhaps all such thoughts might very well fall into the same category as the thought that there is somebody at a window in a painting when there is nobody at the window in the painting, since I would appear to have verified that paintings are never basically what one thinks of them as being either.

  Then again it is perhaps questionable that I have verified any such thing.

  Continuing to think in such terms one might as well ask if I had ever truly walked to the other house to begin with.

  Undeniably I walked to the other house, since I can distinctly remember the poster, which is taped to the living room wall.

  The poster shows Jane Avril and three other Paris dancers. In fact it also lists all of the dancers' names, including hers.

  The other names that the poster lists are Cleopatre and Gazelle and Mlle. Eglantine.

  Well, I have a vague recollection that I may have spoken about this before, even.

  On the other hand there is no way of telling if the poster had been painted before or after Toulouse-Lautrec may have handled my stick, of course.

  There is nothing in Jane Avril's expression which gives any hint about her affair with Brahms either, as it happens.

  Still, one remembers other paintings of her in which she appears more than sensitive enough to have attracted him.

  Unfortunately there is no life of Brahms in the other house in which I might have looked up more about this.

  The life of Beethoven would have been of no help, one presumed.

  The title of the life of Beethoven in the other house is Beethoven, by the way.

  The title of the life of Brahms that I did once look into, insofar as I can remember, was A Life of Brahms.

  Well, doubtless I could readily verify this, there being a second copy of the life of Brahms still accessible right where I am.

  Then again, what one is now perhaps forced to wonder is if the title of the life of Brahms would remain A Life of Brahms if there did not happen to be that seco
nd copy still at hand.

  If there were no more copies accessible anywhere of Anna Karenina, in other words, would its title still be Anna Karenina?

  I am perhaps less than certain what I mean by that question.

  Still, it would undeniably appear that I have more than once thought about a life of Brahms when I was not seeing a life of Brahms.

  For that matter I have more than once thought about The Recognitions, by William Gaddis, when I have not seen a copy of The Recognitions by William Gaddis in twelve or fifteen years.

  I have even thought about William Gaddis himself, when I have not seen William Gaddis for twelve or fifteen years either.

  In fact I may never have seen William Gaddis.

  Moreover I have also thought about T. E. Shaw and I do not even know who T. E. Shaw was.

  Although having finally remembered that Marco Antonio Montes de Oca wrote poetry, perhaps I can at least safely assume that Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz did also.

  But what I am actually now thinking about, for some reason, is the scene in The Trojan Women where the Greek soldiers throw Hector's poor baby boy over the city's walls, so that he will not grow up to take revenge for his father or for Troy.

  God, the things men used to do.

  Irene Papas was an effective Helen in the film of The Trojan Women, however.

  Katharine Hepburn was an effective Hecuba, as well.

  Hecuba was Hector's mother. Well, which is to say she was the baby boy's grandmother also, of course.

  Just imagine how Katharine Hepburn must have felt.

  Very likely one might have driven right past that fallen tree eternally, I suppose, without ever having noticed the road. Especially since the road turned sharply at once, too.

  Although I now remember that I watched a certain few other films as well, before the projector I had brought into my loft stopped functioning.

  Peter O'Toole playing the part of Lawrence of Arabia may have been one.

  Marlon Brando as Zapata was possibly another.

  Meanwhile I have just eaten a dish of sardines.

  Most items in cans would still appear to be edible, by the way. It is only foods packaged in paper that I have stopped trusting.

  Although two fresh sunnyside eggs are what I would give almost anything for.

  What I would more seriously give almost anything for, in all truth, would be to understand how my head sometimes manages to jump about the way it does.

  For instance I am now thinking about that castle in La Mancha again.

  And for what earthly reason am I also remembering that it was Odysseus who found out where Achilles was, when Achilles was hiding among the women so that they would not make him go to fight?

  Granting, that what Odysseus doubtless felt was that if he himself had to go, everybody else should have to go, too.

  But still.

  In fact I was about to add that this was still another episode that Tiepolo did, or did not, paint, but it was Van Dyck who painted this.

  Even if Van Dyck rarely did anything except portraits.

  In either event, one aspect of things that Odysseus was presumably not aware of was that Achilles had gotten one of the women pregnant.

  One wonders if Patroclus was ever aware of this, either.

  To the castle, a sign must have said.

  And something else I believe I watched, just by accident, was an interesting Russian film about Andrei Roublev and Theophanes the Greek.

  Who were two Russian painters.

  Even if Theophanes was not really Russian, obviously.

  None of which has anything to do with the fact that there is no life of Brahms in the other house, I imagine, whatever its title would have been if there were one.

  In addition to the life of Beethoven, which is called Beethoven, there is also a book called Baseball When the Grass Was Real

  As I have indicated, there is a copy of the identical book in this house.

  I have decided that this is not a scholarly speculation in the manner of Kierkegaard or Martin Heidegger after all, by the way.

