Wittgenstein's Mistress (20 page)

The fact that El Greco may have also known Cervantes, on the other hand, is something I did not remember I remembered until all of these pages later, when I was finally writing what I had remembered but had not put down about El Greco earlier.

This is not really that complicated, although it may seem to be.

All it actually means is that even when one remembers something one did not remember one remembered, one may have still no more than scratched the surface in regard to things one does not remember one remembers.

Although as a matter of fact I believe I did remember Cervantes before too, even if in that case it may have only been in connection with that castle.

Then again, perhaps it was Don Quixote I remembered, what with the castle having been in La Mancha.

The title of the book about Don Quixote being
Don Quixote de La Mancha,
of course.

Anything that El Greco and Cervantes may have said to each other in Toledo would have been said in the same language as the title also, presumably.

Even if El Greco may have preferred Greek. Or whatever language they spoke on Crete, which was where he was actually from, in fact.

This is of course assuming that even if El Greco and Cervantes did not know each other very well, certainly they would have at least begun to nod in passing, after a time.

And naturally next to exchange amenities.

Buenos dias,
Cervantes.

Buenos dias a usted,
Theotocopoulos.

Well, and doubtless they would have exchanged similar amenities with St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross eventually, too.

Possibly all of this would have happened in some local shop or other, such as the neighborhood pharmacist's, say.

Even if one doubts that either of the latter two would have been called Saint yet, naturally.

Well, or that St. John of the Cross would have been called of the Cross by then, either.

Buenos dias,
Saint Teresa, or,
Buenos dias,
John of the Cross, surely being a little clumsy for in a drugstore in either event.

Or for while waiting on line at the cigarette counter, certainly.

Still, all of these people always remaining just as equidistant from each of the others as everybody in Taddeo Gaddi's studio was, of course.

Except that they are now undeniably equidistant from me as well, because of being on these pages as opposed to being only in my head.

I think.

So that even if I were to unexpectedly think about somebody else I had not thought about for the longest time, such as, oh, Artemisia Gentileschi, let me say, the same rule would apply.

Although something I have also just incidentally realized is that I was probably wrong, a little while ago, when I said it was Zeno who had proved the other rule, about the hypotenuse of a circle.

Possibly it was Archimedes who proved that. Or Galileo.

Although what now more truthfully surprises me is that I could have written this many pages without having mentioned Artemisia Gentileschi to begin with.

Or that any woman artist could.

In fact Artemisia is perhaps the one person one would call Saint at a cigarette counter or anyplace else without feeling clumsy in the least.

So she was raped too, naturally.

At only fifteen.

But heavens, what a painter. In spite of what kind of a world she had to face, that many years ago.

Well, in spite of even having been tortured, to test her word, when the rape came to trial.

Although of course one of the popes made Galileo take back every word he had said, as well.

Meantime my period and I still remain no distance at all from each other, presumably.

Well, or the pain in my left shoulder and I, similarly.

Perhaps I have not mentioned the pain in my left shoulder.

I have mentioned it.

When I have done so up until now, however, it would have only been as one more thing I was remembering, since I had not actually felt it for quite some time, lately.

Which is to say it would have been still another instance of something which existed only in my head or on the pages where I was writing about it.

Although now it would appear to exist not only in both of those places, but in my shoulder again also.

Even if I am perhaps somewhat perplexed as to how a pain can exist in two other places as well as where it actually hurts.

One would appear to have just expended a great deal of effort in verifying exactly that likelihood, however.

In either event I woke up with it this morning.

This can happen. It does not happen frequently, but it can happen.

Basically, I believe that the pain is arthritic.

Then again, I have sometimes been tempted to connect it to the afternoon on which I drove a Land Rover filled with picture postcards into the Mediterranean, even though I did not believe I had hurt myself badly at the time.

Many of the postcards in the Land Rover happened to show reproductions of certain familiar paintings, by the way.

Mostly by Maurice Utrillo.

Somehow I have the feeling I would like to make a comment about that, but whatever the comment is is eluding me.

Although on third thought the other question may be in no way connected to my arthritis or to that incident near Savona after all.

Or at least in this present instance.

I make that suggestion because it is quite possible that I strained certain muscles, yesterday.

How I might have done that was by moving the rusted lawn-mower, when I was downstairs in the basement.

Perhaps I have not mentioned having been downstairs in the basement.

I was downstairs in the basement. Yesterday.

Naturally I did other things besides moving the rusted lawn-mower. One would hardly go downstairs into a basement one
rarely otherwise goes into simply to move a rusted lawnmower.

Moving the lawnmower remains the most strenuous thing I did while I was down there, however.

I did not move any of the bicycles, or the hand truck.

I believe I have mentioned that there are several bicycles in the basement, as well as a hand truck.

There are also a number of baseballs, on a ledge.

I did not move any of the baseballs either, although I am quite certain one would have hardly injured one's shoulder in moving those.

In fact it was silly of me to have brought up not having moved the baseballs.

Then again, perhaps moving the lawnmower did not really have anything to do with anything, either.

The basement of this house is extremely damp, even at this time of year, as I have also perhaps mentioned.

One can smell the dampness, in fact.

And to tell the truth I was down there for quite some time.

So perhaps the pain is arthritic after all, and it was the dampness in the basement which aggravated this.

