by Bruce Duffy
The boy was standing — or half hiding — beside a large tree, leaning out imperceptibly to get another glimpse of Hans, then leaning back again to watch the funeral on the little hillside below. On the red gravel drive was a train of carriages and several motorcars led by a black, glass-encased hearse drawn by six blinkered black horses. Wittgenstein could remember the horses shaking their silver harnesses and the white pine coffin like a loaf of unbaked bread as the pallbearers slid it out. Up the hill climbed the procession; up the hill after the cortege bearing the slowly rocking coffin, the bunched mourners clambered behind the rabbi in his black robes and white shawl. Wittgenstein especially remembered how, before beginning the service, the old rabbi looked hard at them, the uninvited, as if to say they should either disperse or come down. But no one moved. They all just stood there, too shameless to leave and too furtive or hostile to join in the Jewish service. And by then even more men were drifting down the hillside, emerging through the clotted trees. Everywhere he looked he would see another solitary face, another somber stranger holding his hat over his privates, as if to conceal a grievously spreading stain.
Of that day, Wittgenstein also remembered the rabbi’s singing, wrenching utterance, ancient, mournful, guttural — spoiled when a heavy, unshaven man nearby snorted in disgust, then held his nose for all to see. The next thing Wittgenstein remembered was a man to his left pointing to a sturdy, petulant man with hawklike features in the funeral below and telling his companion that this was Herr Weininger, der Vater. The boy thought the man must be mistaken. Dressed all in black with an improbable little black yarmulke on his large head, the man looked so fierce and irritable that the boy thought he was a bad-tempered undertaker, not the grieving father. But then he saw the rabbi grasp him filially by the arm, saw his weeping wife and daughters, and his more inert sons, standing desolately beside him. Wails were heard as the gravediggers lowered the coffin with thick leather straps. He saw a chair being hastily brought forward for an old woman who had collapsed. Someone else was being led away. All around Leopold Weininger, people were weeping, yet he never flinched or faltered, never betrayed the slightest sign of ordinary grief. Even when the rabbi handed him the shovel and motioned toward the mound of freshly turned earth, he didn’t flag. Leopold Weininger didn’t merely sift a few ceremonial grains of dirt over the coffin. Resolutely, he stoked the shovel deep and cast a full burden down, the thin pine booming like a drum as he thrust the shovel at his son and turned away.
As the boy stood watching Leopold Weininger that day, he was also watching Hans. Hans seemed to be dreaming, his long adenoidal neck stretching out of his celluloid collar, stretching, it would seem later, to see his own destruction in the face of this father who displayed about as much remorse as his own father would a little more than a year later when they placed Hans’s own ashes in the family crypt. Naturally, Hans’s funeral was not as well publicized or attended as Weininger’s, but that day the boy would see some of these same curious figures watching in the distance among the jagged stones and trees, all as lost as Hans or Weininger had been in those thorny and inexplicable thickets of character.
As it turned out, in fact, there were two ceremonies for Weininger that evening, the second closely following the first, once the mourners had gone and the diggers had hurriedly filled in the grave. The sun was down and darkness was falling, but Hans was there until the end, waiting. Without quite knowing why, the boy was also waiting, watching as Hans and his friends carried the larval white roses down to the gravesite where several dozen others had gathered like solitary chessmen among the glowing stones, staring at the freshly tamped dirt and going through their obscure devotions.
Hans was still there when, through the trees, Wittgenstein saw a yellow ball of light from an oil lantern carried by a bearded watchman, an old Orthodox Jew wearing a long and tattered greatcoat that nearly reached his heavy boots. Bellowing, hoisting the lantern aloft like a censer as he slogged down the hill, the watchman exorcised them like sullen ghosts, then stood defiantly by the grave as they vanished into the pooling darkness. The boy left then. The ground was broken with treacherous roots. Like glowing keyholes, the blanched white stones loomed out at angles. He was walking fast, hopelessly late, when a man who smelled of tobacco blocked his path, his hand outstretched and his face obscured by hat. The stranger asked a hushed question. For a second, the boy thought he had misheard him, but then he recoiled and started running, tearing through the gabled oaks and over the conjoined bones of the dead with this, the first time ever he had been propositioned.
