Wittgenstein'sMistress

DavidMarkson

Copyright1988byDavidMarksonAllrightsreserved

ISBN:1-56478-211-5LC:87-73068FirstEdition,May1988

fifthprinting,August2005

"What an extraordinary

change takes place ... whenforthefirsttimethefactthateverythingdependsuponhowathingisthoughtfirstentersthe consciousness, when, inconsequence, thought in itsabsoluteness replaces anapparentreality."

Kierkegaard

"WhenIwasstilldoubtfulastohisability,IaskedG.E.Moore for his opinion.Moore replied, 'I think verywell of him indeed.'When Ienquired the reason for hisopinion, he said that it wasbecauseWittgensteinwastheonly man who lookedpuzzledathislectures."

BertrandRussell

"Icanwellunderstandwhy

childrenlovesand."Wittgenstein

IN THE BEGINNING,sometimesIleftmessagesinthestreet.Somebody is living in the

Louvre, certain of themessages would say. Or intheNationalGallery.Naturally they could only

say thatwhen Iwas in Parisor in London. Somebody isliving in the Metropolitan

Museum, being what theywouldsaywhenIwasstillinNewYork.Nobody came, of course.

Eventually I stopped leavingthemessages.Totell thetruth,perhapsI

left only three or fourmessagesaltogether.I have no idea how long

ago itwaswhen Iwasdoingthat. If I were forced toguess, I believe I wouldguesstenyears.

Possibly it was severalyears longer ago than that,however.And of course Iwas quite

outofmymindforacertainperiodtoo,backthen.Idonotknowforhowlong

a period, but for a certainperiod.Time out of mind.Which

is a phrase I suspect I mayhave never properlyunderstood, now that Ihappentouseit.

Timeoutofmindmeaningmad, or time out of mindmeaningsimplyforgotten?But in either case there

waslittlequestionaboutthatmadness. As when I drovethat time to that obscurecorner of Turkey, forinstance,tovisitatthesiteofancientTroy.And for some reason

wished especially to look attheriverthere,thatIhadreadabout as well, flowing past

thecitadeltothesea.I have forgotten the name

of the river, which wasactuallyamuddystream.And at any rate I do not

mean to the sea, but to theDardanelles, which used tobecalledtheHellespont.The name of Troy had

been changed too, naturally.Hisarlik, being what it waschangedto.Inmanywaysmyvisitwas

a disappointment, the site

being astonishingly small.Like little more than yourordinarycityblockandafewstoriesinheight,practically.Still, from the ruins one

could see Mount Ida, all ofthatdistanceaway.Even in late spring, there

wassnowonthemountain.Somebody went there to

die, I believe, in one of theoldstories.Paris,perhaps.I mean the Paris who had

beenHelen'slover,naturally.

Andwhowaswoundedquiteneartheendofthatwar.As amatter of fact itwas

Helen I mostly thoughtabout,whenIwasatTroy.I was about to add that I

even dreamed, for a while,that the Greek ships werebeachedtherestill.Well,itwouldhavebeena

harmless enough thing todream.FromHisarlik,thewateris

perhapsanhour'swalkaway.

What I had planned to donextwas to take an ordinaryrowboat across, and thendriveonintoEuropethroughYugoslavia.Possibly I mean

Yugoslavia. In any case onthatsideofthechannelthereare monuments to thesoldierswhodiedthereinthefirstWorldWar.OnthesidewhereTroyis,

one can find a monumentwhere Achilles was buried,

somuchlongerago.Well, they say it iswhere

Achilleswasburied.Still,Ifinditextraordinary

thatyoungmendiedthereinawarthatlongago,andthendied in the same place threethousandyearsafterthat.But be that as it may, I

changed my mind aboutcrossing the Hellespont. Bywhich I mean theDardanelles.What I didwaspick out amotor launch and

go by way of the GreekislandsandAthens,instead.Evenwithonlyapagetorn

out of an atlas, instead ofmaritime charts, it took meonly two unhurried days toget to Greece. A good dealabout that ancient war wasdoubtless greatlyexaggerated.Still, certain things can

touchachord.Suchas for instanceaday

or two after that, seeing the

Parthenon by the lateafternoonsun.It was that winter during

whichIlivedintheLouvre,Ibelieve.Burningartifactsandpictureframesforwarmth,inapoorlyventilatedroom.But then with the first

signs of thaw, switchingvehicles whenever I ran lowon gas, started back acrosscentral Russia to make mywayhomeagain.All of this being

indisputably true, if as I saylongago.AndifasIalsosay,Imaywellhavebeenmad.Thenagain Iamnotatall

certain I was mad when IdrovetoMexico,beforethat.Possibly before that. To

visitat thegraveofachildIhad lost, even longer agothanallofthis,namedAdam.WhyhaveIwrittenthathis

namewasAdam?Simon is what my little

boywasnamed.

Time out of mind.Meaning that one can evenmomentarilyforgetthenameof one's only child, whowouldbethirtybynow?Idoubtthirty.Saytwenty-

six,ortwenty-seven.AmIfifty,then?There is only one mirror,

here in this house on thisbeach. Perhaps the mirrorsaysfifty.My hands say that. It has

cometoshowonthebacksof

myhands.Conversely I am still

menstruating. Irregularly, sothat often it will go on forweeks, but then will notoccur again until I havealmostforgottenaboutit.PerhapsIamnomorethan

forty-seven or forty-eight. Iam certain that I onceattempted to keep amakeshift accounting,possibly of the months butsurelyatleastoftheseasons.

But I do not even rememberanylongerwhenitwasthatIunderstoodIhadalreadylongsincelosttrack.Still, I believe Iwas soon

going tobeforty,backwhenallofthisbegan.HowI left thosemessages

waswithwhitepaint.Inhugeblockletters,atintersections,where anybody coming orgoingwouldsee.I burned artifacts and

certain other objects when I

was at the MetropolitanMuseumtoo,naturally.Well, I had a fire there

perpetually,winters.That fire was different

from the fire I had at theLouvre.WhereIbuiltthefirein the Metropolitan was inthatgreathall,justwhereonegoesinandout.As a matter of fact I

manufactured a high tinchimney above it, too. Sothat the smokecoulddrift to

theskylightshighabovethat.WhatIhadtodowasshoot

holes in the skylight, once Ihadconstructedthechimney.I did that with a pistol,

quite carefully, at an anglefromoneofthebalconies,sothat the smokewouldgooutbut the rainwould not comein.Rain came in. Not much

rain,butsome.Well,eventuallyitcamein

through other windows as

well, when those broke ofthemselves. Or of theweather.Windows break still.

Several are broken here, inthishouse.It is summer at present,

however. Nor do I mind therain.Upstairs, one can see the

ocean. Down here there aredunes, which obstruct one'sview.Actuallythisismysecond

house on this same beach.The first, I burned to theground.Iamstillnotcertainhow that happened, thoughperhaps I had been cooking.ForamomentIwalkedtothedunes to urinate, andwhen Ilooked back everything wasablaze.Thesebeachhousesareall

wood, of course.All I coulddo was sit at the dunes andwatch it burn. It burned allnight.

I still notice the burnedhouse, mornings, when Iwalkalongthebeach.Well, obviously I do not

notice the house. What Inoticeiswhatremainsofthehouse.One is still prone to think

of a house as a house,however,even if there isnotremarkablymuchleftofit.This one has weathered

fairly well, come to thinkaboutit.Thenextsnowswill

bemythirdhere,Ibelieve.ProbablyIshouldcompose

a list of where else I havebeen, if only for my ownedification.Imeanbeginningwith my old loft in SoHo,beforetheMetropolitan.Andthenmytrips.Although doubtless I have

lost track of a good deal ofthatbynow,aswell.I do remember sitting one

morning in an automobilewith a right-hand drive and

watching Stratford-on-Avonfillupwithsnow,whichmustsurelyberare.Well, and once that same

winter being almost hit by acar with nobody driving it,which came rolling down ahillnearHampsteadHeath.There was an explanation

for the car coming down thehillwithnobodydrivingit.The explanation having

beenthehill,obviously.That car, too, had a right-

handdrive.Althoughperhapsthatisnotespeciallyrelevanttoanything.And in either case I may

have made an error, earlier,when I said I left amessagein the street saying thatsomebody was living in theNationalGallery.Where I lived in London

was the Tate Gallery, whereso many of the paintings byJoseph Mallord WilliamTurnerare.

I am quite certain that IlivedattheTate.Thereisanexplanationfor

this, too. The explanationbeing that one can see theriver,fromthere.Livingalone,one isapt to

preferaviewofwater.I have always admired

Turner as well, however. Infact his own paintings ofwater may well have been apart of what led to mydecision.

Once, Turner had himselflashed to themast of a shipfor several hours, during afurious storm, so that hecouldlaterpaintthestorm.Obviously, it was not the

storm itself that Turnerintended to paint. What heintended to paint was arepresentationofthestorm.One's language is

frequently imprecise in thatmanner,Ihavediscovered.Actually, the story of

Turner being lashed to themast reminds me ofsomething, even though Icannot remember what itremindsmeof.I also seem not to

rememberwhatsortofafireIhadattheTate.At the Rijksmuseum, in

Amsterdam, I removedTheNight Watchby Rembrandtfrom its frame when I waskeeping warm there too,incidentally.

I am quite certain Iintended to get to Madridaround that time also, sincethere is one painting at thePrado by Rogier van derWeyden,The Descent fromthe Cross,that I had wishedto see again. But for somereason, at Bordeaux, Iswitched to a car that wasfacing back in the otherdirection.Then again perhaps I had

actually crossed the Spanish

borderasfarastoPamplona.Well, often I did

unpremeditated things inthose days, as I have said.Once, from the top of theSpanish Steps in Rome, forno reason except that I hadcomeuponaVolkswagenvanfull of them, I let hundredsand hundreds of tennis ballsbounceoneafter theother tothebottom,everywhichwaypossible.Watching how they struck

tiny irregularities or wornspots in the stone, andchanged direction, orguessing how far across thepiazza down below each oneofthemwouldgo.Several of them bounced

catty-corner and struck thehousewhereJohnKeatsdied,infact.There is a plaque on the

house,statingthatJohnKeatsdiedthere.The plaque is in Italian,

naturally. Giovanni Keats, itcallshim.The name of the river at

Hisarlik is the Scamander, Inowremember.In theIliad,by Homer, it

is referred to as a mightyriver.Well, perhaps it was, at

one time. Many things canchange, in three thousandyears.Even so, sitting above it

oneeveningontheexcavated

walls, andgazing toward thechannel, I was almostpositive one could still seethe Greek watchfires, beinglightedalongtheshore.Well, as I have said,

perhaps I did not really letmyselfthinkthat.Still, certain things are

harmlessenoughtothink.The next morning, when

dawn appeared, I was quitecontent toconsider itarosy-fingered dawn, for instance.

