The World as I Found It (36 page)

It was the silliest thing, how ideas came to Wittgenstein, slowly rising like bubbles to the surface. For months now, Wittgenstein had been on the verge of perhaps his most fundamental insight, but not until Flo had it quite struck him in that direct, offkey way of a revelation, with that accompanying shortness of breath and the air suddenly a pale hue. What struck Wittgenstein with such force then was the notion that although a tautology
says
nothing, it
shows
its form and hence the undergirding structure of logic. On the tensile water, the wobbling rings were settling themselves; on the strumming water, above the freestanding depths, hung an apparent transparency of form without content, of form waiting like life to be filled, true or false, good or ill.

Wasn't life a tautology, singing of itself to itself? Wasn't suicide a contradiction, canceling itself with itself? With Flo, there was a certain parallel. Beneath the patter, she was really asking the visitor to desist and return her son, saying these words not so much for what they said as for what they might show or conjure, since words were magic. Over the hills swept the clouds, bruised and dark. Hovering like a bird in the wind, suspended in that silence before the remark, Flo gaped as the next cloud swept down. Dark the ground, dark the sun. Whoa, cried Flo, clutching her mortified son. That cloud looks like a Chinaman.

And so it was resolved. Out walking the next day, Wittgenstein suddenly thrust a bank draft for ten thousand pounds into Pinsent's hand, saying, And no talk, please, of debt or gratitude. Nothing you owe me. Not even friendship.
Please
, and not another word.

What is this? asked Pinsent. He looked frantic. I don't want this!
No!

I insist — Wittgenstein put his hand on Pinsent's shoulder. You did not ask me for this, I know. It is not charity. You need this. I do not.

Why?
Pinsent's eyes were welling over. Why don't you need it? Pinsent wanted to answer his own question, but again he held back. Answer me!

Never having properly understood money, its power to stun, Wittgenstein was shocked by this reaction. It was as if someone had told him that his potent signature was not backed by gold. Awkwardly, Wittgenstein said, I have more money. Too much money. This is not to boast — it is just a fact. Please, David.
Take it
.

For the wealthy man, this was something of a revelation. Until then, Wittgenstein never would have dreamed it was as hard to rid oneself of money as to have it. Pinsent wrote:

T
HREE WEEKS LATER
, not long after the end of term, Moore was sitting with Dorothy at the head table at his wedding reception as all present, including Russell, Pinsent and Strachey, rose to toast the new couple.

The room was full of mirth and the heat of seventy-five people drinking, waltzing, hobnobbing. In that surfeit of happiness, tongues unfurled. Lytton Strachey, picking up after Moore's older brother Harry, said a few more words on behalf of the newlyweds. Lytton's toast was perfect — eloquent, touching, amusing. Until then, Russell had not planned to speak, but in the elation of the moment, he, too, stepped forth with raised glass and cleared his throat.

What on earth am I doing?
he thought as the murmuring died down and all eyes fell on him. What will I say? he wondered, hoping that this sudden impulse was more than just the rumbling of the grape. He and Moore were still on strained terms, but Russell felt that after today they might turn a new page. A few warm words, that was all he wanted to say. After all, he could hardly hope to top a wit like Strachey — or could he?

He didn't start badly. There was even a certain piquance as he, an avowed unbeliever, said what a blessing it was to behold an honest man with a good woman on their wedding day. Yes, he continued, warming to his tongue's toothsome twang.
These two
, he said, unleashing his arm, would stand as an example to them all of the outer extent of human hopes. But then with this bibulous reaching, he felt the compensating pull of humor — something to balance and subdue the emotion, like cutting wine with seltzer. Yes, for a generation, he rebounded, Moore had symbolized the best. Nevertheless, he added dryly, he did not do badly. Mrs. Moore would make a man — he stumbled — a
better man
of him.

Here, here!

Moore, meanwhile, felt his bride urgently squeeze his hand, a telegraphic squeeze emitting potent signals of irritation verging on outrage. Even Russell was kicking himself.
Damn!
The way he tripped at the end, this as his eyes hungrily scanned the room for reaction. Oh, God. There was puckish Lytton, busily whispering to Keynes, Leonard Woolf and the attenuated Virginia.

For his part, Moore would gladly have forgotten this gaffe had not Dorothy, her dark hair crowned with a diadem of white cyclamen trailing white ribbons, then hissed into his ear,
What on earth did Bertie mean? He's so perverse
.