Confession
FOR DAYS Wittgenstein thought about these matters in his past. And then one night Moore received an urgent telephone call from him, saying that he wanted to come over immediately and make a confession.
Sitting in the parlor, ensconced in his big overstuffed chair with his vest askew, Moore was looking agitated when Dorothy Moore asked who had called.
Moore roused himself and said, That was Wittgenstein. He says he is coming over to confess. You heard me correctly. Well, what was I to say to that? Moore shifted around uncomfortably, then added, He specifically asked that you be present.
Me? Dorothy leaned against the doorway. What on earth would Wittgenstein want to confess to me?
Moore dropped his arms in urgent mystification. He picked up his pipe and started rummaging through his vest pockets for a match, his voice rising, slightly gargly, like a boiling kettle, as he said half in protest, Well, I don’t know. It was all so sudden. I suppose I could have told him you were out or something, but he caught me off guard. With a huff, Moore stopped going through his vest pockets and reached into his trousers, saying, Don’t ask me what on earth it’s about. He’ll be here any time. Damn it!
Here, said Dorothy, producing a box of matches. Here—
Plumping down on the leather hassock before him, Dorothy Moore girlishly wrapped her fleshy arms around her skirted legs, thinking. It took her a minute, but then she, too, got the itch, scowling, Owwww, I don’t like this — She jumped up and started straightening. Should I make a pot of tea, do you think?
Moore struggled out of his chair, the sucking chair with ash-strewn arms and clutter all about, the chair that held him more powerfully in its grasp with each passing year. Stiffly standing, he blustered, No, no — don’t bother with tea. And quit your fussing.
I’m not fussing, she insisted, whisking out of the room with a glass and some stray magazines. Just wait here for his knock. And I’m making tea.
And I promise you, he called back, your tea will just sit there.
You sit, she said, misunderstanding him. I’ll be out in a second.
The tea! trumpeted Moore. I said the tea will sit! He’s coming here to confess, not to drink tea!
But Dorothy put the kettle on anyway, and they waited. It was raining, a Thursday night, a good two weeks since they had seen Wittgenstein. In fact, they had been wondering what had happened to him. In the year since Moore had retired and Wittgenstein had assumed his chair as professor of philosophy, it had become customary for Wittgenstein to visit Moore on Tuesday evenings, and not just to confer a kindness on an old colleague. Wittgenstein valued Moore’s curiosity and civilization, and he still relied on his forthrightness, never having found anyone who could so gently, almost naively, probe and criticize his germinal thoughts or find the precise way to express a tricky concept. Besides discussing philosophy, Moore and Wittgenstein read and discussed Freud, St. Paul, the writings of the Desert Fathers and Spengler’s Decline of the West. Knowing how Wittgenstein hated the “gesticulations” of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, and how deeply he distrusted modernism, with all its rashness and obstreperousness (If only modernism, like Luther, could have waited!), Moore even took the devil’s role one night and played Wittgenstein some of his son’s jazz records. Quizzically perking his head and scowling at the splayed notes, Wittgenstein played Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues” five times in a row before admitting that, while it def
initely had something, he could not presume to judge it: the experience behind it was simply too foreign.
Much as Moore looked forward to these discussions, he did not depend on them, nor did Wittgenstein. This was not from any lingering distance or ill will; it was simply how it was with them. Between them there was a certain bond, but it was not, after all these years, an especially sentimental bond, being based more on trust and respect than on what might have been called affection. Moore had his own life. He was not forgotten. There were still the fitful writings and occasional lectures; there was also the mail begging favors, and the students and former colleagues asking advice, not to mention his Saturday discussion group and the fortnightly meetings of the Moral Science Club. Moore took this with the matter-of-factness of the accomplished old: this was his life, and he neither underestimated nor overestimated it. Yet at the same time, Moore was slowly distancing himself from these things, not because of his mind or his hearing, which were both excellent, but because of a deeper instinct that was slowly weaning him from life, counseling him not to rely too much on pleasures that might end tomorrow, what with the frail state of his health.