Although on yet another hand the whole business could have actually gotten started at the spring, when I was washing my underpants on the day before I ever even gave a thought to the basement.

In any case one generally feels wisest in enumerating all such possibilities where an injury is concerned.

Meanwhile the way one reaches the basement is down a sandy embankment at the rear of the house, which I do not remember if I have mentioned or not.

The reason I mention it now is that I would have been confronting that part of the house in returning from the spring, this doubtless having been what brought the basement into mind to begin with.

Even if I have confronted that identical part of the house any number of times without having thought to go down to the
basement at all.

So that to tell the truth I have no real idea why I went down there yesterday either, when one comes right down to it.

What I did, after I did happen to get there, was to look at the eight or nine cartons of books.

What one does after having happened to get someplace often having very little to do with why one may have gotten there, however.

So that perhaps I had no reason whatsoever for having gone to the basement yesterday.

Although I do believe I have mentioned the eight or nine cartons of books.

These being the eight or nine cartons of books which have more than once perplexed me by being in the basement rather than in the house, especially since there is adequate room for them, up here.

In fact many of the shelves up here are half empty.

Although doubtless when I say they are half empty, I should really be saying they are half filled, since presumably they were totally empty before somebody half filled them.

Then again it is not impossible that they were once filled completely, becoming half empty only when somebody removed half of the books to the basement.

I find this second possibility less likely than the first, although it is not utterly beyond consideration.

In either event the present state of the shelves is even an explanation for why so many of the books in the house are so badly damaged.

Such as the life of Rupert Brooke, for instance. Or the poems of Anna Akhmatova, or of Marina Tsvetayeva.

Perhaps if there were more books on the shelves, so that so many of them were not standing askew, there would have been less opportunity for the sea air to have ruined as many as it has.

The person who left the additional books in the basement would not appear to have thought of this, however.

Still, perhaps there was some equally important reason for the additional books having been left there.

Perhaps it was my curiosity about this very reason which finally led me to go down to the basement yesterday to look at the eight or nine cartons after all, in fact.

Even if I did not actually look at the eight or nine cartons of books.

What I looked at was one of the eight or nine cartons.

Although as a matter of fact I have no idea why I keep on speaking about eight or nine cartons, either.

There are eleven cartons of books in the basement.

One being able to make this sort of incorrect estimate in many such situations, of course.

And which in fact will then remain in one's head for some time even when one knows better.

Well, as I have just been illustrating.

All of the books in the basement have their own peculiar odor of dampness, incidentally.

I have no idea how one would describe this, but it is an odor of dampness that is peculiar to books.

Or in any event this was undeniably the case with the books in the one carton I had opened before, which was the same one I opened again yesterday.

Possibly I have not mentioned having opened one of the cartons before.

One would scarcely be speaking about eleven cartons in the basement of a house on a beach as containing books without having opened at least one of the cartons to discover this, however.

As a matter of fact one should have doubtless opened all eleven of the cartons before speaking about them in that manner.

So I am still operating on the basis of very limited evidence, actually.

Although to tell the truth the entire question has never interested me very deeply.

In fact moving the rusted lawnmower to open even that same single carton again may have been little more than a way of passing my time, yesterday.

Once I had found myself downstairs in the basement with no reason whatsoever for finding myself there, as I have indicated.

Had I been in a different frame of mind I might have moved the baseballs after all.

And in which instance very likely my shoulder would not feel the way it does, either.

Actually I did look through the books this time, however, which I had not done on the other occasion when I had opened the carton.

Well, the other time I had not moved the lawnmower first in any event, so that it would have been difficult to look through the books even if I had wished to.

All I had wished to do on that occasion was to discover what the carton contained, however.

Yesterday I took the books out of the carton.

With only one exception, every single one of them was in a foreign language.

Most were in German, in fact, although not all.

The one book not in German or in another foreign language was an edition of
The Trojan Women,
by Euripides, which had been translated from Greek into English.

By Gilbert Murray.

I believe the person who had translated it was Gilbert Murray.

As a matter of fact I am not now certain I looked.

One finds that many of the Greek plays have been translated by Gilbert Murray, however.

In fact I suspect I have even once discussed this subject.

Then again it is perhaps surprising that I did not devote more attention to the translation after all, that being the only book from the carton that I would have been able to read one word of.

Although actually I can read Spanish, too.

Or perhaps I should say I was once able to read Spanish, not
having tried to do so for years.

And to tell the truth I never read Spanish very well when I did read it.

Two of the books from the carton were in Spanish.

One of these was a translation of
The Way of All Flesh.

In fact I did have a certain amount of difficulty in recognizing that one, come to think about it.

Basically, this was because the word
carne
was used in the title, and for some moments I kept thinking of
carne
as meaning meat.

Certainly
The Way of All Meat
did not seem like the sort of title that anybody would give to a book.

The difficulty persisted only until I noticed that the book had been written by Samuel Butler, however.

Naturally one would sincerely doubt that anybody one believed had already written one book called
The Way of All Flesh
would have then written another book called
The Way of All Meat

Or that the reverse of that statement would have been very likely true, either.

Still, I must admit that the confusion did briefly exist.

The other book in Spanish was not a translation, but had been written in that language. This was a volume of poems by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.