On second thought I am not going to ask if my roses will still be red after it gets dark.
Or even if Cezanne ever happened to talk to anybody about Van Gogh personally, before he said that.
Which would naturally make his insight rather less than memorable, if he had.
I mean if Gauguin had taken Cezanne off into a corner somewhere and muttered a thing or two, for instance.
Or if Dostoievski did.
The dog which would not stay off Emily Brontë's bed was named Keeper, incidentally.
And the way Euripides was said to have died was by having been attacked by dogs, in fact, although I mention this only because of having mentioned Aeschylus and the eagle.
But what this reminds me of is that how Helen died, according to one old legend, was by being hanged from a tree, by jealous women.
Then again, another story insisted that she and Achilles became lovers, and lived forever on a magic island.
Although the identical story was sometimes told about Medea and Achilles.
Well, doubtless both of those stories arose because people were distressed at the notion of Achilles being left in Hades, as when Odysseus visits him there, in the Odyssey.
This does not occur until after Achilles is killed by Paris, of course, by being struck in the heel with an arrow.
In fact Paris himself has gone to Mount Ida to die by then, as well, because of still another arrow.
Even if one is forced to read books by people with names like Dictys of Crete, or Dares the Phrygian, or Quintus from Smyrna, to learn such things, since the Iliaddoes not go that far.
I dropped the pages from those books into the fire after reading the reverse sides of each too, as I recall.
In the Louvre, this would have been, which is perhaps three bridges away from the Pont Neuf.
Once, that same winter, I signed a mirror. In one of the women's rooms, with a lipstick.
What I was signing was an image of myself, naturally.
Should anybody else have looked, where my signature would have been was under the other person's image, however.
Even in late spring, from the ruins at Hisarlik, one can still see snow on Paris's mountain.
There is a painting in the Louvre of Helen and Paris, by the way, by Jacques Louis David, which is perhaps the only convincing representation of Helen that I have ever seen.
As a matter of fact the painting itself is silly, since Helen has all her clothes on while Paris is wearing only sandals and a hat.
Still, there is a wistfulness in Helen's face, that suggests that she has been thinking about a good many things.
I am quite taken by the idea of Helen having been thinking about a good many things.
Doubtless I would never have signed that mirror had there been anybody else to look, on the other hand.
Though in fact the name I put down was Jeanne Hebuterne.
I am also still staining, incidentally.
At a guess, I would say it is nine or ten days, now.
I would appear to have been failing to indicate a good many more of the latter too, as it happens.
Even if that has nothing to do with the staining, which as I have said is scarcely unusual.
Any more than would be waiting for some months without getting my period at all.
Although I have had to go to the spring again, to wash fresh underpants.
Ah, me.
Naturally I did not wash fresh underpants. Naturally the underpants were not fresh until after I had washed them.
In either case I have also left everything outside once more, since there is always something pleasurable about changing into garments that are still warm from the sun.
Conversely I am not extraordinarily happy about this new habit of skipping days so frequently, to tell the truth, even if I am less than positive why.
Although possibly it has something to do with the question I was writing about yesterday.
By which I perhaps mean a day or two before yesterday.
Nor am I certain that I remember the question very clearly.
Or perhaps I did not define it that well.
Although doubtless all I have in mind is that if so many things would appear to exist only in my head, once I do sit here they then turn out to exist on these pages as well.
Presumably they exist on these pages.
If somebody were to look at these pages who could understand only Russian, I have no idea what would exist on these pages.
Not speaking one word of Russian myself, however, I believe I am able to state categorically that the things which had existed only in my head now also exist on these pages.
Well, some of such things.
One can hardly put down everything that exists in one's head.
Or even begin to be aware of it, obviously.
In fact I have no doubt that I have more than once written things that I did not even remember I remembered until I wrote them.
Well, I have commented on that.
Though as a matter of fact there are also certain things that one remembers while one is writing that one did not remember one remembered but does not happen to put down, either.
For instance when I was writing about the fact that Rembrandt and Spinoza had lived in Amsterdam at the same time, which I had learned from a footnote, I suddenly remembered from a different footnote entirely that when El Greco had lived in Toledo such people as St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross had lived there, too.
Even though I remembered that, however, I did not put it down.
Basically my reason for not doing so may have been because I do not know one solitary thing about either St. Teresa or St. John of the Cross.
Except obviously that they were both in Toledo when El Greco was in Toledo.
Although there is more to what I am talking about than this.
Still another person who lived in Toledo when El Greco lived in Toledo was Cervantes, except that I had a different sort of reason for not bringing up Cervantes just now when I brought up St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross.
When I brought up St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross it was because, as I said, I had thought about them in connection with El Greco at the time when I was thinking about Rembrandt in connection with Spinoza.
As I also said, however, the fact that El Greco may have known St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross was something I did not remember I remembered until the very moment in which I was writing what I wrote about Rembrandt and Spinoza.
The fact that El Greco may have also known Cervantes, on the other hand, is something I did not remember I remembered until all of these pages later, when I was finally writing what I had remembered but had not put down about El Greco earlier.
This is not really that complicated, although it may seem to be.
All it actually means is that even when one remembers something one did not remember one remembered, one may have still no more than scratched the surface in regard to things one does not remember one remembers.
Although as a matter of fact I believe I did remember Cervantes before too, even if in that case it may have only been in connection with that castle.
Then again, perhaps it was Don Quixote I remembered, what with the castle having been in La Mancha.
The title of the book about Don Quixote being Don Quixote de La Mancha,of course.
Anything that El Greco and Cervantes may have said to each other in Toledo would have been said in the same language as the title also, presumably.
Even if El Greco may have preferred Greek. Or whatever language they spoke on Crete, which was where he was actually from, in fact.
This is of course assuming that even if El Greco and Cervantes did not know each other very well, certainly they would have at least begun to nod in passing, after a time.
And naturally next to exchange amenities.
Buenos dias,Cervantes.