Authors: Lars Iyer
He speaks of the
daimonia
in music. Of music’s eternal strangeness. He speaks of the melting of language into song. Of pure music, foreign to truth, to morality, to reason …
Plato feared music—the
power
of music, Wittgenstein says. And Plato was right. Music is foreign to us. Music is greater than we are. More
innocent
.
There is such a thing as a
roaring
innocence, Wittgenstein says. Such a thing as a
terrible
innocence.
He’s afraid of music, he says. And for the same reason, he’s afraid of
me
.
I don’t understand. What does he mean?
• • •
The Backs, Wittgenstein’s arm in mine.
He speaks of the
Confessions
.
Augustine writes as a sinner, he says. His story is not one of triumph. His story is of weakness and uncertainty.
Shadows press upon Augustine, he says. Chaos invades Augustine’s heart …
He too
fears chaos, Wittgenstein says.
He too
fears the
wilderness of the soul
.
But perhaps the miracle of repentance is close, he says. Perhaps there really can be such a thing as a
change of heart
.
Later, at his door. A kiss goodbye. And another. And another.
The echo of his footsteps, going upward.
15th December
Wittgenstein’s rooms.
Dictation. At least ten pages. I don’t understand a word.
He seems aggressive in his thought. Almost violent. He speaks in lunges. In stabs. But he is quickly exhausted.
Long silences, with occasional remarks about sin. About illness. About philosophy.
Behind the mystique of philosophy: nothing
, I write.
Behind the mystique of the philosopher: likewise, nothing. In the end, we can say no more than that which everyone knows
, I write.
WITTGENSTEIN: You must go away from me. Or I must go away from you.
ME: No. Why?
WITTGENSTEIN: I am changing you. Corrupting you.
ME: You’re
helping
me!
WITTGENSTEIN: It only seems like that. (A pause.) What will you become, if you stay with me?
Silence. Snow falling in large flakes.
I place my hand on his. I stroke his hand with mine.
He will have to transform himself, if he is to be worthy of me, he says. God will have to change him.
But he fears he cannot transform himself. And he fears he cannot turn to God.
Repentance
: that’s what is needed, if he is ever to be honest and decent in his philosophy …
• • •
Side by side on his sofa.
WITTGENSTEIN: My heart is empty.
ME: Then let me fill it.
WITTGENSTEIN: The door of my heart is shut.
ME: Then let me open it.
His arm around my shoulders. His hand on my thigh. His face turned to mine. The
depths
from which his eyes look out.
WITTGENSTEIN: Do you know how beautiful
you
are? Do you know what you mean to me? You are close to God, you know. For me, you are close to God. (A pause.) God is not
for
the innocent. The innocent are
of
God. The innocent
are
God. (Whispering:) God is very close to us. He is here, in this room.
We lie together (that’s what he calls it:
lying together
).
The early hours. He speaks of his confession.
Sincerity—that’s what he dreams of. Honesty. But honesty so great that we speak of more than we know. A sincerity so great that we no longer
know
what we will say.
One day, we will live and breathe in truth, he says. And there will be no end to truth.
And God will live in our hearts, he says. And our love will be God’s love.
And our love will be
of
God,
with
God.
16th December
His rooms.
I read him one of my poems. He makes a face.
WITTGENSTEIN: Yes, yes, it is very pretty. Very pastoral. You know the names of all the animals. But ours is not the time for poems of that kind.
I read him another poem, about love.
WITTGENSTEIN (shaking his head): Why do you think you have the
right
to write of such things?
Love is unutterable, he says.
Coldham’s Common.
He speaks of the indecency of light. Of the white sky that sees nothing, but that sees nonetheless.
Blindness watches, he says. And there are no secrets left, nothing hidden.
It’s as though light had permeated his body, he says. As though his innards were filled with light.
He speaks of white light, like a fog drifting through him. He speaks of the whiteness and opacity of the sky flowing through him.
He wants to hide, he says. He wants to cower.