Even though the sky wasmurky.Meanwhile I have just

taken time to move mybowels. I do not go to thedunes for that, but down tothe ocean itself, where thetidewillwashin.Going, I stopped first in

the woods beside the houseforsomeleaves.And afterward went for

waterfrommyspring,whichis perhaps a hundred paces

alongthepathintheoppositedirectionfromthebeach.Ihavea stream, too.Even

ifitishardlytheThames.At the Tate I did bring in

my water from the river,however. One has been abletodo that sort of thing for alongwhile,now.Well,onecoulddrinkfrom

theArno,inFlorence,aslongago as when I lived at theUffizi. Or from the Seine,whenIwouldcarryapitcher

down the quay from theLouvre.In the beginning I drank

onlybottledwater,naturally.In the beginning I had

accouterments, aswell.Suchas generators, for use withelectricalheatingdevices.Water and warmth were

theessentials,ofcourse.I do not remember which

camefirst,becomingadeptatmaintaining fires, and sosheddingdevicesofthatsort,

ordiscoveringthatonecoulddrink any water one wishedagain.Perhapsbecomingadeptat

fires came first. Even if Ihave burned two houses totheground,overtheyears.Themorerecent,asIhave

noted,wasaccidental.WhyIburnedthefirstone

I would rather not go toodeeply into. I did that quitedeliberately,however.ThatwasinMexico,onthe

morning after I had visitedpoorSimon'sgrave.Well, itwas the housewe

had all lived in. I honestlybelieved I had planned tostayon,foratime.What I did was spill

gasolinealloverSimon'soldroom.Much of the morning I

couldstillseethesmokeriseand rise, in my rearviewmirror.NowIhave twoenormous

fireplaces.Hereinthishouseby the sea, I am talkingabout.And in the kitchen anantiquatedpotbelliedstove.Ihavegrownquitefondof

thestove.Simon had been seven, by

theway.A variety of berries grow

nearby. And less thanminutespastmystreamthereare various vegetables, infields that were oncecultivated but are of course

nowwildlyovergrown.Beyond the window at

whichIamsittingthebreezeis friskingwith ten thousandleaves. Sunlight breaksthroughthewoodsinmottledbrightpatches.Flowersgrowtoo, ingreat

profusion.Itisadayforsomemusic,

actually, although I have nomeans of providing myselfwithany.Foryears,wherever Iwas,

I generally did contrive toplaysome.ButwhenIbegantogetridofdevicesIhadtogiveupthemusicaswell.Baggage,basically,iswhat

Igotridof.Well,things.Now and again one

happenstohearcertainmusicinone'shead,however.Well, a fragment of

something or other, in anycase. Antonio Vivaldi, say.OrJoanBaez,singing.Not too long ago I even

heard a passage fromLesTroyens,byBerlioz.When I say heard, I am

sayingsoonlyinamannerofspeaking,ofcourse.Still, perhaps there is

baggageafterall, forall thatIbelievedIhad leftbaggagebehind.Ofasort.Thebaggagethat

remains in one's head,meaning remnants ofwhateveroneeverknew.Such as the birthdays of

people like Pablo Picasso orJacksonPollock,forinstance,which I am convinced ImightstillreciteifIwished.Or telephone numbers,

fromallofthoseyearsago.There is a telephone right

here, actually, no more thanthree or four steps behindwhereIamsitting.Naturally I was speaking

aboutnumbersfortelephoneswhichfunction,however.In fact there is a second

telephone upstairs, near thecushionedwindow seat fromwhich I watch the sun godown,mostevenings.Thecushions,likesomuch

else here at the beach, aremusty. Even on the hottestdays, one senses thedampness.Books become ruined by

it.Books being more of the

baggage I got rid of,incidentally.Evenifthereare

stillmany in thishouse, thatwereherewhenIarrived.I should perhaps indicate

that there are eight rooms inthe house, although I makeuseofonlytwoorthree.Actually I did read, at

times, over the years.EspeciallywhenIwasmad,Ireadagooddeal.One winter, I read almost

all of the ancient Greekplays. As a matter of fact Iread them out loud. And

throughout, finishing thereverse side of each pagewould tear it from the bookanddropitintomyfire.Aeschylus and Sophocles

and Euripides, I turned intosmoke.In a manner of speaking,

one might think of it thatway.In a different manner of

speaking, one might declareit was Helen andClytemnestra and Electra,

whomIdidthatwith.For the life of me I have

noideawhyIdidthat.If I had understoodwhy I

was doing that, doubtless Iwouldnothavebeenmad.Had I not been mad,

doubtless I would not havedoneitatall.Iamlessthanpositivethat

those last two sentencesmakeanyparticularsense.In either case neither do I

remember where it was,

exactly, that I read theplaysandburnedthepages.Possibly itwasafter Ihad

gone to ancient Troy, whichmay have beenwhat putmeinmindoftheplaystobeginwith.Orwouldreadingtheplays

have been what put me inmind of going to ancientTroy?Itdidrunon,thatmadness.Iwas not necessarilymad

when I went to Mexico,

however.Surelyonedoesnothave to bemad to decide tovisit the grave of one's deadlittleboy.But certainly I was mad

when I drove the breadth ofAlaska, to Nome, and thenpointed a boat across theBeringStrait.Even if I did seek out

charts,thattime.Well,andhadonceknown

boats,aswell.Butstill.Yet after that

paradoxically made my waywestwardacrossallofRussiawithscarcelyanymapsatall.Driving out of the sun eachmorningandthenwaitingforit to appear ahead of me asthe day progressed, simplyfollowingthesun.Brooding upon Fyodor

DostoievskiasIwent.Actually, I was keeping a

weather eye out for RodionRomanovitchRaskolnikov.Did I stop at the

Hermitage? Why do I notremember if I stopped inMoscowatall?Well, quite possibly I

drove right past Moscowwithout knowing it, notspeaking one word ofRussian.When I say not speaking

oneword,Imeannotreadingoneeither,obviously.And why did I write that

pretentious line aboutDostoievski, when I do not

have any notion now if Iallotted a moment's thoughttotheman?More baggage, then. At

least here and now while Iam typing, if not at thatearliertime.AsamatteroffactwhenI

docked the launch after thelast island and went huntingforanautomobileagainIwaspossibly even surprised thattheyhadRussianprintingontheir license plates. Having

half imaginedthatIought tobeinChina.Though it strikes me at

only this instant that onepossesses certain Chinesebaggagetoo,ofcourse.Some. There seems no

pointinillustratingthefact.Even if I happen to be

drinking souchong tea as Isaythat.And in either case the

Hermitage may be inLeningrad.

Then again there is noquestion that I was,decidedly, looking forRaskolnikov.Using Raskolnikov as a

symbol, one can decidedlysay that I was looking forRaskolnikov.Thoughonecouldalsosay

that I was looking forAnnaKarenina, just as readily. OrforDmitriShostakovich.IwaslookingwhenIwent

toMexicotoo,naturally.

Hardly for Simon, since IknewalltoowellthatSimonwas in that grave. Lookingfor Emiliano Zapata then,perhaps.Again symbolically,

looking for Zapata. Or forBenito Juarez. Or for DavidAlfaroSiqueiros.Looking for anybody,

anywhereatall.Well, even mad was

looking, or for what earthlyreason else, would I have

gonewandering off to all ofthoseotherplaces?And had been looking on

every streetcorner in NewYork before that, naturally.Even before I moved out ofSoHo, had been lookingeverywhereinNewYork.And so was still looking

that winter when I lived inMadrid,aswell.I amnotcertainwhether I

havementionedmyperiodinMadrid.

InMadridIdidnotliveatthe Prado, as it turned out.PerhapsIhavesuggestedthatIhadthoughttodoso,butitwastoobadlylighted.ItisnaturallightthatIam

speaking about in this case,alreadyhavingbeguntoshedmostofmydevicesbythen.Only when the sun is

especially fierce can onebegin to see that Rogier vanderWeydenthewayitwantstobeseen.

I can attest to thiscategorically, having evenwashed the windows nearestit.Where I lived in Madrid

was in a hotel.Choosing theone they had named afterVelazquez.Looking, there, for Don

Quixote.OrforElGreco.OrforFranciscodeGoya.How poetic most Spanish

names generally sound. Onecansaythemoverandover.

SorJuana Insde laCruz.Marco Antonio Montes deOca.Though in fact both of

those may be names fromMexicoagain.Looking. Dear heaven,

howanxiouslyIlooked.Idonotrememberwhenit

wasthatIstoppedlooking.IntheAdriatic,whenIwas

on my way from Troy toGreece, a ketch swoopedtoward me swiftly, its tall

spinnakertakingnoisywind.Just imagine how that

startledme,andhowIfelt.OnemomentIwassailing,

as alone as ever, and amoment after that there wastheketch.Butithadonlybeenadrift.

Through all of that time,presumably.Wouldithavebeenaslong

asfourorfiveyears,bythen?I am almost certain that IremainedinNewYorkforat

least two winters, before Iwentlookingelsewhere.Near Lesbos, I saw that

ketch.OrperhapsScyros.IsScyrosoneoftheGreek

islands?Oneforgets.Thereisaloss

ofbaggageunwittingly,too.As amatter of fact I now

suspect I ought to have saidthe Aegean when I said theAdriatic, a few paragraphsago.Surely it is theAegean,betweenTroyandGreece.

This tea is baggage of asort also, I suppose. Thoughin this case I did seek it outagain, after that other beachhouse burned. Little as Iburdenmyselfwith,didwishfortea.And some cigarettes as

well, although I smoke verylittle,thesedays.Well, and other staples

too,naturally.The cigarettes are the sort

that come in tins. Those in

paperhadbeguntotastestalesomewhileago.Most things did, which

werepackaged thatway.Notto spoil, necessarily, but toturndry.As a matter of fact my

cigarettes happen to beRussian. That is justcoincidence,however.Hereabouts, everything

staysdamp.Ihavesaidthat.Still, when I remove it

from a drawer, often myclothingfeelsclammy.Generally, summers as

now,Iwearnothingatall.I do have underpants and

shorts, and several denimskirts that wrap around, andsome few cotton jerseys. Iwash everything at thestream, and then spread itacrossbushestodry.Well,Ihavemoreclothing

than that. Winter makesdemands.

