Ede and I, walking in the open fields by Grange Road.
If only we had something to talk about, like the scholars of yore! Something serious. Something weighty, on which to take sides! We would walk and talk, and talk and walk. We would outline our positions, and refine our ideas …
We would speak of topic A, as we walk, stroking our chins, and topic B, shaking our heads. We would ponder issue C with great sternness, and toss restless ideas back and forth about issue D. Patiently, carefully, we would consider the likely repercussions of thesis E, and ask whether the consequences of issue F have really been thought through. Is hypothesis G worthy of consideration? we’d wonder. And what about conjecture H? We would shake our heads about nostrum I, and laugh about the preposterousness of fallacy J—how could anyone take J seriously! K is a heresy, we would agree, pursing our lips. As for L—there’s something to be said about L, we would agree, nodding our heads …
What is it we lack as intellectuals? we wonder. Ideas? Real intelligence? Is it a question of temperament? Of intensity? Is it a matter of being European — old European — or at least foreign?
You can’t teach love — that’s what Wittgenstein said yesterday. That’s the condition of philosophy: fierce and fiery love. Philosophy is the love of wisdom, he said. A love for what you do not possess. A love for what, nevertheless, has left its trace in you.
Wittgenstein is a lover — that’s what we learnt yesterday. A lover’s heart beats beneath that dour exterior …
Do we have love — real love — for philosophy? Ede and I wonder. Are we capable of that love?
We have the sense of living for something larger than us, better than us. The sense of something worthwhile, that we can serve. We have the sense of something difficult, to which we can dedicate ourselves. The sense of being part of something, involved in something …
The sky clouding over. The sun slanting in.
We walk, thinking of the many times Wittgenstein has been seen walking in Cambridge, and confiding our desire to share in Wittgenstein’s walks. To become, if not fellow thinkers, then at least fellow walkers, companions in thought.
To walk behind him, wondering about the effect on his thinking of the sun warming his head. Wondering about the effect of heavy rain or thick fog. Wondering about the effect of the crunch of snow underfoot. Wondering if it makes any difference to his thought whether he keeps the river on his left, or on his right. Musing upon the influence of topography on his thought. Of elevation, or depression. Pondering the difference between thinking on the valley bottom and on the hillcrest …
But better still would be to walk with him, we agree. To listen to his concerns as we walk together. To walk quietly and listen. To appear to take in his ideas, without understanding a word. To murmur noncommittally as he speaks. To nod our heads mutely, and at the right time. To agree, when we sense he wants agreement, and to disagree, when he seems to want disagreement.
To pause when he takes mind to pause. To stand quietly as he works out a problem. And to start walking with him as he starts walking again, as his thoughts become unstuck again …
To take morning walks with Wittgenstein! Full of vigour and energy! Full of hope! Full of the promise of the work he will do that day! To take dawn walks, the world dew-wet with promise. Edenic walks, as Adam took with Eve just after the Creation. Walks in which he would feel his philosophical powers gathering … Walks in which he would draw the air to the bottom of his lungs … Walks in which he would nod his head to other early-risers, other kings and queens of the morning …
To take afternoon walks with Wittgenstein! Long and languorous walks. Wandering walks, walks without plan, on which he would muse upon the most intractable issues. Walks with the indefinite as their horizon. Walks as wide as the world, as open …
To take nighttime walks with Wittgenstein! After hours, when anything can be said. Walks of confidences, when he might talk hush-voiced of his dreams and desires. When he might whisper to us of secret hopes and fervours. Of his thought-ambitions. Of his Logik.
To take walks after midnight with Wittgenstein! Walks of the early hours. To take the insomniac’s walk, the too-awake walk. To take the over-conscious walk that would tire him out. How would we help him to find his way to sleep, walking among the last of the revellers and the puddles of vomit?
Wittgenstein, turning to us in desperation. In vulnerability. Wittgenstein saying: Help me! Help me to think!
Sounds of machine-gun fire. Booms. Shouting. The lecturer in the next room must be showing a film.
Wittgenstein winces.
His silence, our silence. His, a silence of inner struggle. Of armies of thought clashing inside him. Of Jacob wrestling the angel. Ours, a silence of expectancy, giving way to distraction.
A fly on the windowpane. Isn’t it too cold for flies …?
The playing fields, touched with frost. Football noises come through the fog.
A thought must arrive all at once, or not at all, he says.
Spontaneity: that is his aim. To think spontaneously, as by a kind of reflex.
We must retrain our thought-instincts, he says. We must rehone our most basic thought-responses.
Classroom décor. Faded posters. Old bound editions of learned journals in locked cabinets, roman numerals on the spines. Who reads them? What have they to do with anyone? How long have they been here? Did people ever read them? Did anyone ever care about such things?
The journals make us uneasy. They are not of us, not accessible to us. They’re not for us, yet they surround us. Isn’t Cambridge supposed to be our playground? Isn’t Cambridge supposed to centre on us?
Cambridge should be about us — here — in the present. Cambridge should come to us, who live in the present …
The fire alarm. We remain at our desks. Is it a drill? Will it stop? Will silence return? The alarm is persistent. A fire warden bangs on the door. We have to vacate the building.
Outside. Low, dark cloud. We stand about in the drizzle, among all the other students. Mulberry, with his FUCK TOMORROW T-shirt. Titmuss, with his new nose ring.
We look at our feet, Wittgenstein looks at the sky. Minutes pass. Everyone around us starts to file back inside.
He can’t go in again, Wittgenstein says. We’ll have to walk, all of us. We’ll have to revive the peripatetic school.
The Great Bridge. Magdalene College. The River Cam, muddy and narrow.
How sick he is of Cambridge! he says. How tired he is!
This foul, damp city, he says. This rotten place. This marsh stagnancy, full of fogs and vapours. This place of lowness. This place of contagion. He’s suffocating, he says.