He speaks of madness seething inside him. Rocking inside him. He speaks of madness coming to his edges.
WITTGENSTEIN: Do you know what an effort it is simply to keep my balance?
(A long pause.) Do you see what you’ve done to me, Peters? What you’re
doing
to me?
(A long pause. Quoting:)
We have rolled on the floor of the squares of Babylon. Lust grows up like brambles above our heads
.
ME: We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.
WITTGENSTEIN: Oh, there’s nothing for
you
to be ashamed of. (Quoting:)
For the good man, there is not evil possible, whether it be living or dead
. (A long pause.) I do not deserve you.
ME: Of course you do!
WITTGENSTEIN: You mustn’t grow old like me …
It is forbidden to grow old …
ME: You’re not so very old.
WITTGENSTEIN: But I am corrupt. I am ugly.
ME: You’re none of those things.
17th December
Morning. I lie on his sofa as he works at his desk. Open notebooks. An open ledger. Facedown: a copy of Ignatius’s
Spiritual Exercises
.
A look of absolute concentration on his face. Absolute intensity. Is this what thinking looks like? Is this what a
philosopher
looks like?
Wittgenstein leans back in his chair. Sighs.
WITTGENSTEIN: I give in! I can’t work with you around!
I tell him that I’m being as quiet as I can. That I want nothing more than to watch him work.
He speaks of his hatred of self-consciousness. Of self-
awareness
. Absorption, that’s his ideal. The mind must be absorbed in its activities.
But when the mind’s problem
is
the mind?, he wonders. When the mind’s problem is the very impossibility of absorption?
He sends me home so he can
get on with things
.
I text Ede:
Am W.’s boyfriend
. Ede texts back:
About time
.
I update my Facebook status:
In a relationship
. Mulberry writes on my wall:
No fucking way
. I write back:
Way
.
Five o’clock. No text from Wittgenstein. Six. Still no text. Seven. I text:
I’ll bring you dinner
. Eight: still no reply.
18th December
No Wittgenstein. He’s not in his rooms. He doesn’t reply to texts.
I flick through the
Confessions
in the library.
19th December
Evening. Wittgenstein texts, very curt.
Back from London tomorrow. Meet me 11 AM—station
.
He was in London?
20th December
Cambridge Station. Wittgenstein, unsmiling. His flat cap. His rucksack. He looks worn.
I’ve been reading Augustine, I tell him.
Silence.
I’ve missed you, I tell him. Cambridge has been very dull.
Silence. The tension in his face increases.
I ask him what’s the matter.
The train was full of dons, he says.
Dons in suits. Dons wired up, networked. Dons plugged
in, keeping in touch. Dons tapping away on iPads, consulting spreadsheets and flow diagrams. Counting their citations on Google Scholar. Watching for ‘likes’ on their Facebook posts. Dons on the phone
touching base
…
reaching out
…
Dons looking out with approval at the low-rise homes being built at Clay Farm. At the new office complexes being built round Addenbrooke’s. At the new multistorey car parks. At the new biomedical campus.
Dons, with
Silicon Fen
on the brain. With the
Cambridge Cluster
on the brain. With the
Northwest Development
on the brain. With the
knowledge economy
on the brain.
How many days are left?, he says. How many days can there be? Surely this is the end. Surely things are coming to an end.
But that’s just it: nothing is ending, he says. That’s it: the eternity of the end. The endlessness of the end.
Hell—
this
is Hell.
Because
there are no flames.
Because
it does not burn him.
He cannot stay here, he says. Cambridge is destroying him.
He does not want it to end here—in Cambridge.
Anywhere but here, he whispers. Anywhere but here.
WITTGENSTEIN: God protect me. God help me.
Later, in his rooms.
He goes straight to work.
I fall asleep on the sofa. He lays a blanket over me.
21st December
Wittgenstein, vexed at what he called my
superficial conversation
with the porter in the lodge.
WITTGENSTEIN: You must be careful, Peters. You are corruptible. You have not fought for your innocence. That is clear.