Except for gatheringfirewood beforehand,however, I have taken toworrying about winter whenwinterappears.When it is here, itwill be

here.When the leaves fall,

generally the woods remainbarren for a time before thesnows, and I can see all thewaytothespring,oreventothe continuation of my pathtothehighwaybeyond.

It requires perhaps fortyminutes to walk along thehighwaytothetown.There are stores, some

few, and there is a gasstation.Kerosene is still to be

foundatthelatter.I rarely make use of my

lamps, however. Even whenwhat seems the lastglimmerof sunset isgone, traces stillreach the room I climbupstairstosleepin.

Through another windowat its opposite side the rosy-fingereddawnawakensme.Certain mornings the

phrasedoeshappen to fit, asamatteroffact.The houses along this

beach would appear tocontinue endlessly, by theway. In any case infinitelyfarther thanIhavechosen towalk in either direction andstill be able to return bynightfall.

Somewhere I have aflashlight. In the glovecompartment of the pickuptruck,possibly.The pickup truck is at the

highway.IsuspectthatImayhave neglected to run thebatteryforsometime,now.Doubtless there are still

unused batteries at the gasstation.Sister Juana Ins de la

Cruz. I no longer have anyideawhoshemayhavebeen,

totellthetruth.TotellthetruthIwouldbe

equally hard pressed toidentify Marco AntonioMontesdeOca.In the National Portrait

Gallery, inLondon,which isnot one of the museums Ichose to live in, I was notabletorecognizeeightoutoften of the faces in theportraits.Orevenalmostthatmany of the names,identifyingtheportraits.

Idonotmeanin thecasesof people like WinstonChurchill or the BrontsistersortheQueenorDylanThomas,obviously.Still,thissaddenedme.Andwhydoesitcomeinto

mind that I would like toinform Dylan Thomas thatonecannowkneelanddrinkfrom theLoire,or thePo,ortheMississippi?Or would Dylan Thomas

have already been dead

before it became impossibleto do such things, meaningthathewouldlookatmeasifIweremadalloveragain?Certainly Achilles would.

OrShakespeare.OrEmilianoZapata.I do not remember Dylan

Thomas'sdates.Andanyway,doubtless there was nospecificdateforpollution.Oneoneeight six, the last

four digits of somebody'sphone number may have

been.Actually, I have never

been to the Mississippieither. Going and comingfrom Mexico I did drinkfrom the Rio Grande,however.WhydoIsaysuchthings?

Obviously I would have hadto cross the Mississippi aswell,bothways,onthesametrip.Still, it appears I have no

recollectionofthat.OrwasI

madthenalso?The queer selection of

books that I read in thatperiod, good heavens.Virtually every solitary oneof them about that identicalwar.But frequently making up

newversionsofthestoriesonmy own part, too, one'sfanciful privateimprovisations.Such as Helen, slipping

down from the battlements

and meetingAchilles besidetheScamanderonthesly.Or Penelope, making love

tooneafteranotherofallofthosesuitors,whileOdysseuswasaway.Wouldn'tshehave?Surely,

with so many of themhangingabout?Andifitwastruly ten years for the warand still another ten beforethat husband of hersmaterialized?For some reason a part I

always liked was Achillesdressing like a girl andhiding,sothattheywouldnotmakehimgotofight.There is a painting of

Penelope weaving in theNationalGallery,actually,bysomebody namedPintoricchio.I have said that quite

badly,Isuspect.Onescarcelymeaning that

where Penelope is doing herweaving is in the National

Gallery. Where she is doingthatisontheislandofIthaca,naturally.Ithacabeing inneither the

Adriaticnor theAegeanSea,incidentally, but in theIonian.The things that do remain

inone'sheadafterall.Ishouldalsoperhapspoint

out that theNationalGalleryand the National PortraitGallery are not the samemuseum, even though they

arebothinLondon.Asamatteroffacttheyare

not the same museum eventhough they are both in thesamebuilding.ConverselyIknownext to

nothing about Pintoricchio,though I once knew a greatdealaboutmanypainters.Well, I knew a great deal

about many painters for thesame reason that Achillesmust surely have known agreatdealaboutHector,say.

All I can remember aboutthe painting of Penelope isthat there is a cat in it,however, playingwith a ballofyarn.Doubtless the inclusion of

the cat was scarcelyinnovative on Pintoricchio'spart. Still, it is perhapsagreeable to think aboutPenelope with a pet,especially if I have beenwrong about her and thesuitors.

Ishouldhavealsoperhapssaid long before this that Iharbor sincere doubts thatthat war did last those tenyears.Or that Helen was the

causeofit.A single Spartan girl, as

somebody once called her.Afterall.But what I am basically

thinking about here is howdisappointingly small theruinsofTroyturnouttobe.

Like littlemore than yourordinary city block and onlya few stories in height,practically.Well, though with people

having lived outside of thecitadeltoo,ontheplains.Butstill.In theOdyssey,when she

isolder,Helenhasasplendidradiant dignity. I read thosepages two or three times,where Odysseus's sonTelemachuscomestovisit.

Which means I could nothave been tearing them outand dropping them into thefire,asIdidwhenIreadtheplays.Meanwhile I have just

been to the dunes again. Forsome reason while I waspeeing I thought aboutLawrenceofArabia.Well, I can hardly be said

to have thought about him,since I know little moreabout Lawrence of Arabia

than I do aboutPintoricchio.Still,LawrenceofArabiadidcomeintomind.I can think of no

connectionbetweenmakingapeeandLawrenceofArabia.There is still that frisky

breeze. It is early August,possibly.For a moment, strolling

back, I may have beenhearing some Brahms. Iwould sayThe AltoRhapsody,though I doubt

that I rememberThe AltoRhapsody.Doubtless there was a

portrait of Lawrence ofArabia at the NationalPortraitGallery.And now I have the name

T.E.Shawinmyhead.Butitis onemore of those flittingidentities that I cannot at allcatchholdof.None of that troubles me,

bytheway.Very little does, as I may

or may not have madeevident.Well,howridiculousunder

the circumstances, should Iletanythingdoso.Idofretnowandagain, if

fret is the word, over anarthritic shoulder. The left,which at times leaves memoderatelyincapacitated.Sunshine is a help,

however.My teeth, on the other

hand, do not speak of fifty

yearsat all.Knockonwood,aboutmyteeth.I cannot remember

anything about my mother'steeth,tryingtothinkback.Ormyfather's.At any rate perhaps I am

nomorethanforty-seven.IcannotenvisionHelenof

Troy with dental problems.Or Clytemnestra witharthritis.There was Cezanne, of

course.

Although it was notCezannebutwasRenoir.Ihavenoidea,anylonger,

where any of my ownpainting materials may havegottento,bytheway.Once during these years I

did stretch one canvas,actually.A monstrosity of acanvas, in fact, at least ninefeet by five. In fact I alsosizeditwithnolessthanfourcoatsofgesso.Andthereaftergazedatit.

Months, I suspect, Igazedat that canvas. Possibly Ieven foolishly squeezed outsome pigments onto mypallet.As a matter of fact I

believe it was when I wentback to Mexico, that I didthat.InthehousewhereIhadonce lived with Simon, andwithAdam.Iambasicallypositivethat

my husband was namedAdam.

And then after months ofgazing set fire to the canvaswith gasoline one morninganddroveaway.Across the wide

Mississippi.Once in a great while I

could almost see things inthatcanvas,however.Almost. Achilles, for

instance,inhisgriefafterthedeath of his friend, when hecovered himself with ashes.Or Clytemnestra, after

Agamemnon had sacrificedtheir daughter to raise windfortheGreekships.I have no idea why

Achilles dressing like a girlisapartthatIalwaysliked.For that matter it was a

woman who wrote theOdy s s e y,somebody oncesaid.When I was back in

Mexico, all through thatwinterIcouldnotridmyselfoftheoldhabitofturningmy

shoes upside down eachmorning, so that anyscorpions inside might fallout.Anynumberofhabitsdied

hard, that way. For someyears I continued to findmyself locking doors,similarly.Well, and in London.

FrequentlytakingthetroubletodriveontheBritishsideoftheroad.After his grief, Achilles

got even by slaying Hector,althoughHectorranandran.Iwasabouttoaddthatthis

was the sort of thing menusedtodo.Butafterherowngrief Clytemnestra killedAgamemnon.Needing some assistance.

Butnonetheless.Something tells me,

obliquely,thatthatmayhavebeenoneofthenotionsIhad,for my canvas. Agamemnonat his bath, ensnared in that

net and being stabbedthroughit.Heaven only knows why

anybody could have wishedfor such a bloody subject,however.AsamatteroffactwhomI

really may have thought topaint was Helen. At one ofthe burned-out boats alongthe strand, when the siegewasfinallyended,beingkeptprisoner.But with that splendid

dignity,evenso.To tell the truth it was

actually just below thecentral staircase in theMetropolitan,whereIsetthatcanvas up. Under those highskylights where my bulletholeswere.Where I had situated my

bed was on one of thebalconies, overlooking thatarea.The bed itself I had taken

fromoneofthereconstructed

period rooms, I believe,possiblyAmericanColonial.WhatIhaddoneaboutthat

chimney I had constructedwas to wire it to the samebalconies, so that it wouldnotlist.Though Iwas stillmaking

useofallsortsofdevices,inthose days. And so hadelectricheatersalso.Well, and innumerable

lights,particularlywhere thecanvaswas.

A nine-foot brilliantlyilluminated Electra, I mighthave painted, had I thoughtaboutit.I did not think about it

untilthisimmediateinstant.Poor Electra. To wish to

murderone'sownmother.Well, all of those people.

Wrist deep in it, the lot ofthem,whenonecomesdowntothat.Irene Papas would have

been an effective Electra,

however.Infactshewasaneffective

Helen,inTheTrojanWomen,byEuripides.Perhaps I have not

indicated that I watched acertainfewfilmswhileIstillpossesseddevices,also.Irene Papas andKatharine

Hepburn inThe TrojanWo m e nwas one. MariaCallasinMedeawasanother.Mymother did have false

teeth,Inowremember.