  Although quite possibly it may have something to do with meteorology. What I am thinking about, in that regard, is the question of the time of year in which baseball was presumably played.

  In which case the book would appear to have been astonishingly ill edited, however, Baseball When the Grass Is Real having surely been the title that was intended.

  In fact Baseball When the Grass Is Growing would have been more appropriate yet.

  What one can doubtless be certain of, on the other hand, is that the author would have been a friend of people who lived in both of these houses. Or perhaps even lived nearby himself.

  Surely two different people in two such close houses would not have each actually spent money for an identical book about baseball.

  Then again, had there been a copy of Wuthering Heights in each house, it is perhaps doubtful that I would have speculated that somebody from each had known Emily Brontë.

  Or that Emily Brontë had once lived on this beach.

  Incidentally, there is an explanation for my generally speaking of Kierkegaard as Kierkegaard, but of Martin Heidegger as Martin Heidegger.

  The explanation being that Kierkegaard's first name was Søren, and in typing that I would repeatedly have to go back to put in the stroke.

  There would appear to be no way of avoiding the two dots over Brontë, however.

  In any event, none of the few other books I have noticed over there interests me remarkably either.

  Although I am perhaps forgetting the one-volume selection from among the Greek plays, which is an edition I had never seen before.

  Conversely, I have no more intention of even opening something called The Origin of Table Manners than I do of reading the book about grass.

  One other is actually called The Eiffel Tower, of all nonsense subjects.

  There is naturally nothing in any of the plays about anybody menstruating, incidentally.

  Although when one comes right down to it, one can often make an educated guess about that sort of thing despite the silence.

  One has a fairly acute inkling as to when Cassandra may be having her period, for instance.

  Cassandra is feeling out of sorts again, one can even imagine Troilus or certain of the other Trojans now and again saying.

  Then again, Helen could be having hers even when she still possesses that radiant dignity, being Helen.

  My own generally makes my face turn puffy.

  One is next to positive that Sappho would have never beaten around the bush about any of this, on the other hand.

  Which could well explain why certain of her poems were used as the stuffing for mummies, even before the friars got their hands on those that were left.

  On my honor, pieces of Sappho's lost work were found cut into strips inside dead Egyptians.

  Have I mentioned that Sappho's father was named Scaman-dros, for the river near Hisarlik that I once went to see, by the way?

  I am by no means implying that there is anything significant about this, which merely strikes me as an agreeable fact to include.

  Once, in the National Portrait Gallery, in London, looking at Branwell Brontë's group portrait of his three sisters, I decided that Emily Brontë looked exactly like what Sappho must have looked like.

  Even though the pair of them could have scarcely been more different, of course, what with the considerable likelihood that Emily Brontë never even once had a lover.

  Which is presumably an explanation for why so many people in Wuthering Heights are continually looking in and out of windows, in fact.

  Or climbing in and out of them, even.

  Still, the thought of this sort of life has always saddened me.

  What do any of us ever truly know, however?

  The name of Hector's little boy was Astyanax, incidentally.

  As a matter of fact that was only a nickname. What he was really named was Scamandrius.

 
; I have no wish to imply anything in regard to this coincidence, either.

  A certain number of such connections do appear to keep on coming up, however. A few days ago, for instance, when I remarked that Aristotle had once been Plato's pupil, I also remembered that Alexander the Great was later Aristotle's.

  What that reminded me of was that Helen's lover Paris was really named Alexandros. And for that matter that Cassandra was often called Alexandra.

  There seemed no point whatsoever in mentioning any of this. Even if it happens that Alexander the Great always kept a copy of the Iliad right next to his bed, and actually believed that he was directly descended from Achilles.

  Or that Achilles once almost drowned in the Scamander.

  Although I have also now remembered that Jane Avril kept a certain book right next to her bed too, even if I have forgotten what book.

  And now I further remember that it was Odysseus, again, who convinced the other Greeks that they should not leave any male survivors at Troy.

  God, the things men used to do.

  I have just said that, I know.

  Still, what especially distresses me, in this instance, is how quickly Odysseus had forgotten that plow, and his own little boy.

  At least one can be gratified that Sappho had a child of her own, too. Well, a daughter, like Helen.

  Which is to say that any number of later Greeks could have been directly descended from Sappho as well, even if one would have surely lost track, after a certain period of years.

  But who is to argue that it might not have come all the way down to somebody like Irene Papas, even?

  Plato's own teacher was of course Socrates, if I have not said.

  Meanwhile the title of that life of Brahms, I suddenly suspect, may well have been The Life of Brahms, and not A Life of Brahms after all.

  Undeniably The Life of Brahms would have been more appropriate, the man having had only one life.

  Which is perhaps failing to consider the possibility of its having been called simply Brahms, however.

  Or that there also happens to be a life of Shostakovich in the other house, the title of which is Shostakovich, A Biography.

  There is no poster showing Jane Avril and three other Paris dancers taped to the living room wall in the other house, incidentally.

  The poster is on the floor of the living room in the other house.