Donald said 'But we think we can use language, yes, for the clarification of language.'
I said 'But the point is still that there is something quite different going on.'
Donald said 'What?'
I said 'Some sort of therapy.'
Donald curled his lip up under his nose.
I said 'Any success we have is to do not with reason, but aesthetics. Or even ethics. Doesn't Wittgenstein say something like that?'
Wittgenstein had written in the Tractatus just before his final sentence about silence — 'Anyone who understands me eventually recognises my propositions as nonsensical when he has used them
to climb up beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder. . then he will see the world aright.'
Donald and I watched where the footprints of birds and animals had gone round and round and made patterns in the snow. I thought — Well what is a pattern? A pattern is not a thing that you can analyse. A pattern is there when you see it; but it is not just in the snow.
Donald said 'It is true that Wittgenstein is interested in aesthetics.'
I said 'Rum tiddle di um turn.'
Donald said 'And what does that mean?'
I said 'It is a song called "Footprints in the Snow".'
I had begun to have an obsession about meeting Wittgenstein. Donald said that his seminars took place in an austere room with just a table and two chairs; when students came, they had to bring their own chairs. I thought — If Donald will not take me to him, I will meet him as if by chance.
— Then I will be doing some experiment with chance?
I said to Donald 'Does Wittgenstein ever go for long walks in the snow?'
Donald said 'I don't know. What he does like doing, apparently, is to go to the cinema in the afternoon to a western film and to sit in the front row.'
I said 'Does that stop his thinking going round and round?'
Donald said 'I suppose so.'
I thought — So I might bump into Wittgenstein at a western film?
Then — But you and I, my beautiful German girl, we did not think that we would go round and round: but we were frightened?
Sometimes when I got back from these walks with Donald I would find Melvyn sitting beyond the framework of his doorway as if waiting to be looked at like a picture. He would say 'Been nuzzling with the brood of Mrs Tiggy winklestein?'
I would say 'Yes, they are doing very well, thank you.'
Melvyn would say 'Had any good silences lately?'
When I wandered into Melvyn's room I knew we would for the most part talk nonsense. I would think — Perhaps being with Melvyn is the equivalent of sitting in the front row at a western film: after a time thought stops; there is just the area in which one thing happens after another.
Then — But is not aesthetics to do with the fact that the structures of reality coincide with the structures of one's mind -
— That was what we were talking about, you and I, my beautiful German girl?
I would sit on Melvyn's chaise-longue and say something like -4 Well the crack-up of the Western world seems to be coming about quite nicely.'
And Melvyn would say — 'I don't want it to be coming along nicely: I want there to be a great many people killed.'
And I would think — In a western film a great many people get killed -
— A sorting-out; that is to do with 'aesthetics'?
Melvyn only once tried to make a pass at me. He helped me up to my room one evening when I was drunk; he sat on the edge of my bed and got me half undressed and fiddled with me for a short while. He said This little piggy went to market.' If I had been more sober I might have said — 'It looks more as if this little piggy's staying at home.' After a time he gave up, and left me. I thought — So you see, if you let things go, one thing happens not so badly after another.
Then — But why did I let you go, my beautiful German girl?
I was obviously still confused about sexuality at this time: I would lie on my bed and try to make my mind a blank. But images would come in: of horsemen riding across plains; of Melvyn with his cherub's mouth like sick at the edges of drains.
I would think — In physics, there are people trying to find out about an atom by breaking up its heart. (I thought — Stop thinking!) In philosophy, there are people trying to break it up to see it has no heart. (I thought — Stop thinking!)
In the outside world there were more and more ghostly figures standing unemployed on street corners. I had said to you, my beautiful German girl, 'In the end, people either will or will not destroy themselves -
— We will or will not meet each other again.' You had said 'But which?'
We had sat facing each other with our backs against trees.
It seemed to me now that this was some form of annunciation.
So — Get up and go on!
— You think you can stop thinking?
— Oh such a situation might be aesthetic!
Melvyn had a friend called Mullen who sometimes visited him in his room. Mullen was a notable figure in Cambridge: he was tall and thin with a face like a hatchet. He strode through the streets in
a long blue coachman's overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat: he seemed to expect people to get off the pavement for him. He was a poet: he was said to be writing a book about aesthetics; he was also an authority on Karl Marx. I would think — I should be cultivating people like Mullen!
— Or is it proper that I would rather, like some mad archaic god, go bumping and bouncing off walls to find my way through the maze?
Melvyn and Mullen were both members of the club, or society, known as The Apostles, the members of which felt themselves to be part of an intellectual and cultural elite. They were an apotheosis of the Cambridge tradition of it being the mark of an elite to hold everything open to question: to manipulate nihilism by sleight-of-mind. I had once said to Melvyn 'Stalin would have made a marvellous Apostle!' Melvyn had said 'But that moustache!'
I was going up my stairs one day when Melvyn called out 'Mullen wants to meet you.'
I said 'Why?'
Melvyn said 'Perhaps he thinks you're attractive, ducky.'
I thought — Perhaps I can ask him about not only Marxism but aesthetics.
I had become obsessed by the idea of liveliness residing in areas about which nothing much could be said — in physics, in philosophy; even in the way things really worked in politics. I thought — But in all these areas, there is something to do with aesthetics that might be said? I took to going at this time to the Fitzwilliam Museum to look at the paintings: I thought — Something can be looked at; found by a painter; even if it cannot be said.
In the picture gallery I became interested in two small paintings by Domenico Veneziano which hung side by side. One was of the Annunciation and was very beautifuclass="underline" the Angel and Mary faced each other across a courtyard, they did not look at each other; they seemed to be intent on whatever it was in between. Behind them, and in between, there was a closed door in a garden at the back of the courtyard. The other painting depicted a group present at a miracle performed by some saint in a street: it was ugly. The people seemed to be intent on portraying dramatic emotion; as if they felt that this was required of them by some observer.
I thought — It is not exactly that this painting is ugly: it is giving some aesthetic message about what is ugly.
Then — You and I, in the Black Forest, we knew something about
that first painting, that courtyard; that doorway at the back in between?
There was a day — sometime during my second term I think — when Melvyn brought Mullen to visit me in my room. I had not thought much about what they might come to visit me for: to look me over as a possible recruit for the Apostles, for homosexual purposes, possibly because Melvyn had told Mullen of my interest in Russia? Melvyn and Mullen sat on my sofa side by side; they were like two characters in a ballet — the dancing master and his pupil — and of course they were actors! Mullen wore his long blue coat with the collar turned up at the back; Melvyn had narrow trousers tapering to small pointed shoes. I sat with my chair tipped back against a wall. I thought — They have come to do an experiment with me; but why should not that which is observed cause disturbance among the observers?