Well, and in that glassbeside her bed, those finalweeksinthehospital.Oh,dear.Though I have a vague

recollectionthattheprojectorI brought into the museumstopped functioning after Ihad used it no more thanthreeorfourtimes,andthatIdidnottroubletoreplaceit.When I was still at my

loft, in the beginning, Ibrought in at least thirty

portable radios, and tunedeach one to a differentnumberonthedial.Actually those worked by

batteries,notelectricity.Obviously that was how

they worked, since I doubtthatIwouldhavesolvedhowa generator operated, thatearlyon.My aunt Esther died of

cancer, as well. ThoughEstherwasmyfather'ssister,actually.

Here, at least, there isalwaysasoundofthesea.Andrightatthismomenta

strand of tape at a brokenwindow in the room next tothisoneismakingscratchingsounds,frommybreeze.Mornings,whentheleaves

are dewy, some of them arelikejewelswheretheearliestsunlightglistens.Acatscratching,thatloose

stripoftapecouldbe.Wherewouldithavebeen,

thatIreadallofthosebloodystoriesoutloud?I am fairly certain that I

had not yet gone to Europewhen I wore my lastwristwatches, if that is at allrelevant.I doubt that wearing

thirteen or fourteenwristwatches, along thelength of one's forearm, isespeciallyrelevant.Well, and for a period

several gold pocket watches

also, on a cord around myneck.Actually somebody wore

analarmclockthatverywayinanovelIonceread.I would say it was inThe

Recognitions,by WilliamGaddis, except that I do notbelieve I have ever readTheRecogni t ionsby WilliamGaddis.In any case I am more

likely thinking of TaddeoGaddi, even though Taddeo

Gaddiwasapainterandnotawriter.What did I do with those

watches,Iwonder?Worethem.Well. But each of them

with an alarm of its own, aswell.What I normally did was

set the alarms so that eachone of the watches wouldringatadifferenthour.I did that for some time.

All day long, every hour, a

differentwatchwouldring.In theevening Iwouldset

all fourteen of them all overagain. Except that in thatcaseIwouldsetthemtoringsimultaneously.This was before I had

learned to depend upon thedawn,doubtless.They rarely did that

anyway. Ringsimultaneously,Imean.Even when that appeared

tobethecase,onelearnedto

wait for thosewhichhadnotstartedringingyet.When I say they rang, I

mean that theybuzzed,moretruthfully.In a town called Corinth,

in Mississippi, which is notnear the Mississippi River,parking a car on a smallbridge I divested myself ofthewatches.I believeCorinth. Iwould

need an atlas, to reassuremyself.

Actually, there is an atlasin this house. Somewhere.PerhapsinoneoftheroomsIhavestoppedgoinginto.For an entire day I sat in

the car and waited for eachwatchtoringinitsturn.And then dropped each as

it did so into the water.Whatever bodyofwater thatmayhavebeen.One or two did not ring.

What I did was reset themandsleepin thecarandthen

get rid of those when theyrangformorning.Stillringinglikeallof the

restwhenIdiscardedthem.Totellthetruth,Ididthat

in a town somewhere inPennsylvania. The name ofthe town was Lititz,Pennsylvania.All of thiswas some time

before I rolled the tennisballsdowntheSpanishStepsinRome,bytheway.I make the connection

between getting rid of thewatches and rolling thetennisballsdowntheSpanishSteps because I am positivethat getting rid of thewatchesalsooccurredbeforeI saw the cat, which waslikewiseinRome.WhenIsaythatIsawacat

Imean that I believed I sawone,naturally.And the reason I am

positivethatthishappenedinRomeisbecauseithappened

at the Colosseum, which isindisputablyinthatcity.WhereIbelievedIsawthe

cat was at one of thearchways in the Colosseum,quitefarup.HowIfelt.Inthemidstof

allthatlooking.Andsowentscurryingtoa

supermarket for canned catfood.As quickly as I realized I

could not locate the catagain,thatwouldhavebeen.

And then every morningfor a week, opened cans bythe carton and went aboutsettingthemoutonthestoneseats.As many cans as there

must have been Romanswatching the Christians,practically.But next speculated that

the cat might possiblyreappearonlyatnight,beingfrightened, and so rigged upyet another generator and

floodlights,even.ThoughofcourseIhadno

way of telling if the cat hadnibbled at any of the foodbehind my back, since mostof the cans had not seemedquitefulltobeginwith.Still, I felt that to be

unquestionably worthchecking on, several timeseachday.What I named the catwas

Nero.Here,Nero,Iwouldcall.

Well,IsuspectImayhavetried Julius Caesar andHerodotusandPontiusPilateatvariousmoments,also.Herodotus may have been

awasteof timewithacat inRome,nowthatIthinkaboutit.Doubtlessthecansarestill

there in either case, linedupacrossallofthoseseats.Rainswouldhaveemptied

them completely by now,assuredly.

DoubtlesstherewasnocatattheColosseum.Though I also called the

cat Calpurnia, after a time,when it struck me that Ishouldcoverallbases.Doubtless there was no

seagulleither.It is the seagull which

broughtmetothisbeach,thatIamspeakingaboutnow.High, high, against the

clouds, little more than aspeck, but then swooping in

thedirectionofthesea.Iwillbetruthful.InRome,

whenIthoughtIsawthecat,I was undeniably mad. AndsoIthoughtIsawthecat.Here,whenIthoughtIsaw

the seagull, I was not mad.SoIknewIhadnotseentheseagull.Now and again, things

burn. I do not mean onlywhen I have set fire to themmyself, but out of naturalhappenstance. And so bits

and pieces of residue willsometimes be wafted greatdistances, or to astonishingheights.I had finally gotten

accustomedtothose.Still, I would have vastly

preferred to believe I hadseentheseagull.As amatter of fact itwas

much more probably thethought of sunsets, whichbroughtmetothisbeach.Well, or of the sound of

thesea.After I had finally

determinedthatImayaswellstoplooking,thisis.Have I mentioned looking

in Damascus, Syria, or inBethlehem, or in Troy, NewYork?Once, nearLakeComo, at

a stone stairway thatreminded me somewhat ofthe Spanish Steps, I putseveral loose coins that hadbeen lying inmyJeep intoa

public telephone, intendingtoaskforGiovanniKeats.Ihadno idea ifKeatshad

ever visited Lake Como,actually.ForsomeweeksinMexico

I drove a Jeep also.And sowas able to maneuverdirectly up the hillside,instead of taking the road,each time I went to thecemetery.How many different

vehicleshaveImadeuseof,I

suddenlywonder,sinceallofthisstarted?Well,morethanonecould

havekept trackof just downto Cuernavaca or back,surely. What with having toswitch at somany obstacles,even disregarding when oneranoutofgas.By obstacles I most

generally mean other cars,naturally. In whatevernuisance locations they hadcometoastop.

And on top of which Ialways foolishly troubled totransferallofmybaggageaswell,inthosedays.Excepting when I was

forced to walk tooconsiderable a distancebetween one vehicle and thenext,ofcourse.But even then, would

repeatedly burden myselfwithmoreof the same innotime.Here, I have three denim

skirts that wrap around, andsomecottonjerseys.Most of which at the

moment are lying acrossbushes,dryinginthesun.Idriveonlyrarelynow,as

well.As a matter of fact the

clothingoutatthespringhasbeendryforsomedays.Inautumn,aftertheleaves

have fallen, I would be abletoseeitfromexactlywhereIam sitting at this moment,

possibly.The cat at the Colosseum

was russet colored,incidentally.Thegullwasyourordinary

gull.Actuallyitwasash,carried

astonishingly high androckedbybreezes.Every last one of those

skirts and jerseys has gottenfaded, because I almostalwaysforgetaboutthemouttherelikethis.

I am wearing underpants,but only because the seat ofthischairhasnocushion.I have also just brought

blueberries in from thekitchen.Was it really some other

person I was so anxious todiscover, when I did all ofthat looking, or was it onlymyownsolitudethatIcouldnotabide?Wandering through this

endlessnothingness.Once in

awhile,whenIwasnotmad,Iwouldturnpoeticinstead.Ihonestlydid letmyself thinkaboutthingsinsuchways.The eternal silence of

these infinite spacesfrightens me. For instance Ithoughtaboutthemlikethat,also.Inamannerofspeaking,I

thoughtaboutthemlikethat.Actually I underlined that

sentence in a book, namedt hePensees,when I was in

college.Doubtless Iunderlined the

sentence about wanderingthrough an endlessnothingness in somebodyelse'sbook,aswell.The cat that Pintoricchio

put into the painting ofPenelope weaving may havebeengray,Ihaveafeeling.Once, I had a dream of

fame.Generally,eventhen,Iwas

lonely.

LatertodayIwillpossiblymasturbate.Idonotmeantoday,since

itisalreadytomorrow.Well, it is already

tomorrow insofar as that Ihave watched a sunset andhad a night's sleep since Ibegan typing these pages.WhichIbeganyesterday.Perhaps I ought to have

notedthat.Whenthewoodsstartedto

fillupwithshadows,andthis

corner darkened, I went intothe kitchen and ate more ofthe blueberries, and then Iwentupstairs.Yesterday's sunset was an

abstract expressionist sunset.It is about a week since thelasttimeIhadaTurner.I do notmasturbate often.

Though at times I do soalmost without being awareofit,actually.Atthedunes,perhaps.Just

sitting, being lulled by the

surf.Thereisanebb,isall.I suspect I have done it

whiledrivingtoo,however.I am quite certain that I

masturbated on a road in LaMancha once, near a castlethat I kept on seeing andseeing, but that I neverappearedtogetanycloserto.There was an explanation

for not getting any closer tothecastle.Theexplanationbeingthat

thecastlewasbuiltonahill,and that the road went in aflat circlearound thebottomofthehillthatthecastlewasbuilton.Verylikelyonecouldhave

driven around that castleeternally, never actuallyarrivingatit.Before I ever saw one, I

would have supposed thatcastles in Spain was just aphrase.Therearecastles.