ME: I was only joking with him!
WITTGENSTEIN: You are becoming thoughtless and stupid.
I tell him I’m sorry.
WITTGENSTEIN: But you have no understanding of what you should be sorry
for
.
Wittgenstein stops, and holds his left wrist in his right hand.
His heart beats too fast, he says.
I take his wrist in my hand.
He pulls it away.
He is becoming anxious—terribly anxious, he says.
WITTGENSTEIN: Perhaps it would be better if you and I didn’t see one another.
My tears.
I remind him of what he said: that it was only by weeping that you can drive the splinter of philosophy from your heart.
WITTGENSTEIN: But the splinter of philosophy lies in
my
heart, not yours.
22nd December
Town. We walk among the shoppers in the pre-Christmas sales.
He points out the street corner the street-cleaning machines always miss.
Litter. Torn things. Dirtied things. Bits of plastic and metal and paper. Rubbish slowly turning into pulp.
The world is mired in filth, he says. It is drowning in filth.
Even Cambridge, he says.
Especially
Cambridge.
He’s becoming wicked, he says. He’s treated me cruelly, he knows it.
He’s reached a decision, he says. He plans to resign. To leave Cambridge.
I nod my head mutely.
WITTGENSTEIN: I’m sorry. I know you won’t understand.
I tell him I
do
understand. That I understand
everything
. The dons … The university … They don’t appreciate him.
WITTGENSTEIN: It is more than that.
I tell him that we students never took him seriously enough.
WITTGENSTEIN (quoting):
Above all else, guard your heart
.
ME: I thought you said I would save you. That I was close to God.
WITTGENSTEIN:
The closer one comes to God, the more one sees oneself as a sinner
. (A pause.) Do you know what sin is, Peters?
ME: I don’t believe in sin.
WITTGENSTEIN: Then you understand nothing.
23rd December
The Palm House, at the Botanic Gardens. Orchids and passionflowers in the canopy above us.
He recounts a dream. Of the Arctic expanse. Of the aurora borealis flashing in the sky. Of a palace of ice, and of his brother in the great hall among narwhal horns and white furs and amber—his blue-lipped brother, playing with shards of ice, rearranging them, moving them around …
In his dream, he has gone to rescue his brother. But his brother is lost in his ice puzzle, and does not know him. His brother does not even know his own past—the attic room; the house, with its piano and its basement study; the pathless woods outside …
And then, in his dream, he is heading south. Over the tundra, over the snowfields and the sheet-ice. Through the frozen air.
The first trees—stunted larches. Then pine trees, a few at first. Then forest, dark with conifers.
Then the first road. The first hamlets. The first patches of brown earth.
South, towards home. South, his brother’s step inside his own. His brother’s life inside his own. South, to where the mountains rise and the valleys deepen. South, to their attic room in their childhood home.
• • •
The Oceanic Islands display. Lavender and giant daisies.
WITTGENSTEIN: I’m leaving tomorrow. In the morning.
ME (stupidly): But you’ll have to pack.
WITTGENSTEIN: They will pack for me. They will send on my things.
ME: Where are you going?
He shakes his head.
ME: You’re not even going to tell me where you’re going?
He shakes his head again.
ME: Will you take me with you?
A final
no
.
I tell him I don’t want to be alone in Cambridge. I tell him I’m afraid.
He tells me I should think about God very, very hard. He smiles.
ME: Will you come back for me?
I tell him I want to see him driving up to my rooms in a white limo with a bunch of roses, waving at me through the open sunroof. I tell him I want him to clamber up my fire escape and gather me up and kiss me.
What did the student do when his teacher came to rescue him?
, he’ll say.
He rescued him right back
, I’ll say.
Night. His rooms.
His mother used to lead a quintet who performed a Christmas concert every year in the Stadtcasino in Basel, he says. He and his brother used to love watching them play. Their give-and-take. Their musical
courtesy
. Their musical
friendship
.