Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, Steven Moore

things were done or said, incidentally, what I more truthfully mean is that they werealleged to have been done or said, of course.
    As it was similarly alleged that Giotto once painted a perfect circle freehand.
    Although I happen to believe it categorically about the circle, most of such tales being harmless enough to believe in any event.
    Well, and I also see no reason not to believe that Piero di Cosimo would hide under a table when there was lightning. Or that Hugo van der Goes was not able to paint religious paintings in a church unless friars sang psalms to keep him from sobbing all day.
    Piero di Cosimo is not to be confused with yesterday's sunset, by the way, which was a Piero della Francesca, nor is Hugo van der Goes to be confused with Rogier van der Weyden, whose Descent from the Cross is so badly lighted at the Prado.
    Well, nor with Vincent Van Gogh, whose sunset was some days before Piero's.
    Which symphony is it, by Shostakovitch, in which one can practically hear the tanks coming off the assembly line?
    In any event all that any of these stories would appear to add up to, one suspects, is that many more people in this world than one's self were never able to shed certain baggage.
    Surely walking halfway across Naples to add one brushstroke to a wall is a form of baggage itself.
    Doubtless cutting off one's ear is one too, if paradoxically.
    Well, as is eating one's lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower. Or even lurking at windows.
    Nonetheless, what would appear to remain the case on my own part is that one day I had baggage and then one day I did not.
    Although very likely it was hardly that simple either.
    Accouterments, I did get rid of. Things.
    Conversely I can even now still call to mind the last four digits of Lucien's telephone number from all of those years ago.
    Or recite the several rumors about Achilles and Patroclushaving been more than just dear friends.
    In fact I have just even quoted Friedrich Nietzsche.
    Actually, it was almost an hour ago when I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche, who was really Pascal.
    Where I have been was at the spring again. This time I decided I may as well bring in everything.
    Nor am I any longer depressed, incidentally, which I now understand that I had not been to begin with, having only been out of sorts.
    Which is to say that I had changed into those fresh underpants perhaps fifteen minutes earlier than I ought to have, having now had to change again, having just gotten my period.
    I have no intention of looking back to see what I wrote about inconsequential perplexities now and again becoming the fundamental mood of existence. Or about certain unanswerable questions becoming answerable.
    Oh, well.
    At any rate everything that had been washed is now in my upstairs bedroom.
    For a moment or two, before I came back down, I looked out of the rear window.
    I do not often look out of that one, which is not the one from which I watch the sun go down.
    What I was looking at was the other house, which is deep in the woods some distance from here.
    I do not believe I have ever mentioned the other house.
    What I may have mentioned are houses in general, along the beach, but such a generalization would not have included this house, this house being nowhere near the water.
    All one can see of it from that upper rear window is a corner of its roof.
    In fact I was not aware of the other house at all, when I first came to this one.
    Once I did become aware of it, I understood that there would also have to be a road leading to it from somewhere, of course.
    Yet for the life of me I was not able to locate the road, and for the longest time.
    Looking for it, what I did first was drive the pickup truck along the road one takes to the town, turning off at every other road I came to.
    Every one of those roads led to a house which was on the beach, however, and as I have said, this house is not on the beach.
    I should perhaps add that when I say I followed the road one takes to the town, there