Near someplace calledSavona,whichisnotinSpainbut in Italy, I went off theroad,once.Part of the embankment

had fallen away. This is onthe seacoast, that I amtalking about, so that if onegoesoffanembankmentonehasgoneintowater.Instead of watching a

castle I had been watchingthewater,doubtless.Asamatteroffactthecar

turnedover.Only my shoulder hurt,

somemomentsafterward.Well, the very shoulder

thatisnowarthritic,cometothink about it. I had nevermadethatconnectionbefore.Perhaps there is no

connection.In either case the car also

begantofillupwithwater.Interestingly,Ididnotfeel

frightened in the least. Orperhapsitwastherealization

that I had not badly injuredmyself,whichreassuredme.Still, I understood that

openingmydoorandgettingout would be a sensiblenotion under thecircumstances.Iwasnotable toopenmy

door.During all of this time I

wasontheroofofthecar,bytheway.Imeanontheinsideofthe

roof,obviously.Andwiththe

rubber mat from the floorhavingfallenontopofme.I do not remember what

kindofacarIwasdrivingatthetime.Well, one was scarcely

drivingitanylongerineithercase.What I was doing was

trying to crawl across to theoppositedoor.Thewatercameuponlyto

thetopsofmysandalstraps.Still, theentire experience

terrifiedme.IamawarethatIhavejust

saidithadnotfrightenedmeintheleast.As a matter of fact what

happenedwas that it did notfrightenmeuntilitwasover.Once I had climbed back

onto the embankment, andcould see the car upsidedown in the water, itfrightened me ratherimpressively.I cannot say with any

certainty that I had beenmasturbatingwhenIfailedtonotice the collapsedembankment.Or whether I had been

driving toward Savona, orhadalreadypassedSavona.What is fairly certain is

that Iwas driving into Italy,and not out, since in drivingintoItalyalongthatcoastonewould have the sea at one'srighthand,whichisthesideIwentintoitfrom.

Even if I have norecollection whatsoever ofever havingdriven into Italyfrom the direction I amtalkingabout.Doubtless it is partly age,

whichblurssuchdistinctions.When one comes down to

it, I could actually be wellpastfifty.Again, themirror is of no

real help. One would needsome kind of yardstick, or afieldofcomparison.

There was a tiny, pocketsort of mirror on that sametablebesidemymother'sbed,thosefinalweeks.Youwill never know how

muchithasmeanttomethatyou are an artist, Kate, shesaid,oneevening.There are no painting

materialsinthishouse.Actually there was one

canvas on a wall, when Icame. Directly above and tothe side of where this

typewriteris,infact.A painting of this very

house, although it took mesomedaystorecognizethat.Not because it was not a

satisfactory representation,but because I had nothappenedtolookatthehousefromthatperspective,asyet.I had already removed the

painting into another roombythetimeIdidso.Still, I believed it was a

paintingofthishouse.

After Ihadconcluded thatitwas, or that it appeared tobe,Ididnotgobackintotheother room to verify myconclusion.I go into those rooms

infrequently,andhaveclosedthosedoors.There was nothing

extraordinary in the fact ofmy closing them. Possibly Iclosed them only because Ididnotfeellikesweeping.Leavesblowin,andfluffy

cottonwoodseeds.This room is quite large.

There is a deck outside,constructed on two sides ofthehousesothatitfacesboththeforestandthedunes.Two of the five closed

doorsareupstairs.None of this is counting

the bathroom, where themirroris.Infact therecouldwellbe

additional paintings in thoseotherrooms.Icouldlook.

There are no paintings intheclosedrooms.Orat leastnotinthethreeclosedroomsthataredownstairs.Though I have just

replaced the painting of thehouse.It is agreeable to have

someartabout.In my mother's living

room, in Bayonne, NewJersey, therewere several ofmy own paintings. Two ofthose were portraits, of her

andmyfather.Never was I able to find

thecourage to askher if shewished me to remove thatmirror.One afternoon the mirror

was no longer there,however.To tell the truth, I rarely

didportraits.Those of my mother and

father are now at theMetropolitan Museum, inone of the main painting

galleriesonthesecondfloor.Well, all of my paintings

are now in those galleries intheMetropolitanMuseum.WhatIdidwasstandthem

between various canvases inthe permanent collection,wherevertherewassufficientwallspace.Some few overlapped

thoseothers,butonlyattheirlowercorners,generally.Very likely a certain

amountofwarphasoccurred

inminesince,however.From having been leaning

forsomanyyearsratherthanbeinghung,thatwouldbe.Well, and a number of

themhadneverbeenframed,either.Thenagain,whenIsayall

of my paintings I amspeaking only about thepaintings I had not sold,naturally.Though in fact some few

were in group shows, or out

onloan,also.One of those I saw by

sheer chance when I was inRome,asamatteroffact.Actually I had almost

forgotten about it. And theninthewindowofamunicipalgallery on a street near theVia Vittorio Veneto, therewasmynameonaposter.To tell the truth, it was

LouiseNevelson's name thatcaughtmyeyefirst.Butstill.Sitting in an automobile

with English license platesandaright-handdrive,onlyaday after that, I watched thePiazza Navona fill up withsnow, which must surely berare.Early in the Renaissance,

although also in Rome,Brunelleschi and Donatellowent about measuring ruinswith such industry thatpeople believed they weremad.Butafter thatBrunelleschi

returned home to Florenceand put up the largest domesinceantiquity.Well,thisbeingoneofthe

reasons they named it theRenaissance,obviously.ItwasGiottowhobuiltthe

beautiful campanile nextdoortothatsamecathedral.Once, being asked to

submitasampleofhiswork,whatGiotto submittedwas acircle.Well, the point being that

itwasaperfectcircle.And that Giotto had

painteditfreehand.Whenmy fatherdied, less

thanayearaftermymother,I came upon that same tinymirrorinadrawerfullofoldsnapshots.Anauthentic snowfalls in

Rome no more than onceeveryseventyyearsorso,asamatteroffact.Which is approximately

how often the Arno

overflows its banks too, atFlorence. Though perhapsthereisnoconnectionthere.Yet it is not impossible

that people likeLeonardodaVinciorAndreadelSartoorTaddeo Gaddi went throughtheirentireliveswithouteverwatching boys throwsnowballs.Had they been born

somewhat later they couldhaveseenBruegel'spaintingsof youngsters doing that, at

least.I happen to believe the

story about Giotto and thecircle, by the way. Certainstories being gratifying tobelieve.I also believe I met

WilliamGaddisonce.HedidnotlookItalian.Conversely I do not

believe one word of what Iwrote,afewlinesago,aboutLeonardo da Vinci andAndreadelSartoandTaddeo

Gaddi never seeing snow,whichwasridiculous.Nor can I remember, any

longer,ifIhappenedontotheposter with my name on itbefore or after I saw the catattheColosseum.The cat at the Colosseum

was orange, if I have notindicated, and had lost aneye.In fact it was hardly your

most appealing cat, for allthatIwassoanxioustoseeit

again.Simon had a cat, once.

Which we could never seemtodecideonanamefor.Cat, being all we ever

calledit.Here, when the snows

come, the trees write astrange calligraphy againstthewhiteness. The sky itselfisoftenwhite,and thedunesare hidden, and the beach iswhite down to the water'sedge,aswell.

In a manner of speakingalmost everything I am abletosee,then,islikethatnine-footcanvasofmine,with itsopaque four white coats ofgesso.NowandagainIbuildfires

alongthebeach,however.Well, autumns,or inearly

spring, I am most apt to dothat.Once, after doing that, I

tore the pages out of a bookandlightedthosetoo,tossing

each page into the breeze toseeifthebreezemightmakeitfly.Mostofthepagesfellright

nexttome.The book was a life of

Brahms, which had beenstandingaskewononeoftheshelves here and which thedampness had leftpermanently misshapen.Although ithadbeenprintedon extraordinarily cheappapertobeginwith.

When I say that Isometimeshearmusic inmyhead, incidentally, I oftenevenknowwhosevoiceIamhearing,ifthemusicisvocalmusic.I do not rememberwho it

was yesterday forThe AltoRhapsody,however.I had not read the life of

Brahms. But I do believethere is one book in thishousewhichIdidread,sinceIcame.

As a matter of fact onecouldsaytwobooks,sinceitwas a two-volume editionoftheancientGreekplays.Although where I actually

read that book was in theotherhouse,fartherdownthebeach,which I burned to theground.TheonlybookIhavelooked into in this house isan atlas, wishing to remindmyselfwhereSavonais.As a matter of fact I did

that not ten minutes ago,

when I decided to bring thepainting of the house backouthere.Which I now cannot be

positive is a painting of thishouse, or of a house that issimply very much like thishouse.The atlas was on a shelf

directly behind where thepaintinghadbeenleaning.And directly beside a life

of Brahms, printed onextraordinarily cheap paper

andstandingaskewinsuchaway that it has becomepermanentlymisshapen.Presumably itwasanother

book altogether, from whichItorethepagesandsetfiretothem, inwishing to simulateaseagull.Unless of course there

were two lives ofBrahms inthis house, both printed oncheap paper and both ruinedbydampness.Kathleen Ferrier is who

was singingThe AltoRhapsody.I assume I do not have to

explain that any version ofany music that comes intomy head would be theversion I was once mostfamiliarwith.In SoHo, my recording of

The Alto Rhapsodywas anold Kathleen Ferrierrecording.And now that strand of

tape is scratching at the

window in the next roomagain, again sounding like acat.One does not name a

seagull.Once,whenIwaslistening

to myself read the Greekplaysout loud,certainof thelines sounded as if they hadbeen written under theinfluence of WilliamShakespeare.One had to be quite

perplexed as to how

AeschylusorEuripidesmighthavereadShakespeare.I did remember an

anecdote, about some otherGreek author, who hadremarked that if he could bepositive of a life after deathhe would happily hanghimself to see Euripides.Basically this did not seemrelevant,however.Finally it occurred to me

that the translator had nodoubtreadShakespeare.

