Wittgenstein's Mistress (15 page)

All of Vivaldi's music, including
The Seasons,
was totally forgotten for many years after he died, incidentally.

Well, and Vermeer was neglected for even longer.

In fact nobody ever bought a single painting by Vermeer when he was still alive.

Vivaldi also had red hair.

As did Odysseus.

The things one knows.

Even if, conversely, I cannot call to mind one solitary item about Jan Steen.

Or that all I am able to state categorically about Rogier van der Weyden is that one still cannot see the original of
The Descent from the Cross
the way it wants to be seen.

In spite of the windows having been washed nearby.

Or even if I also only now realize that everybody in it is as Jewish as everybody in
The Last Supper,
presumably.

There is nobody in the painting called
The Descent from the Cross
by Rogier van der Weyden, whatever any of them may believe in.

Shapes do not have religion.

And doubtless it was somebody else, later on, who decided to name them the
Four Last Songs.

My favorite composer is Bach, as a matter of fact, whom I do not believe I have mentioned at all in these pages.

I have just realized something else.

On the front seat of the vehicle in which I turned on the air-conditioning, after having gotten sweaty from hitting the tennis balls, there was a paperback edition of
The Way of All Flesh,
by Samuel Butler.

Which presumably answers the question as to where I came upon the footnote about Samuel Butler having said that it was a woman who wrote the
Odyssey.

Or perhaps the book contained some sort of preface, dealing with the life of Samuel Butler, which brought up this fact.

I am more than positive that I have never read a life of Samuel Butler, however, even in the form of a preface, what with knowing even less about Samuel Butler than I do about
The Way of All Flesh,
which I am just as positive I have never read.

And doubtless I would have scarcely looked into the book on that particular afternoon in either case.

If only because of having set fire to the pages of a life of Brahms not long before, in trying to simulate seagulls, surely I would have wished to devote my attention to the tape deck instead.

Even if there is still another life of Brahms somewhere in this house.

I have no idea why I have said somewhere when I know exactly where.

The life of Brahms is in the identical room into which I put the painting of this house, which until a few days ago had been on the wall directly above and to the side of where this typewriter is.

The door to that room is closed.

Sea air has contributed to that deterioration.

Hm. I would seem to have left something out, just then.

Oh. All I had meant to say, I am quite certain, was that the life of Brahms is standing askew, and has become badly misshapen.

Doubtless I was distracted for a moment, and then believed I had already put in that part.

As a matter of fact I was lighting a cigarette.

Sea air would have contributed to the deterioration of the tennis racquet as well, come to think about it.

Then again, one gathers that the strings on a racquet will generally come loose in any case.

When I say gathers, I mean used to, of course.

In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.

It is not even unlikely that I could name certain baseball players, should I wish.

I cannot imagine so wishing.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Sam Usual.

Actually, any number of the men in my life were greatly enraptured by baseball.

When my mother was dying my father watched games endlessly.

Well, perhaps I understood that at the time.

I understood it when he took away the tiny, pocket sort of mirror from beside her bed one evening, certainly.

One finds it difficult to conceive of Bach being enraptured by baseball, on the other hand.

Although perhaps they had not invented baseball at the time of Bach.

Vincent Van Gogh, then.

The black one, for Brooklyn. Well, and the other black one.

And Stan Usual, I perhaps meant.

None of which has answered the question as to how one can have one piece of music in mind and be hearing a different piece
of music entirely, meanwhile.

When I say one can be hearing a different piece of music entirely, by the way, I scarcely mean that one will hear the entire piece of music. What I mean is that one hears an entirely different composition, obviously.

Possibly I did not need to make that explanation.

At any rate what is now in my head is that painting by Jan Vermeer again.

Although what I am more exactly thinking about is the sentence I typed just a few pages ago, in which I said that the young woman is asleep in the Metropolitan Museum.

Unquestionably, where the young woman is asleep is in Delft, which is in Holland, and which is where Jan Vermeer painted.

Well, Jan Vermeer of Delft being what he was generally called, in fact.

Nonetheless, what has now struck me is that there is undeniably a way in which the young woman is likewise asleep in the Metropolitan Museum after all.

Unless for some reason the painting itself is no longer in the museum, which one can sincerely doubt.

Even if I had had need of the frame, I would have nailed the painting back into place.

I always took the time to do that, by the way. No matter how chilly it happened to be at the moment.

Once, in the National Gallery, I did crack a canvas by Carel Fabritius, but not so badly that I was not able to wax it and tape the back.

But be that as it may, if I can sincerely doubt that the other painting is not not in the Metropolitan, then it is a fact that the young woman is asleep in the Metropolitan also.

As it is also a fact that in the painting by Rogier van der Weyden they are taking Jesus down from the cross at Calvary, but they are also taking him down on the top floor of the Prado, in Madrid.

Right next to the windows I washed.

I see no way of refuting either of those statements. Even if, as I indicated, there appeared to be something wrong with the first of them when I typed it before.

This is not something I intend to worry about, although I can fully understand how one might worry.

Well, perhaps I have already said that I actually do worry.

Although I have just now eaten a salad.

While I was eating the salad I thought about Van Gogh being mad again.

Lord above.

Van Gogh was not mad for a second time. It was I who was thinking about him once more.

And in any case it was Van Gogh trying to eat his pigments that I was more exactly once more thinking about.

Perhaps the fact that I was eating myself was what reminded me of this, although what I was eating myself were various sorts of lettuce, along with mushrooms.

