The World as I Found It (54 page)

One notable exception to this feeling, however, was Wittgenstein. To Moore, it seemed odd that painful memories of a person should sustain and refurbish the memory more than pleasant recollections. Even then, more than two years later, Moore was still smarting from that journey he had made to Norway. And Russell, in his own way, had now further soured the whole episode.

Russell had still been away lecturing in America when Moore returned from Norway with the notes that Wittgenstein had dictated to him. Moore thought nothing of it. He left the notes with Russell's housekeeper, along with a message that, if Russell saw the need, he would do his best to explain any sticky points.

Russell thanked Moore for the notebook, but he never questioned him about it. Moore, for his part, thought nothing of it until one morning, months later, Russell dropped by his office with a letter from Wittgenstein, saying, I thought you might find this of interest.

Moore was immediately suspicious. Like a solicitor introducing evidence, Russell explained how the letter, written almost two months before on the Russian front, had been forwarded to Keynes, who, with his high-level treasury connections, was able to get mail from belligerents.

You're sure the letter is not too personal? asked Moore, smelling trouble.

Oh, no, no, Russell insisted. Read it, by all means.

Reluctantly, then, Moore opened the letter. It began on a personal note, then turned testy as Wittgenstein explained various logical points in his notes that Russell had evidently missed, adding, I find it inconceivable that Moore was not able to explain my ideas to you.

Stunned, Moore looked at Russell. What does he mean, why was I not able to explain.
You never asked
.

Russell sucked in his chin. To say I never
asked
begs the point, don't you think? I mean, I thought you would have taken more of an interest in discussing the notes than you did. You must have known that they were cryptic and rather insufficient. I presumed that if you really had understood what you transcribed — well, that you would have been more forthcoming in offering your help.

Moore was popeyed. I
said
that if you needed my help I would offer what help I could. How could I be any more forthcoming? As for the rest, how was I to know what
you
would find sufficient? I haven't been privy to your dealings with Wittgenstein!

Pacing and laboring then, his arms flopping, Moore erupted: Oh, you do take the cake! Why tell Wittgenstein that
you
don't understand? Why, you can bloody well blame Moore! My God, if ever I needed advice on self-serving casuistry I'd come straight to you, Russell! Oh, I would indeed!

Russell was not upset in the least. On the contrary, he had come prepared for this tirade. Now he was the cunning jurist cross-examining Moore:

Did I
say
that you could not have explained? This conclusion is Wittgenstein's, not mine necessarily. I merely thought that you deserved to see what Wittgenstein said. Here Russell couldn't resist a taunt. Of course, if you are willing to sit down and explain some things to me —

Like hammers, Moore's hands fell to the desk. Go to hell! Get Wittgenstein to explain! In fact, as far as I'm concerned, there's no reason why we should even
speak
! Now, for God's sake — out! Please!

But Russell wasn't about to be driven from Moore's office. Out he strolled, perfectly composed, with a faint smile on his face. He was halfway down the hall when Moore, in his burgeoning rage, wanted to call him back — not, God knows, to patch things up, but merely to ask
why
, after so much time, and for no apparent provocation, he should come to start trouble, and moreover to do so over a man who might well be dead. It was astounding. Here was Russell, thought Moore, a man now a major force in England, with more work than five men could have handled. But it still wasn't enough! For Russell, thought Moore, the world must be at
peace
! But, by God, in his own life, there must be tumult and discord, quarreling even with the probable dead and those like him who begrudged him nothing. No, Moore didn't understand. He didn't understand at all.

That, as far as Moore was concerned, was the end of any personal dealings between them. Despite his support for Russell in his expulsion proceedings, Moore swore to himself that he would henceforth deal with Russell on a strictly professional basis, and then only as a last resort. As for Wittgenstein, Moore did his best to forget him. It was easier this way: like Russell, Moore didn't expect him to survive the war. Moore had last heard from him in December 1914, in a card Wittgenstein had sent shortly after he had enlisted. It was a brief, friendly, implicitly apologetic note, saying that his feelings for his English friends had not changed because of the war and that he still very much valued Moore's friendship. Moore meant to reply but, as usual, he procrastinated. He had no idea where Wittgenstein's letter was now.

In any case, Nicholas was squealing. Leaning once more into the pram, rummaging through the covers for the teething ring, Moore wondered why he should suddenly be thinking about Wittgenstein. He hadn't thought of him in several weeks at least — perhaps even a month.

Dipping swallows were clearing the mosquitoes from the sky as Moore pushed the squeaky pram back up the lane. Slowly, the bronzed air was losing its timbre. Night was falling, a clear, cool, moonless night — perfect for airships.

Faster squeaked the wheels. The dusk sky dimmed another hue, and then suddenly the swallows were gone and the air was filled with the first flitting bats, looping and skidding down, then flipping up.
Whap, whap
— gone.

Darker and darker it grew.
Hurry up, Moore
, he told himself, but then, sure enough, Nicky started fussing. Pants wet. Hungry.

There's my Nicky, soothed Moore, bending over again. There's my good, good boy …

Moore's back was aching by the time he finally got the child settled down. As he came into the homestretch, he saw Dorothy sitting on the stoop of their cottage. She waited until he came through the trellised gate, then she went up and kissed him, saying, Well, I see you've had quite a walk. You're sweating. And you, she mocked, smacking her lips against Nicholas's cheek as she lifted him from the pram.
Phew!
We're all smelly. See how you behave when you're with your father!