Normally I would notconsider that a memorableinsight, except for the factthat I was otherwiseundeniably mad at the timewhenIreadtheplays.As amatter of fact I only

now realize that I may nothave been cooking after all,when I burned that otherhousetotheground,butmaywell have burned it in theprocessofdroppingthepagesof The Trojan Women into

the fire after I had finishedreadingtheirreversesides.Conversely I have no idea

whyIwouldhavestatedthatitwasalifeofBrahmsIhadset fire to, out on the beach,when it was not tenminutesearlier that I hadnoticed thelife of Brahms next to theatlas behind where thepaintingwas.Certain questions would

appearunanswerable.Such as, in addition, what

my fathermay have thoughtabout, looking through oldsnapshots and then lookingintothemirror thathadbeenbesidemymother'sbed.Or whether one would

have ever arrived at thecastle or not, had onecontinuedtofollowthatsameroad.Well, in that case

doubtless there wasultimatelyacutoff.To the castle, a signmust

havesaid.In a Jeep, one could have

maneuvered directly up thehillside, insteadof followingtheroad.Meanwhile one does not

spend any time viewingcastlesinLaManchawithoutbeing reminded of DonQuixotealso,ofcourse.Any more than one can

spendtimeinToledowithoutbeing reminded ofElGreco,even if it happens that El

GrecowasnotSpanish.All too often one hears of

himspokenofas ifhewere,however.ThefamousSpanishartists

such as Velazquez orZurbaran or El Greco, beingthe sort of thing that onehears.One hardly ever hears of

him being spoken of as aGreek,ontheotherhand.The famous Greek artists

such as Phidias or

Theophanes the Greek or ElGreco,beingthesortofthingthatonealmostneverhears.Yet it is not beyond

imagining thatElGrecowasevendirectlydescendedfromsome of those other Greeks,whenonestopstothinkaboutit.Surely itwould have been

easytolosetrack,insomanyyears.Butwho is to say thatit might not go back evenfarther than that, to

somebody likeAchilles,whynot?I am almost certain that

Helenhadat least one child,atanyrate.Now the painting does

appeartobeofthishouse.As a matter of fact there

alsoappears tobe somebodyat theverywindow,upstairs,from which I watch thesunset.Ihadnotnoticedheratall,

beforethis.

If it is a she. Thebrushwork is fairly abstract,at that point, so that there islittle more than a hint ofanybody,really.Still, it is interesting to

speculatesuddenlyaboutjustwhomight be lurking atmybedroomwindowwhile I amtyping down here rightbelow.Well, and on thewall just

aboveand to the sideofme,atthesametime.

Allofthisbeingmerelyina manner of speaking, ofcourse.Although I have also just

closedmyeyes,andsocouldadditionally say that for themoment the person was notonlybothupstairsandonthewall,butinmyheadaswell.Were I to walk outside to

where I can see thewindow,and do the same thing allover again, the arrangementcould become much more

complicatedthanthat.ForthatmatterIhaveonly

now noticed something elseinthepainting.The door that I generally

use, coming and going fromthefrontdeck,isopen.Not two minutes ago, I

happen to have closed thatsamedoor.Obviouslynoactionofmy

own, such as that, changesanythinginthepainting.Nonetheless I have again

justclosedmyeyes,tryingtosee if I could imagine thepaintingwith thedoor to thedeckclosed.Iwasnotable toclosethe

door to the deck in theversionofthepaintinginmyhead.Had I any pigments, I

could paint it closed in thepainting itself, should thisbegin to trouble meseriously.There are no painting

materialsinthishouse.Unquestionably there

wouldhavehadtobeallsortsofsuchmaterialshereatonetime,however.Well,withtheexceptionof

those that she carried to thedunes, where else would thepainterhavedepositedthem?Now I have made the

painterashe,also.Doubtlessbecause of my continuedsenseof itbeingasheat thewindow.

Butineithercaseonemaystill assume that there mustbe additional paintingmaterials insideof thehousein the painting, even if onecannotseeanyoftheminthepaintingitself.Asamatteroffactitisno

less possible that there areadditional people inside ofthehouseaswell, aboveandbeyond the woman at mywindow.Thenagain,verylikelythe

otherscouldbeat thebeach,since it is late on a summerafternoon in the canvas,although no later than fouro'clock.So that next one is forced

towonderwhythewomanatthewindowdidnotgotothebeachherself,forthatmatter.Although on second

thought I have decided thatthe woman may well be achild.So that perhaps she had

beenmadetoremainathomeasapunishment,afterhavingmisbehaved.Or perhaps she was even

ill.Possiblythereisnobodyat

thewindowinthecanvas.Atfouro'clockIwilltryto

estimateexactlywhereatthedunes the painter took herperspective,andthenseehowtheshadowsfall,upthere.Even if Iwillbeforced to

guess at when it is four

o'clock,therebeingnoclocksor watches in this house,either.All onewill have to do is

tomatchtherealshadowsonthe house with the paintedshadows in the painting,however.Although perhaps the real

shadowsatthewindowwhenIgooutwillnotsolveathinginregardtothepainting.PerhapsIwillnotgoout.Once, I believed I saw

somebody at a real window,whileIamonthesubject.In Athens, this was, and

while I was still looking,which made it something ofanoccurrence.Well. And even more so

than the cat at theColosseum,rather.As a matter of fact one

couldalsosee theAcropolis,frombesidetheverywindowinquestion.Whichwas in a street full

oftaverns.Still, when the sun had

gotten to the angle fromwhich Phidias had taken hisperspective, the Parthenonalmostseemedtoglow.Actually, the best time to

see that is generally also atfouro'clock.Doubtlessthetavernsfrom

whichonecould see thatdidbetter business than thetavernsfromwhichonecouldnot,infact,eventhoughthey

wereallinthesamestreet.Unlessofcourse the latter

were patronized by peoplewhohadlivedinAthenslongenough to have gotten tiredofseeingit.Such things can happen.

As in the case of Guy deMaupassant, who ate hisluncheverydayat theEiffelTower.Well, the point being that

this was the only place inParis fromwhich he did not

havetolookatit.For the life of me I have

noideahowIknowthat.Anymore than I have any ideahow I also happen to knowthatGuydeMaupassantlikedtorow.When I said that Guy de

Maupassant ate his lunchevery day at the EiffelTower, so that he did nothave to look at it, I meantthat it was the Eiffel Towerhe did not wish to look at,

naturally,andnothislunch.One's language being

frequently imprecise in suchways,Ihavediscovered.AlthoughIhavearowboat

ofmyown,asithappens.Nowandagain,Irowouta

gooddistance.Beyond the breakers, the

currents will do most of thework.The row back can be

difficult, however, if oneallowsone'sselftobecarried

toofar.Actually, the rowboat is

mysecondrowboat.The first rowboat

disappeared.Doubtless I had not

beached it securely enough.Onemorning,orpossiblyoneafternoon, it was simplygone.Some days afterward I

walked along the beachfarther than I had everwalkedbefore,but ithadnot

comeashore.It would scarcely be the

onlyboatadrift,ofcourse,ifitisstilladrift.Well,likethatketchinthe

Aegean,forstarters.Sometimes I like to

believeithasbeencarriedallof the way across the oceanbynow,however.AsfarastotheCanaryIslands,say,ortoCdiz,onthecoastofSpain.Well, or who is to argue

that itmightnothavegotten

toScyrositself,even?I do not remember the

nameofthestreetwithallofthosetavernsinit.Possibly I never knew the

namesofanyofthestreetsinAthens in either case, notspeakingonewordofGreek.When I say not speaking

oneword,Imeannotreadingoneeither,obviously.One would certainly wish

to conceive of theGreeks ashaving been imaginative in

thatregard,however.PenelopeAvenuebeingan

agreeable possibility, forinstance. Or CassandraStreet.At least there must have

been anAristotle Boulevard,surely. Or a HerodotusSquare.Why did I imply that it

was Phidias who built theParthenon when it wassomebodynamedIctinus?In spite of frequently

underlining sentences inbooks that had not beenassigned, I did well incollege,actually.So that one could even

generally identify the floorplans of such structures, onfinalexams.But so what poem am I

now thinking about, then,about singing birds sweet,being sold in the shops forthepeopletoeat?Being sold in the shops,

does it go, on StupidityStreet?IdonotbelieveIhaveever

mentioned Cassandra in anyof these pages before, cometo think about it. Let mename the street with thetaverns in it CassandraStreet.Cassandra certainly being

an appropriate name for astreet in which I believed Isaw somebody at a windowineithercase.

Well, and especiallylurkingatit.Or is it simply the notion

of somebody lurking at mywindow in the painting thathas made me make thisconnection?Still, lurking at such a

windowisexactlywhereoneis apt to visualizeCassandraafter Agamemnon hadbrought her back as one ofhis spoils from Troy, as amatteroffact.

Even while Clytemnestrais saying hello toAgamemnon and suggestinganicehotbath,one isapt tovisualizeherthatway.Well, but with Cassandra

also always able to seethings, of course. So thateven without a window tolurkat, shewouldhavesoonknown about those swordsnearthetub.Not that anybody ever

learned to pay any attention

to a word Cassandra eversaid,however.Well,thosemadtrancesof

hers.Norwouldtherehavebeen

a street inAthensnamed forher after all, obviously.Anymore than there would havebeen one named for Hector,orforParis.Then again it is not

impossible that people'ssentiments might change,aftersomanyyears.

At the intersection ofCassandra Street and ElGreco Road, at four o'clockin the afternoon, I sawsomebody at a window,lurking.There was nobody at the

window,whichwasawindowin a shop selling artists'supplies.It was a small stretched

canvas, coated with gesso,thathadhighlightedmyownreflectionasIpassed.

Still, how I nearly felt. Inthemidstofallthatlooking.Thoughasamatteroffact

where I saw my ownreflection may well havebeeninabookstorewindow.At any rate the two stores

were adjacent. The one withthe bookswas the one that Ichosetoletmyselfinto.All of the books in the

store were in Greek,naturally.Possiblysomefewofthem

were actually books that Ihad even read, in English,although naturally I wouldhavehadnowayofknowingwhichones.Possibly one of them was

even a Greek edition ofWilliamShakespeare'splays.Byatranslatorwhohadbeenunder the influence ofEuripides.Gesso has such a silly

look, for a word, when onetypesit.

It would have helped toprevent my canvases fromwarping if I had not shotholes into those skylights,obviously.Had the smokebackedup,

winters there at theMetropolitan would havebeendifficult,however.Actually one can be

saddened, letting one's selfintoastorefullofbooksandnotbeingabletorecognizeasingleone.

Thebookstoreonthestreetbelow the Acropolissaddenedme.AlthoughIhavenowmade

a categorical decision thatthepaintingisnotapaintingofthishouse.Assuredly, it is a painting

of the other house, fartherdown the beach, whichburned.To tell the truth I cannot

call thatotherhousetomindatall,anylonger.

Although perhaps thathouse and this house wereidentical.Orquitesimilar,atanyrate.Houses along a beach are

often that way, beingconstructed by people withbasicallysimilartastes.Thoughasamatteroffact

Icannotbeabsolutelycertainthat the painting is on thewall beside me any longeritself, since I am no longerlookingatit.