Dorothy Moore frequently participated in her husband’s discussions with Wittgenstein. And sometimes, reluctantly, she was forced to end them when she felt Moore was getting too excited for his weak heart. With Wittgenstein a now frequent visitor, she knew pretty much what to expect from him, though she was never entirely sure. Dorothy was still smarting from Wittgenstein’s reaction one night about a week after the Nazis had occupied Vienna. The strain on him had been evident, and out of concern she had asked if his sisters were safe.
Of course! he said, bristling as if she had asked a completely idiotic question. The Nazis would not dare bother them. They’re much too well respected.
Dorothy had dropped the matter then, but now as she and Moore sat there waiting for Wittgenstein’s knock, she wondered if anxiety about his sisters wasn’t partly the source of this confession. It has to weigh on him, she said to Moore. You said so yourself when we saw him last.
But this only set Moore off. Well, I’m sure it does, he said, leaning forward in his chair. It must. But for God’s sake, don’t say a word! You don’t know how he is when he gets in these states. Already, Moore was puffing and anxious. My word, no. You’ll never see me delving into personal business with him. I don’t unless he asks, and even then I’m most extremely careful not to upset him. Damn it, Wittgenstein! Gripping the armrests and glaring at the door, Moore roared, I want to dispense with this nonsense and go to bloody bed!
Bill, said Dorothy, easing up to peek through the curtain. Calm down. I think that’s him coming.
A few moments later, they heard the stamping of shoes followed by Wittgenstein’s emphatic knock. Opening the door, Moore saw him standing stricken on the stoop in his wet mac, flicking rain off the tines of his umbrella. He walked straight inside. Moore had almost shut the door when he realized someone else was standing off to the side. Oh, Mr. Skinner, he exclaimed. I quite beg your pardon!
It was Wittgenstein’s shadow, a slender innocent named Francis Skinner, who for four years now had been Wittgenstein’s almost constant companion. Moore knew the young man only by sight. Francis did not accompany Wittgenstein on his Tuesday visits, and in all the times Moore had seen them together, he had spoken to him but once, and briefly. Francis was deeply, painfully shy. At times the young man’s shyness would get so bad that even Wittgenstein would shout in exasperation, Francis, speak! Whereupon Francis, with a slightly foolish smile, would hunch up his shoulders, speak a few guilty words, then clam up again.
Piercing-alert and efficient, Francis was twenty-six but looked a beardless seventeen — “Saint Francis,” Wittgenstein sometimes called him, this silent secretary and sounding board for his ideas. Francis was the only man in Cambridge who had ever been heard to call Wittgenstein by his Christian name. Two years before, he had accompanied Wittgenstein on a month-long trip to Russia, where it was rumored they planned to emigrate, first to study medicine, then to work as doctors among the poor. Moore had heard these rumors, including some nonsense that Wittgenstein was now a confirmed Marxist. But to this Moore paid no attention. Francis and Russia, the little cult that surrounded Wittgenstein — these were aspects of his successor’s life that, to tell the truth, Moore preferred to ignore.
Under the porch light, meanwhile, Francis was still wiping his shoes. To Moore, it looked as if he was about to genuflect — the way he was scraping his feet and shaking out his coat was itself a small act of devotion.
I’ll only be a second, said Francis, his face cast down from the light. I don’t want to wet your floor. But then Wittgenstein gruffly called back:
Francis! Get in here! Then to Moore he said, I brought Francis because I want him to hear this as well.