When Friedrich Nietzsche was mad, he once started to cry because somebody was hitting a horse.

And Jackie Robinson was who, for Brooklyn.

Also Campy, was somebody called?

Actually, there were prostitutes in Van Gogh's life too, although I know of no record of Gustave Flaubert having written to Van Gogh either.

I scarcely mean to give any particular weight to this matter of prostitutes, incidentally, even if I would perhaps sometimes appear to.

Certain matters simply come up, being connected to the subject at hand.

Being sweaty after hitting tennis balls would hardly have appeared to be connected to the subject of Richard Strauss getting into bed to die, for instance, though it proved to be connected to that subject.

As a matter of fact even so trivial an item as Guy de
Maupassant eating his lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower is very likely connected to something, just as inevitably.

Even forgetting that I have just eaten my own lunch, or that Maupassant was even more mad than Van Gogh.

In fact I would almost be willing to wager that there is some way in which Maupassant is even connected to the soccer shirt with the name Savona on its front, should one wish to pursue such a question.

I cannot conceive of why anyone would wish to pursue such a question.

And actually I never really knew what it was, about wearing that soccer shirt.

Although Maupassant's rowing is now in my mind again, too.

Had I held onto the shirt, doubtless I might have worn it when rowing my own boat.

In fact it is perhaps unfortunate that I did not hold onto the lot of those shirts, in which case I might have worn a different one each time I rowed.

What I find interesting about this notion is that from the front it would have always looked as if I were wearing the same shirt.

Savona, it would have always said.

From under one arm to the other.

Assuredly the numerals on the back of each shirt would have been different, however.

So that possibly I could have even changed my back in sequence.

Although I am perhaps overlooking the question of sizes.

What with the one I did wear having already been too large, doubtless many of the others would have been even larger than that.

One is scarcely about to return to Savona to check on this, however.

And in any event I have practically never worn a shirt, while rowing.

Very likely I was not wearing anything on the day when I
played tennis either, to tell the truth.

I am still having my period, by the way.

Having my period is another matter I do not particularly mean to give any weight to.

In this case it is just something that happens to be happening.

Although I have lost track of how long it is now, actually.

Doubtless I could look back through what I have been writing, and try to calculate that. But I am fairly certain that I have not indicated all of the days.

Sometimes I indicate them and sometimes I do not.

Lately I have often merely stopped typing and then started again, without putting in that it is tomorrow.

I did not put in throwing away the lilacs either, which was at least yesterday.

And doubtless if I did look back I would be distracted by other things I have written anyhow.

In fact without looking back at all, but by merely thinking about doing so, I have now remembered that a prostitute with whom Van Gogh once lived was named Sien.

Something I doubtless did put in, somewhere, is that I once knew a great deal about many painters.

Well, I knew a great deal about many painters for the same reason that Menelaus must surely have known a great deal about Paris, say.

Even if I seem to have skipped Rogier van der Weyden and Jan Steen.

Somehow I would also appear to know that Bach had eleven children, however.

Or perhaps it was twenty children.

Then again it may have been Vermeer who had eleven children.

Though possibly what I have in mind is that Vermeer left only twenty paintings.

Leonardo left fewer than that, perhaps only fifteen.

Not one of these figures may be correct.

Fifteen paintings do not seem like very many, especially when several of them are not even finished.

Or are deteriorating.

Then again it is perhaps quite a lot if one is Leonardo.

Actually Vermeer left forty paintings.

Brahms had no children at all, although he was known for carrying candy in his pocket to give to the children of other people, when he visited people who had children.

And at least we have finally solved the question as to which life of Brahms it was that I read.

Surely a history of music written for children, and printed in extraordinarily large type, would place emphasis on the fact that somebody being written about in that very book was known for carrying candy in his pocket to give to children when he visited people who had children.

Even if Brahms had not done this very often, surely it would have been emphasized there.

In fact it is not even impossible that Brahms hardly ever carried candy in his pocket to give to children.

Very possibly Brahms did not even do this more than once in his life, and the entire legend was based on that single incident.

Helen ran off with a lover only once in her life herself, and for three thousand years nobody would ever let her forget it.

Here is some candy, children, Brahms doubtless said, once.

Brahms gave candy to children, somebody wrote.

The latter statement is in no way untrue. Any more than it is untrue that Helen was unfaithful.

Although when one comes right down to it, who is to say that Brahms may even have not liked children?

Or even disliked them, to the extreme?

As a matter of fact quite possibly the only reason Brahms ever gave candy to any of them, even the once, may have been so they would go away altogether.

Actually, Leonardo did not have children either, although nothing appears to have been said about candy either way, in his instance.

Still, so much for your basic legend.

So much for solving the question as to which life of Brahms it was that I read, as well, since what I have also now just remembered is the affair that Brahms perhaps had with Clara Schumann.

I say perhaps, since it would appear that nobody has ever quite solved this, either.

Assuredly there would have been no hint of it in the history of music written for children, however.

Doubtless what Van Gogh wished was to reform Sien, when he invited her to live with him.

This was before he cut off his ear, I believe.

Often, in reading about Van Gogh, one gets the impression he must have been the first person to say hello to Dostoievski, in St. Petersburg.

Actually, it strikes me as quite agreeable to think of Brahms having had an affair with Clara Schumann.

Once, when I was a girl, I saw a film about music in Vienna, called
Song of Love.

All I can remember about the film is that everybody took turns playing the piano.