QuitepossiblyIputitbackinto the room with the atlasandthelifeofBrahms.Ihavea distinct suspicion that ithad entered my mind to dothat.Thepaintingisonthewall.And at least we have

verified that it was not thelifeofBrahms that I set firetothepagesfromalso,outonthebeach.UnlessasIhavesuggested

somebody in this house had

owned two lives of Brahms,both printed on cheap paperandbothruinedbydampness.Or two people had owned

them,which isperhapsmorelikely.Perhaps two people who

werenotparticularlyfriendlywith each other, in fact.Though both of whom wereinterestedinBrahms.Perhaps one of those was

the painter. Well, and theother the person in the

window,whynot?Perhaps the painter, being

a landscape painter, did notwishtopainttheotherpersonat all, actually. But perhapsthe other person insistedupon looking out of thewindowwhilethepainterwasatwork.Very possibly this could

have been what made themangry with each other tobeginwith.If the painter had closed

her eyes, or had simplyrefused to look, would theother person have still beenatthewindow?One might as well ask if

the house itself would havebeenthere.AndwhyhaveItroubledto

closemyowneyesagain?I am still feeling the

typewriter, naturally. Andhearingthekeys.Also I can feel the seatof

this chair, through my

underpants.Doing this out at the

dunes,thepainterwouldhavefelt the breeze.And a senseofthesunshine.Well, and she would have

heardthesurf.Yesterday, when I was

hearing Kirsten FlagstadsingingThe Alto Rhapsody,whatexactlywasIhearing?Winters, when the snow

covers everything, leavingonly that strange calligraphy

ofthespinesofthetrees,itisa little like closing one'seyes.Certainlyrealityisaltered.Onemorning you awaken,

and all color has ceased toexist.Everythingthatoneisable

tosee,then,islikethatnine-footcanvasofmine,with itsopaque four white coats ofplasterandglue.Ihavesaidthat.Still, it isalmostas ifone

mightpaint theentireworld,and in any manner onewished.Letting one's brushing

becomeabstractatawindow,ornot.Though perhaps it was

Cassandra whom I hadintended to portray to beginwith, on those forty-fivesquare feet, rather thanElectra.Even if a part I have

alwayslikediswhenOrestes

finally comes back, after somanyyears,andElectradoesnot recognize her ownbrother.Whatdoyouwant,strange

man? I believe this is whatElectrasaystohim.Well, it is theopera that I

am thinking about now, Isuspect.At the intersection of

Richard Strauss Avenue andJohannes Brahms Road, atfouro'clockintheafternoon,

somebodycalledmyname.You?Canthatbeyou?Imagine!And here, of all

places!Itwasonly theParthenon,

I am quite certain, sobeautiful in the afternoonsun,thathadtouchedachord.In Greece, no less, from

where all arts and all storiescame.Still, for a time I almost

wishedtoweep.Perhaps I did weep, that

oneafternoon.Though perhaps it was

wearinesstoo,behindtheveilof madness that hadprotectedme,andwhich,thatafternoon,hadslippedaway.One afternoonyou see the

Parthenon, andwith that oneglance your madness hasmomentarilyslippedaway.Weeping, you walk the

streets whose names you donot know, and somebodycallsoutafteryou.

I ran into an alley, whichwasactuallyacul-de-sac.Surelythatisyou!I also had a weapon. My

pistol,fromtheskylights.Well,when Iwas looking,

Ialmostalwayscarriedthat.Looking indesperation, as

Ihavesaid.But still, never knowing

justwhomonemightfind,aswell.Not until dusk did I

emergefromthecul-de-sac.

And saw my ownreflectionbehindthewindowof an artists' supplies shop,highlighted there against asmallstretchedcanvas.To tell the truth,onebook

in the shopnextdoor to thatone did happen to be inEnglish.This was a guide to the

birds of SouthernConnecticut andLong IslandSound.IsleptinthecarthatIwas

making use of at the time.Which was a Volkswagenvan, filled with musicalinstruments.Kathleen Ferrier had very

possibly died even before Ihad purchased that oldrecording,Inowbelieve.I have forgotten whatever

point I might have intendedtomake bymentioning that,however.Veil of madness was a

terribly pretentious phrase

formetohavewritten,too.The next morning I drove

counterclockwise, amongmountains, toward Sparta,whichIwishedtovisitbeforedepartingGreece.Not thinking to look into

thebookonbirdsforwhat itmight have told me aboutseagulls.Halfway to Sparta, I got

myperiod.Throughout my life, my

period has always managed

tosurpriseme.Even in spite of my

generally havingbeenout ofsorts for some daysbeforehand, this is, which Iwill almost invariably haveattributedtoothercauses.Sodoubtlessitwasnotthe

Parthenon which had mademeweepafterall.Or even necessarily my

madnesstemporarilyslippingaway.Already, obviously, the

otherhadbeencomingon.And so somebody called

myname.Istilldomenstruatetoday,

incidentally,ifirregularly.Or else I will stain. For

weeksonend.But then may not do so

againformonths.There is naturally nothing

in theIliad,or in any of theplays, about anybodymenstruating.Or in theOdyssey.So

doubtless a woman did notwritethatafterall.Before I was married, my

motherdiscoveredthatTerryandIweresleepingtogether.Was there anybody else

before Terry? This was oneof the first questions mymotherthenaskedme.I told her that there had

been.DoesTerryknow?Isaidyestothat,also.Oh you young fool, my

mothersaid.AstheyearspassedIoften

felt a great sadness, overmuch of the life that mymotherhadlived.What do any of us ever

trulyknow,however?I can think of no reason

why this should remind meof the timewhen havingmyperiod caused me to falldown the central staircase inthe Metropolitan and breakmyankle.

Actually it may not havebeen broken but onlysprained.The next morning it was

swollen to twice its normalsizenonetheless.One moment I had been

halfway up the stairs, and amoment after that I wasmakingbelieveIwasIcarus.WhatIhadbeendoingwas

carryingthatmonstrosityofacanvas, which wasextraordinarilyunwieldy.

How one carries such amonstrosity is by grippingthe crossbars between thestretchers, at its back,meaningthatonehasnowaywhatsoever of seeing whereoneisgoing.Still, I had believed Iwas

managing.Untilsuchtimeastheentirecontraptionfloatedawayfromme.Possibly it was a wind,

which caused that, sincethere were many more

broken windows in themuseum than those I hadbroken on purpose, by thattime.Presumably it was a wind

from below, in fact, sincewhatthecanvasseemedtodowastoriseupinfrontofme.And then to rise up somemore.Remarkablysoonafterthat

it was underneath me,however.Thepainwasexcruciating.

Iamgushing,beingwhatIthought at first, however.And I do not even haveunderpants on, under thiswraparoundskirt.To tell the truth, when I

hadactuallythoughtthathadbeen perhaps two secondsearlier.Andsohadshiftedtheway

in which I was standing,naturally,toclosemythighs.Forgetting for the same

instant that I was carrying

forty-five square feet ofcanvas, on stretchers, up astonestairway.In retrospect it does not

even become unlikely thattherehadbeennowindafterall.And naturally all of this

had occurred with whatseemed no warningwhatsoever,either.Although doubtless I had

been feeling out of sorts forsome days, which I would

have invariably laid to othercauses.The museum of course

possessedcrutches, andevenwheelchairs, for just suchemergencies.Well, perhaps not for

exactlyjustsuch.All of these were on the

main floor, in any event,along with other first aiditems.It would have been

inordinately easier forme to

crawltothetopofthestairs,ratherthantothebottom.Mostofmyaccouterments

were down there too,however. I believe I havementioned having stillpossessed accouterments, inthosedays.As it turnedout, Ibecame

astonishingly adept atmaneuvering my wheelchairinnexttonotime.Skitteringfromoneendof

themainfloortotheother,in

fact,whenthemoodtookme.From the Greek and

Roman antiquities to theEgyptian, or whoosh! andherewegoroundtheTempleofDendur.Often even withmusic by

Berlioz, or Igor Stravinsky,toaccompanymyself.Now and again, the same

anklestillpainsme.This is generally only in

regard to the weather,actually.

ForthelifeofmeIcannotremember what I had beentrying to get that canvas upthestairwayfor,ontheotherhand.Topainton it,wouldbea

naturalsupposition.Then again, after not

having painted on it formonths,perhapsIhadwishedto put it someplace where Iwould not have to becontinually reminded that Ihadnotdoneso.

Acanvasninefeettallandfive feet wide being hardlyyour most easily ignoredreminder.Doubtless I had had

something in mind, at anyrate.Thereisatapedeckinthe

pickuptruckhere,nowthatIthinkaboutit.There would appear to be

notapes,however.Once, changing vehicles

beside some tennis courts at

Bayonne, in France, I turnedan ignition key and foundmyself hearing theFourSeriousSongs,byBrahms.Though I am possibly

thinking about theFour LastSongs,byRichardStrauss.In either event it was not

KathleenFerriersinging.Actually, a fairly high

percentage of the vehiclesthat one comes upon willhave tape decks, many stillsettotheonposition.

Rarely would it occur tometogivethisanyattention,however.Obviously, one's chief

interest at such momentswould concern whether thebattery on hand stillfunctioned.Assumingonehadalready

determined that there was akey in the vehicle, andgasoline.Kirsten Flagstad was

singing, at Bayonne. Which

wasinfactBordeaux.To tell the truth, one was

generallypleasedenoughthata car was moving so as tohave driven some distancebefore noticing whether atapedeckwasplayingornot.Or at least to have gotten

clear of whatever obstacleshad made it necessary toswitchvehiclestobeginwith.Often,bridgescausedsuch

switching. One solitarynuisancecarcan renderyour

averagebridgeimpassable.ForsomeyearsInormally

troubled to transfer mybaggage fromone vehicle tothe next, aswell. On certaintrips I even thought to carryalongahandtruck.When I was living at the

Metropolitan I towed clear anumberofmy access routes,finally.Well, or sometimes made

use of a Land Rover, andcameorwentdirectlyacross

thelawnsinCentralPark.There is no longer any

problem in regard to myhusband's name, by theway.Even if I never saw himagain, once we separatedafterSimondied.Asamatteroffactthereis

ahandtruckinthebasementofthishouse.It is not one of my own,

since I rarely make use ofsuchcontrivancesanylonger.Rather it was there when I

came.There are eight or nine

cartons of books in thebasementalso, inaddition tothe many books in thevariousroomsuphere.The hand truck is badly

rusted, as are the severalbicycles.Thebasementisevenmore

damp than the remainder ofthe house. I leave that doorclosed.The entrance to the

basementisattherearofthehouse, and below a sandyembankment, so that onedoes not see that in thepainting.The perspective in the

painting having been takenfrom out in front, if I havenotindicatedthat.Thereareseveralbaseballs

in the basement also, on aledge.There is also a

lawnmower,althoughthereis

only one exceedingly smallpatchofgrass,atonesideofthehouse,thatIcanimagineeverhavingbeenmowed.That patch, on the other

hand, does appear to bediscernibleinthepainting.I can see now that it had,

in fact, been mowed at thetimewhenthepainterpaintedit.The things one tardily

becomesawareof.Which reminds me that I

am now convinced that thesentence that came into myhead yesterday, or the daybefore yesterday, aboutwanderingthroughanendlessnothingness, was written byFriedrichNietzsche.Even if I am equally

convinced that I have neverreadasinglewordwrittenbyFriedrichNietzsche.I do believe that I once

r e a dWuthering Heights,however, which I mention

because all that I seem ableto remember about it is thatpeople are continuallylookinginoroutofwindows.The book called the

Pen s e e swas written byPascal,bytheway.I also believe I have not

indicated that this is anotherdayoftyping,whichiswhyIexpressed hesitation as towhether quoting FriedrichNietzsche had occurredyesterday or the day before

yesterday.Ididnotmakeanysortof

note about where I stopped,simply leaving that sheet inthemachine.Possibly I stopped at the

point where I came to thebaseballs in the basement,since the topic of baseballhasalwaysboredme.Afterward I went for a

walk along the beach, as faras the other house, whichburned.