Standing in a puddle in the hearth, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his dripping black mac, Wittgenstein faced them with a forbidding glare, as if he were waiting for silence to begin a lecture. Moore didn’t know whether to stand or sit. Dorothy, meanwhile, was looking to Moore for direction. Fortunately, Francis sensed their confusion and, with the invisible prompting of a born courtier, pointed to the diminutive hassock, saying in a firm, precise voice, I will sit here, Professor and Mrs. Moore — if, of course, you don’t mind.
Oh, please — do make yourself comfortable, said Dorothy, grateful for a chance to break the tension.
Wittgenstein did not make himself comfortable. He just stood there glaring as they took their seats, feeling their way down into the cushions. Straightaway then, he began his story. It was wrenching to watch. Stammering, halting, then urgently pushing on, Wittgenstein told them then that he was a Jew by extraction and that for years in England he had behaved with despicable cowardice by not admitting to his “origins,” which even then he made to sound shrouded and vaguely shameful. He told them this and then he told them about Max. He told them how for years he had misled Max about his Jewish origins. Not only had he misled him, but he had led him astray, when with more honesty and persistence, he might well have saved his friend from moral destruction.
At this, Wittgenstein stopped, and they slowly settled back, thinking with relief that the confession was over. But then, impulsively, as if these two “crimes” weren’t enough, Wittgenstein told them about the girl he had struck in his class in Trattenbach — told how he had hurt her arm, then lied about it, and for no better reason than to prop up his own revolting pride at being a good teacher when clearly he had been nothing of the sort.
With this, Wittgenstein stopped again — stopped dead — seemingly shocked that he had run out of crimes, with nothing more to say. This silence was hard enough on his little audience. But by far the worst thing, Dorothy later said, was to see him standing there, half panting, as though he were waiting to see if there would be any difference — some relief or burden lifted. Yet clearly there was no relief, just sorrow and weariness. Moore knew it was no time to tell Wittgenstein that he vastly exaggerated his guilt, that people had known or assumed for years, from his name alone, that he was of Jewish ancestry. It would do no good to say this now. In his present state of mind, Wittgenstein wanted only guilt and censure, not understanding. Denying any possibility of forgiveness and forbidding any expression of sympathy, Wittgenstein wanted them only as witnesses to that guilt, that hereditary link that at once proves the past and haunts the future like the light traveling from some long-snuffed star.
It was devastating, to sit there like fools, able to do nothing but witness this man’s pain. They could hear the rain drumming. Opening and closing his mouth as if there had been a change in the air pressure, Moore felt angry and cheated. Dorothy was staring at her hands, upturned in her lap. As for Francis, he was nearly overcome. Numb and trembling, forcing back tears, he was all gathered into himself in the leather hassock, which could be heard faintly creaking with his forlorn rocking.
Blurting an abrupt thank-you, Wittgenstein started for the
door. Moore followed and, as he let him out, said reproachfully, You are not a patient man, Wittgenstein. Whereupon Wittgenstein, this most impatient of men, turned to Moore with a look of genuine surprise and said, as if this were one further blot on his life, I’m sorry. I did not know that. No, I did not.
What? Moore was incredulous. You mean you don’t know how impatient you are? But look at you! You’re too impatient now even to accept forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not at issue! Wittgenstein insisted, looking away. Truth is not a matter of forgiveness.
Perhaps, said Moore skeptically. Nonetheless, you might have the humility to forgive yourself. Guilt just as surely brought you here as truth or goodness did.
I see, labored Wittgenstein, with a halfhearted nod. I will try, Moore. As best I can I will try. Good night.
Outside, it was still raining. Wittgenstein pumped out his umbrella and pushed into the leaning downpour. And after him, balancing precariously with his outstretched umbrella, Francis followed him to their next stop, the second of three sessions where Wittgenstein would purge himself that night, like a man crossing himself three times.
Eggs About to Hatch
WHEN THE WAR CAME a year later, Wittgenstein and Francis volunteered to drive an ambulance, only to find that Wittgenstein, at fifty-one, was too old and Francis was too sick, so sick that he died a few months later from acute poliomyelitis — another heavy blow for Wittgenstein.