Moore agreed to do the changing. Unpinning the dirty diaper, he was amazed as ever at the sheer volume and oily black pungency of its contents. With the pin in his mouth and his sleeves rolled up, he went through the procedure with almost surgical precision, holding the child by his crossed feet like a trussed turkey as he wiped and washed, then flung on talc.

There, Nicholas, he sang.
We're dddddddddone! We're thrrrrrrrough!
We're cleeeean! He picked the boy up and made a drooling idiot face.
B-gob! Brezzzzeechhh
. The floor shook as Moore danced him out of the room and handed him to Dorothy, who put him on her breast while Moore expired into his chair and reached for his pipe.

Later that night, once the baby was asleep, Moore stepped into the garden to give the sky one last look. Odd, but he again found himself thinking of Wittgenstein, wondering if he was alive and what would become of his ideas if he wasn't. Chilling, thought Moore, how efficiently the world conceals its news, its dead. And then once more he found himself thinking of the goggled zeppelin men, peering down through the polar darkness, nodding and saying
Ja, bombe hier!
Then Dorothy called back:

Bill, for the last time! Come to bed!

Presently, he called, creeping inside. Just let me put a few words in the journal.

Not a tome, she said. You'll not be the one waking up at two.

All right — five minutes.

Moore hesitated, then added:

Later that night, not long after the baby's two o'clock feeding, Moore awoke to talking. It was Dorothy, tossing and mumbling in her sleep:

No, we mustn't go there — not Nicholas.
Hold
the pillow under his head —
catch
it!
Bill!

Heart pounding, Moore sat up and started to shake her, but then it was over. Mumbling something more, Dorothy pulled his arm around her like a blanket and fell back to sleep. But then Moore had a dream himself. It was all very mixed up, with plummeting bombs and a zeppelin that fell slowly to earth like a planet knocked out of orbit. And then Moore was running with a man who turned out to be the zeppelin commander. The enemy officer was upbraiding him, saying there had been a mistake, an idiotic mistake! Useless charts! The German tore them to pieces. Telescope no good either, nor the sextant. He pitched them into a ditch.

Then the captain tore off his fur-lined cap, and Moore saw that one of his ears had been shot away, the face ravaged. Moore peered for the longest time into the man's face before he realized that it was Wittgenstein. Then soldiers were pursuing, and they were by the sea. That helpless feeling as Wittgenstein stared at him: the uselessness of leave-taking. Wittgenstein's face was draped in darkness, like a lunar eclipse. Moore was trying to smile. And then Wittgenstein turned and dove into the night sea. Churning like a dolphin, he swam to Holland, leaving a broth of shimmering bubbles that stretched clear across the Channel.

Dorothy was trying to roll Moore over when he awoke.

I'm all right, mumbled Moore, sitting up. He bounded out of bed.

Get back in here, Dorothy insisted. What's the matter?

Nothing's the matter. His voice was parched and gruff. I just had a dream. Just a dream. Be right back.

Moore first checked Nicholas, trembling as he slipped a hand under the little gown, feeling the reassuring heart and warmth, the little stutter of breath. Then Moore shuffled down the hall to his study and wrote in his diary.

S
ITTING BEHIND
a sandbagged trench on the Russian front one morning in the early spring of 1916, Sergeant Wittgenstein of the Austrian Fourth Army was popping lice between his nails and writing in his notebook.

NOTHING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED …

Had not the archduke gone home after the bomb exploded,

Had not the Russians mobilized,

Had not the English stayed out,

Had not a shell splinter been in another state of affairs, another geometry;

Had not I asked Pinsent what kind of bird it was in the tree that day we met,

Or had the bird alighted somewhere else or not been born,

Or had a bullet found me first.

We should have remained in Norway, under Holy Orders.

Sooner or later,

What depends on my life? Sad or happy,

There is only this life, this immediate scheme, which is neither good nor evil,

Sad nor happy. Then comes
Not
, the mystery of
Not
:

Two nots making an affirmation, a possibility,

Surrounded by another impinging

Not
, annihilating that possibility.

The world is all that is the case
.

This world divides into facts,

But because false facts make sense

With the same logic as the true, we can no more see

To the bottom of our acts than

We can with our own eyes

See our own dark faces. And here is how it stands:

We see our fate as a fact. We display it.

But our souls are timebound and blind.

Now
: The simplest fact is: the simplest fact in our acquaintance.

And the simplest facts are: the facts we cannot explain or get over:

Had not my brothers been suicides, what would I be?

As a child, I saw the Wittgensteins as a great orchestra.

Now we are a dwindling orchestra. Hans and Rudolf long dead by their own hands.

Paul, a pianist, loses his right arm to a bullet while here I have two. (I could philosophize as well with one.)

Kurt, a lieutenant deserted by his men, shoots himself in the head when Russians storm his trench.

Pinsent, like a brother, dies invisibly with a shell splinter, while others live for no reason,

Choking on this life as on arsenic.

There is something exceedingly simple here that eludes me!

The human heart

is simple. Life, viewed from a great height,

is simple. The happy life is

the good life, and the happy man, the man carrying out

the purpose of life has nothing to fear, not death, not even the devil.

Hence I am fearful.

* * *

This peaceful morning the sun has risen,

But there is no
logical
reason to believe it will do so tomorrow.

Opening my eyes, I share a world with others. Closing them, I am on its limits, a lone inhabitant.

Turning my face toward the darkness,