Yesterday's sunset was aVincent Van Gogh sunset,with a certain amount ofanxietyinit.PerhapsIamonlythinking

aboutstreaks.I have more than once

wondered why the books inthebasementarenotupstairswiththeothers,actually.There is space. Many of

the shelves up here are halfempty.AlthoughdoubtlesswhenI

say they are half empty Ishould really be saying theyare half filled, sincepresumablytheyweretotallyempty before somebody halffilledthem.Then again it is not

impossible that they wereonce filled completely,becoming half empty onlywhen somebody removedhalf of the books to thebasement.I find this second

possibility less likely thanthe first, although it is notutterlybeyondconsideration.In either event thepresent

state of the shelves is anexplanationforwhysomanyofthebooksinthehousearetilted, or standing askew.And thus have becomepermanentlymisshapen.Baseball When the Grass

Was Real is actually thename of one of those, Ibelieve.

In thatcaseone isat leastmade halfway curious aboutthe meaning of the title, Imustadmit.Less than inordinately

curious, baseball remainingbaseball,butatleasthalfwaycurious.Asamatteroffactperhaps

I will mow my own grass,which is undeniably real,even if it is inordinatelyovergrown.I cannot mow the grass.

Not with the lawnmowerbeing as badly rusted as thehandtruckandthebicycles.I have other bicycles,

actually.Oneisdoubtlessbesidethe

pickuptruck.Anothermaybeat the gas station, in thetown.Therewasabicycle in the

cul-de-sac beneath theAcropolis, come to thinkaboutit.Perhaps the books in the

basement are duplicatebooks.Like the two lives of

Brahms, thatwouldbe.Evenifbothofthosewouldappeartohavebeenupstairs.There is nobody at the

windowinthepaintingofthehouse,bytheway.Ihavenowconcluded that

what I believed to be apersonisashadow.If it is not a shadow, it is

perhapsacurtain.

Asamatteroffactitcouldactually be nothing morethan an attempt to implydepths,withintheroom.Although in a manner of

speaking all that is really inthe window is burnt siennapigment. And some yellowochre.In fact there isnowindow

either, in that same mannerofspeaking,butonlyshape.So that any few

speculations I may have

madeabout thepersonat thewindowwouldthereforenowappear to be renderedmeaningless,obviously.Unless of course I

subsequently becomeconvinced that there issomebody at the window alloveragain.Ihaveputthatbadly.WhatIintendedtosaywas

that I may possibly becomenewlyconvincedthatthereissomebody at the window,

hardly that somebody whohad been at the window hasgone away but might comeback.In either case it remains a

fact that no alteredperception of my own, suchasthisone,changesanythinginthepainting.So thatperhapsmyearlier

speculations remain validafterall.Ihaveverylittleideawhat

Imeanbythat.

Onecanscarcelyspeculateaboutapersonwhen there isnopersontospeculateabout.Yet there is no way of

denying that one did makesuchspeculations.Twodaysago,whenIwas

hearing Kathleen Ferrier,whatexactlywasIhearing?Yesterday, when I was

speculatingaboutapersonatthe window in the painting,what exactly was Ispeculatingabout?

Ihavejustputthepaintingback into the room with theatlasandthelifeofBrahms.As amatter of fact I have

now also had another night'ssleep.I mention that, this time,

only because in amanner ofspeaking one could now saythat it has this quicklybecome the day aftertomorrow.Certain questions would

still continue to appear

unanswerable,however.Such as, for instance, if I

have concluded that there isnothing in the paintingexcept shapes, am I alsoconcluding that there isnothing on these pagesexcept letters of thealphabet?Ifoneunderstoodonly the

Greek alphabet, what wouldbeonthesepages?Doubtless, in Russia, I

drove right past St.

Petersburg without knowingitwasSt.Petersburg.As a matter of fact Anna

Karenina could have drivenrightpastwithoutknowingitwasSt.Petersburgeither.Seeing a sign indicating

Stalingrad, how wouldAnnaKarenina have been able totell?Especially since the sign

would have more likelyindicatedLeningrad?I have obviously now lost

my train of thoughtaltogether.Once, Robert

Rauschenbergerasedmostofa drawing by Willem deKooning, and then named itEraseddeKooningDrawing.I am in no way certain

what this is connected toeither, but I suspect it isconnected to more than Ionce believed it to beconnectedto.RobertRauschenbergcame

to my loft in SoHo oneafternoon, actually. I do notremember that he erasedanything.The reason for one of my

bicycles being at the gasstation is that I sometimesdecide to walk home, afterhavingriddensomewhere.Although what I really

decidedthatdaywastobringback kerosene, which wasdifficulttoridewith.Isaywasdifficult, instead

of is difficult, since I nolonger carry kerosene, nolonger making use of thoselamps.When I stopped making

use of them was after Iknockedovertheonethatsetfire to the other house,although doubtless I havementionedthis.One moment I was

adjusting the wick, and amoment after that the entirebedroomwasablaze.

Thesebeachhousesareallwood, of course.All I coulddo was sit at the dunes andwatchitburn.For most of the night the

entireskywasHomeric.It was on that same night

thatmyrowboatdisappeared,as ithappened,although thatisperhapsbesidethepoint.One hardly pays attention

to a missing rowboat whenone'shouse isburning to theground.

Still, there it was, nolongeronthebeach.Sometimes I like to

believe that it has beencarried all of theway acrosstheoceanbynow, to tell thetruth.As far as to the island of

Lesbos, say. Or to Ithaca,even.Frequently, certain objects

wash up onto the shore herethat could well have beencarried just as far in the

opposite direction, as amatteroffact.Such as my stick, for

instance, which I sometimestakewithmewhenIwalk.Doubtless the stick served

some other purpose thansimply being taken along onwalks, at one time. One cannolongerguessatwhatotherpurpose,however,becauseofthe way it has been wornsmoothbywaves.NowandagainIhavealso

madeuseofthesticktowriteinthesandwith,actually.InfactIhaveevenwritten

inGreek.Well, or in what looked

like Greek, although I wasactuallyonlyinventingthat.What I would write were

messages, to tell the truth,like the ones I sometimesusedtowriteinthestreet.Somebodyislivingonthis

beach, the messages wouldsay.

Obviouslyitdidnotmatterby then that the messageswere only in an inventedwriting that nobody couldread.Actually, nothing that I

wrote was ever still therewhenIwentbackinanycase,alwaysbeingwashedaway.Still, if I have concluded

that there is nothing in thepainting except shapes, am Ialso concluding that therewas not even invented

writing in the sand, but onlygroovesfrommystick?Doubtless the stick was

originally nothing moreinterestingthanthehandleofacarpetsweeper.Once, when I had set it

aside to drag a piece ofdriftwood along the beach, IworriedthatImighthavelostit.WhenIlookedbackitwas

standing upright, however,whereIhadhadtheforesight

to place it without reallypayingattention.Then again it is quite

possible that the question oflosshadnotenteredmyminduntil I was already in theprocess of looking back,whichis tosaythat thestickwasalreadynot lostbefore Ihadworriedthatitmightbe.Iamnotparticularlyhappy

overthisnewhabitofsayingthings that I have very littleideawhat Imean by saying,

totellthetruth.It was somebody named

Ralph Hodgson, who wrotethe poem about the birdsbeing sold in the shops forpeopletoeat.I do not remember that I

ever readanyotherpoembyRalphHodgson.I do remember that

Leonardo da Vinci used tobuy such birds, however, inFlorence, and then let themoutoftheircages.

AndthatHelenofTroydidhave at least one daughter,namedHermione.And that Leonardo also

thought up a method toprevent the Arno fromoverflowing its banks, towhichnobodyobviouslypaidanyattention.For that matter Leonardo

at least once put snow intooneofhispaintingstoo,evenifIcannotrememberwhetherAndrea del Sarto or Taddeo

Gaddieverdid.In addition to which,

Rembrandt's pupils used topaintgold coinson the floorofhis studio andmake themlook so real that Rembrandtwouldstooptopickthemup,althoughIamuncertainastowhy this reminds me ofRobertRauschenbergagain.I have always harbored

sinceredoubtsthatHelenwasthecauseof thatwar,by theway.

AsingleSpartangirl,afterall.As a matter of fact the

wholethingwasundeniablyamercantile proposition. Allten years of it, just to seewho would pay tariff towhom, so as to be able tomake use of a channel ofwater.A different poet, named

Rupert Brooke, died in theDardanelles during the firstWorldWar, even if I do not

believe that I rememberedthis when I visited theDardanelles,bywhichImeantheHellespont.Still,Ifinditextraordinary

thatyoungmendiedthereinawarthatlongago,andthendied in the same place threethousandyearsafterthat.Andonsecondthoughtthe

gold coins that Rembrandt'spupilspaintedonthefloorofhis studio are exactlywhat IwastalkingaboutwhenIwas

talking about RobertRauschenberg.Or rather what I was

talking about when I wastalkingaboutthepersonwhois not at the window in thepaintingofthishouse.The coins having only

been coins until Rembrandtbentover.Which did not deter me

from rigging up a generatorand floodlights in theColosseum,however.

Or from being shrewdenough to call the catCalpurnia, after havinggottennorespons