David Markson - Wittgenstein's Mistress

Or with nobody paying attention to a word one ever said.

Although one continued to take still other lovers, naturally.

And then to separate from other lovers.

Leaves having blown in, or fluffy Cottonwood seeds.

Or then again one sometimes merely fucked, too, with whomever.

Time out of mind.

While next it was one's mother who died, and then one's father.

And one even took away the tiny, pocket sort of mirror from beside one's beautiful mother's bed, in which she and her image had both been equidistant from what lay ahead.

Although perhaps it was one's father, who had no longer wished her to perceive that distance.

Even if I have seen my mother's image in my own, in the one mirror in this house as well, incidentally.

On each of those occasions having always made the assumption that such illusions are quite ordinary, however, and come with age.

Which is to say that they are not even illusions, heredity being heredity.

Then again having never painted any sort of portrait of poor Lucien at all, on the other hand.

Though there is the framed snapshot of him in the drawer beside my own bed upstairs, of course.

Kneeling to pet Gato.

And he is obviously in my head.

But then what is there that is not in my head?

So that it is like a bloody museum, sometimes.

Or as if I have been appointed the curator of all the world.

Well, as I was, as in a manner of speaking I undeniably am.

Even if every artifact in it ought to have made me even more surprised than I turned out to be at not having thought about Magritte until I did, actually.

And so that even the very marker that Adam had promised to place beside the grave when I did not stay on for that had been in my head for all of those years before I went back, as well.

Without there ever having been a marker.

God, the things men used to do.

What do any of us ever truly know, however?

And at least as I started to say I certainly did finally understand what it was that had made me feel depressed.

Last Tuesday.

When all I had been doing was lying in the sun after the rain had stopped and thinking about cats, or so I believed.

Although to tell the truth I do not very frequently allow such things to happen.

By which I hardly mean thinking about cats.

What I am talking about is thinking about things from as long ago as before I was alone, obviously.

Even if one can hardly control one's thinking in such a way as not to allow anything that happened more than ten years ago to come into it.

Certainly I have thought about Lucien before, for instance.

Or about certain of my lovers, like Simon or Vincent or Ludwig or Terry.

Or even about as early as the seventh grade when I almost wanted to cry because I knew, knew, that Odysseus's dog could certainly catch that tortoise.

Well, and doubtless I have thought about the time when my mother was asleep and I did not wish to wake her and so wrote I love you with my lipstick on that same tiny mirror, as well.

Having intended to sign it Artemisia, except that I ran out of room.

You will never know how much it has meant to me that you are an artist, Helen, my mother having said, the very afternoon before.

But the truth of the matter being that I did not intend to repeat one bit of that just now, actually.

In fact when I finally did solve why I had been feeling depressed what I told myself was that if necessary I would simply never again allow myself to put down any of such things at all.

As if in a manner of speaking one were no longer able to speak one solitary word of Long Ago.

So that even if it were not until right at this instant that I were to first remember having written to Jacques Levi-Strauss, say, I would no longer put something like that down, likewise.

One scarcely having been able to write to Jacques Levi-Strauss or to any single other person unless it had been before one was alone, obviously.

Any more than Willem de Kooning could have been at one's studio to dictate such letters to begin with.

Or Robert Rauschenberg could have been there to correct their mistakes.

Or its, since there was really only the one letter.

With Xerox copies.

To all of those additional people.

Who were obviously still someplace, too.

Except that what I also realized in making such a decision was that it would certainly leave me with very little else to write about.

Especially if even in writing about such harmless items as pets I could still wind up thinking about meningitis, for instance. Or cancer.

Or at any rate feeling the way I did.

So that what I realized almost simultaneously, in fact, was that quite possibly I might have to start right from the beginning and write something different altogether.

Such as a novel, say.

Although there is perhaps an implication in those few sentences that I did not intend.

Well, which is to say that people who write novels only write them when they have very little else to write.

Any number of people who write novels no doubt taking their work quite seriously, in fact.

Although when I say write or taking, I should really be saying wrote or having taken, naturally.

Well, as I have only just explained.

But in either case doubtless when Dostoievski was writing about Rainer Maria Raskolnikov he took Rainer Maria Raskolnikov quite seriously.

Well, or as Lawrence of Arabia undeniably did when he was writing about Don Quixote.

Or just look at how many people might have gone through life believing that castles in Damascus was just a phrase, for instance.

Still, what happened next was that I realized just as quickly that writing a novel would not be the answer anyhow.

Or certainly not when your ordinary novel is basically expected to be about people too, obviously.

And which is to say about certainly a good number more people than just one, also.

In fact without ever having read one word of that same novel by Dostoievski I would readily be willing to wager that Rainer Maria Raskolnikov is hardly the only person in it.

Or that Anna Akhmatova is the only person in Anna Karenina, as well.

So that as I say, there went my novel practically even before I had a chance to start thinking about a novel.

Unless on third thought it just might change matters if I were to make it an absolutely autobiographical novel?

Hm.

Because what I am also suddenly now thinking about is that it could be an absolutely autobiographical novel that would not start until after I was alone, obviously.

And so that obviously there could be no way whatsoever that it could be expected to have more than one person in it after all.

Even though I would still have to remember to keep out of my head while I was writing any of that also, of course.

But still.

As a matter of fact it might even be an interesting novel, in its way.

Which is to say a novel about somebody who woke up one Wednesday or Thursday to discover that there was apparently not one other person left in the world.

Well, or not even one seagull, either.

Except for various vegetables and flowers, conversely.

Certainly that would be an interesting beginning, at any rate. Or at least for a certain type of novel.

Just imagine how the heroine would feel, however, and how full of anxiety she would be.

And with every bit of that being real anxiety in this instance, too, as opposed to various illusions.

Such as from hormones. Or from age.

Even though her entire situation might certainly often seem like an illusion on its own part, paradoxically.

So that soon enough she would be quite mad, naturally.

Still, the next part of the novel would be about how she would insist upon going to look for other people in all sorts of places whether she was quite mad or not.