Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

Then — We lay like a seed, you and I, beneath that tree; that might stay alive all winter.

I had one or two letters from you, my beautiful German girl. But they were like hard flashes from a sword that came up from that dark lake. Well, why do you think it was so long before we saw each other again? There is a proper fear.

Dearest Max,

Here we have some excitement because Bruno (you remember Bruno?) has been working with his professor on some of the unpublished manuscripts of Karl Marx, and they have been finding results that are, to say the least, surprising. It appears that in these manuscripts (written in Paris in 1844) Marx is by no means the materialist and anti-spiritualist that has been supposed (is 'anti-spiritualist' the word? I was taught English by my German governess, Miss Henne). Marx says it is the capitalist world that is materialist and anti-spiritualist in that its only criterion is money: it is he, Karl Marx, who works for man's spiritual liberation. This can be achieved by the recognition that a man is what he does: in his work he can be an artist.

Of course, Marx himself in later writings was somewhat responsible for the idea that he was anti-spiritualist: perhaps it was necessary for this earlier part of his work to have remained hidden?

So much of what is guarded by a prophet's followers is perverted! This has been the experience of the Christian churches, no?

Can you give me the source of your quotation about Jesus saying he teaches in parables so that people may not understand and be saved.

I have met Bertolt Brecht. He is a small man who smells. Women say they find his smell attractive. He too seems to be saying something quite different from what people think he is saying. He says he is a Marxist. Do you think it might be to protect himself (by making himself attractive?) that he smells?

Here we have been in some ferment because the Nazis obtained six and a half million votes at the last election and now are the second largest party in the Reichstag. There are still people who, like you, say that the Nazis may turn out to be something different from what they say. But if this is so, it will not be because they are clever. At the moment people don't believe them (because they themselves are stupid) when they say they want to kill Jews.

I am interested in what you say about Wittgenstein: what do people at Cambridge say of the connections between Wittgenstein and Heidegger?

There is a chance that I may come to England later this year. I am one of a group here planning to make a pilgrimage to English locations of Engels and Karl Marx. Do not laugh: if I do not come to England, tell me how I can see you. I suppose our route will hardly pass through Cambridge. Could you come to London for a day?

Max, I do not know how to write this. I found your last letter very formal.

Yes, I know there are things that defeat themselves if they are said.

But you have much love from your

Elena

I walked around with this letter in a pocket next to my heart. I felt — Oh my beautiful German girl! But you know I am yours! No matter what is the business of touch, taste, smell.

Sometime in the spring (this was 1931: unemployment in England had risen to nearly three million; there was talk of the payments to the unemployed being cut) I learned that there was to be a lunch party at the house of some friends of my father's at which Wittgenstein was going to be present. I had continued to have this image of Wittgenstein as someone whom it was necessary for me to meet: it was as if he were a figure that I had to learn something from at a corner of the maze. I thought I might ask him (though I

did not think I would — Can two people be together in those areas of silence: or do you have to be on your own -

— But all human relationships are not like sitting in the front row of a cinema?

I got myself invited to this lunch party through the host being a friend of my father's; I understood that Donald had not been invited. I wondered — Will he be hurt? Then — But these games people play are ridiculous.

Now that it was spring there were people in punts as Donald and I walked by the river. I said 'You say that Wittgenstein's new philosophy is to do with the games that we play. I mean, does he suggest that all language is a game?'

Donald said as if quoting ' — It is as if we are looking through spectacles and always describing the frames — '

I said 'But if we realise this — '

Donald said 'Don't you think that there would still be a game on a different level?'

Punts floated on the river. Boys with poles leaned over girls who lay in the bottoms of the punts like queen bees. I thought — But it would be a worthwhile game.

I said 'I've been invited to a lunch at which Wittgenstein is going to be present.'

Donald said 'That is impossible: Wittgenstein never goes to lunches.'

I thought — Do I mean, it would be a game in which, at the same time, one would be creating, or discovering, the conditions of the game?

Donald and I walked for some time in silence.

The party to which I had been invited took place on a bright spring day with a wind that lurked here and there round corners. Food had been set out on tables on a lawn; cushions were placed on steps going down from a small terrace. People stood with their backs to where they thought the wind might be; they turned this way and that all at once like fishes. Wittgenstein was seated in a small room inside the house: the room was crowded; there were people sitting on the floor and looking up at him as if he had been set in some niche. He was a thin, blue-eyed, curly-haired man; he seemed precisely delineated as if there was a light on the wall behind him. He wore a tweed jacket and an open-necked shirt. It seemed that although people were seeing him as if set up in a niche, he was not posing.

I thought — It is as if he were looking at the people watching him and saying: 'Is it you? Is it you?'

Then — Of course I know whom he reminds me of: Dr Kammerer!

There was a man on the floor in front of Wittgenstein asking him some boring question about aesthetics; it went on and on: I thought — Dear God, the questioner might be myself.

Then — But the question answers itself by its style, if it is to do with aesthetics.

A wind seemed to be passing over Wittgenstein's face as if the question were affecting him physically. He was holding on his lap a plate of food at an angle at which the food seemed about to fall off. When the man had finished his question Wittgenstein just said 'I don't think that is correct.' Then he looked down at his plate as if there might be entrails on it.

I thought — But if you feel you have been put in a niche like St Sebastian, can you not get up and leave the picture?

A young girl had come into the room and was standing in front of Wittgenstein; she was holding out her hand as if to take his plate. She seemed to be asking him whether he wanted any more food; but perhaps was too shy to put this into words. I knew the girl slightly: she was one of the daughters of the family who were giving the party. Wittgenstein did not seem to notice her for a time. Then he looked up and frowned and said 'What do you want?'

The girl stepped back as if she had been hit. She stumbled against the legs of the people behind her. Then she made for the door.

Someone said 'She was asking you if you wanted more food.'

Wittgenstein said 'But I haven't eaten the food I've got.'

I was standing in the doorway; as the girl went past me she seemed enraged. I thought — You mean something quite different is happening?

Wittgenstein had looked up to where I stood. I had the impression that he wanted me to do something for him.

Then — But this is ridiculous!

The girl had gone out of the house and on to the lawn. There was someone beginning to ask Wittgenstein another long and boring question. I thought I might say — All right I'll go after her. Then — This is to do with silences?