David Markson - Wittgenstein's Mistress

Many of the tennis balls did not bounce very well in spite of having been in cans.

Or perhaps this was because of the grass, growing through the surface of the courts.

To tell the truth I had never been especially proficient at tennis in either case.

In fact I had almost never played tennis.

All of the balls are still at the side of the road, by the way. Frequently I notice them in going or coming from the town.

Well, I noticed them just the other day.

There are the tennis balls I hit that afternoon, was what I thought.

Happily, this is not the same thing as noticing smoke and thinking, there is my house, since what I am noticing in such instances are always real tennis balls.

One finds it agreeable to be positive as to what one is talking about at least part of the time.

I have not forgotten Kirsten Flagstad.

After I had stopped hitting the tennis balls I was quite sweaty.

There were several vehicles parked nearby.

Often, the air-conditioning in certain vehicles will still function.

Had I been at the beach, I would have gone into the ocean.

Not being at the beach, I started one of the vehicles.

Kirsten Flagstad was singing the Four Last Songs, by Strauss.

This will happen. One turns a key in an ignition, thinking only about starting the vehicle, or in this case about starting the air-conditioning, and one does not notice that the tape deck is set to the on position at all.

I have often been perplexed as to why they were called the Four Last Songs, by the way.

Well, doubtless they were called the Four Last Songs because that was what they were.

Still, one can scarcely visualize a composer sitting down and saying, now I am going to write my four last songs.

Or even lying down, and saying that.

Although perhaps this is not impossible. One finds it quite unlikely, but perhaps it is not impossible.

In either event it may have been Kathleen Ferrier singing.

And the songs may have been the Four Serious Songs, by Brahms.

Ever since Lucia di Lammermoor I have refused to make hasty decisions about such matters.

Brahms has never been my favorite composer, incidentally.

Granting that Brahms has been mentioned any number of times in these pages.

Though in fact Brahms has not been mentioned that great a number of times in these pages.

What has more frequently been mentioned is a life of Brahms, which is perhaps called A Life of Brahms, or The Life of Brahms, or possibly Brahms.

Among other alternatives.

In fact what has actually been mentioned are several lives of Brahms.

Lives of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky have been mentioned as well.

As has a history of music, written for children and printed in extraordinarily large type.

Additionally, I have mentioned listening to Igor Stravinsky while skittering from one end of the main floor of the Metro- politan Museum to the other in my wheelchair.

All of this has been purely happenstance.

The fact that I have also mentioned a book about baseball is surely not to be construed as implying that I possess any enthusiasm for baseball.

To tell the truth I do not believe I have a favorite composer.

Curiously, however, for a certain period not too long ago, all that I was ever able to hear was The Seasons, by Vivaldi.

Even when I would be positive I had something else in mind, The Seasons would be repeatedly what I heard.

Such things can happen.

They can happen with art just as readily.

Now and again I will be convinced that I am thinking about a certain painting, for instance, and what will come into my head will be a different painting altogether.

Just the other morning this happened with The Descent from the Cross, by Rogier van der Weyden.

Right at this moment I can see that painting.

Doubtless this is only natural, since I am again thinking about it.

Even if I had not been thinking about it, for that matter, certainly I would have had to begin to do so when I typed those last few sentences.

Nonetheless, when I was thinking about it just the other morning, I did not see The Descent from the Cross at all.

What I saw was that painting by Jan Vermeer of a young woman asleep at a table in the Metropolitan Museum.

There I go again.

Obviously, the young woman is no more asleep at a table in the Metropolitan Museum than Maria Callas was undressed at that embankment near Savona.

The young woman is asleep in a painting in the Metropolitan Museum.

There is something wrong with that sentence too, of course.

There being no young woman either, but only a representation of one.

Which is again why I am generally delighted to see the tennis balls.

But all I had started to say, in either case, was that I had not been thinking about that particular painting at all, even though that was the painting that came into my head.

Although what I was more specifically trying to solve was why I would keep on hearing The Seasons, by Vivaldi, even when I was thinking about Les Troyens, by Berlioz, say. Or about The Alto Rhapsody,

For that matter why am I now suddenly seeing an interior by Jan Steen when I would have sworn I was thinking about one painting by Rogier van der Weyden and still another by Jan Vermeer?

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

Well, and Vermeer was neglected for even longer.

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

Vivaldi also had red hair.

As did Odysseus.

The things one knows.

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

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

In spite of the windows having been washed nearby.

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

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

Shapes do not have religion.

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

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

I have just realized something else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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