Two hours tied and she was already a wife, thought Moore, who as usual was surprised by how much she saw — and how much he missed.

But in that swarm of perceptions, this thought, too, was washed away as Moore covered her pale hand with his own, still unable to get over the gold ring on his finger. When Moore looked again, Bertie was talking to Pinsent; and then that image also vanished as his palsied Uncle Peter, a broken widower, came a third time to earnestly clutch their hands, fighting tears as he gasped for breath or words, wishing only to be near so much happiness. And here was Theodore Llewelyn Davies, an Apostle whom Moore had not seen in five — God, ten years at least! And
Crump!
Crump Davies, his brother! Crumpie, look at you!

This is what heaven must be like, thought Moore, a tide where all of what was formerly, returns. God, but it was spooky to have so much come all at once, like those unaccountable presents covering the table, and all these people who eddied toward them like ghosts, grasping their hands in that grateful silence where words fail and fall away. In the face of such rampant joy, it was hard for Moore to imagine the promise of more joy to follow, and harder still to accept the fact that this joy would someday end. Their joy would be segmented, interspersed with the unhappiness or woes of which they had partaken with that brimming cup of vows. As through a telescope turned wrong end, Moore felt he could see it all, a chain of events linked hand to hand even as they were dancing. Circling dizzily, raising their hands to strain at something grand, straining and reaching before falling back to earth again — what more could he wish than that their love might be a chain of good and a gambol of gladness, begetting good, good people, good, plentiful life, and children, too, to carry on the dance. Let Good begin the dance. All that day Moore had prayed for the grace just to be, for the grace not to think, judge or criticize anyone — not even poor Bertie and his unfortunate toast.

Moore got his wish, pretty much. Later, when he saw Bertie with Pinsent, it hardly crossed Moore's mind what Bertie might be pouring in the young man's ear. Nor would he think of how pleased Russell must be now that events had proved him right: sure enough, Wittgenstein had left the Apostles.

Wittgenstein was the last person Moore wanted to think about. Moore especially wanted to forget the scene Wittgenstein had made two weeks ago, a few days before he went to Vienna for the summer. This was the day when North Whitehead (now off talking to that handsome woman not his wife) had challenged one of his pupils to a rowing race. The three of them, he, Russell and Pinsent, had been there. Russell was rooting for his old partner. The moment the gun went off, Russell was calling hoarsely through his cupped hands,
Pull, North! Pull!

Whitehead hove strong for the first two hundred yards — not bad for a man over fifty. But then he broke and his young opponent surged ahead, lunging to the finish in long, powerful strokes. North was badly beaten; it was painful to see him sagging over the oars, sucking wind. It was then that Wittgenstein erupted. He said they might as well have watched a bullfight; it was just as brutal and senseless. Russell should have known better than to argue — he said the same later — but instead he came back, You just don't understand the virtue of competition.

Virtue!
Wittgenstein snarled. Dogs tearing out each other's entrails — that's what this is! Suddenly his eyes got small; his finger was like a cocked pistol at Russell's nose.
Great works!
he railed. Only
these
have value. This is so vile we don't deserve to live! It smells of the slaughter-house, your
races
!

Russell was too thunderstruck to respond. Leave him, he ordered Pinsent when Pinsent started after him. Now,
really
, Russell repeated. Do you hear me?

Leave off
, said Pinsent with a glare, and with that, he went after him.

Later, they all had different views of the incident. Moore thought it was the Society, that and the pressure of the three of them being together. Russell, on the other hand, thought it was a hysterical reaction to their latest battle over another one of his theories. Both explanations were correct, so far as they went. Only Pinsent knew what else lay behind it: Wittgenstein's father was dying. Wittgenstein's sister Gretl had written him a few days before, but he told no one but Pinsent. Even now, at Moore's wedding, Pinsent was still the only one who knew.

One thing was certain: Pinsent was looking quite prosperous on Moore's wedding day. Moore wasn't the only one to have remarked at this new blue worsted wool suit and the silk cravat fastened with a gold pin. Burnished brogues still squeaky from the bootmaker, buffed to a hue by the man in the loo. And crowning it all, a dark fedora tapped to a rakish tilt with the brim snapped down just so. Flo had also gotten some new togs and would soon get a settlement as well. The roof was fixed and the grocer had been paid — why, there was even a girl to cook and tidy. Flo was goose purple with excitement. They were rich! German money, you know, whole pots of it! Why, Davy was even taking her on a seaside holiday! Oh, it made her head spin to think of it, she did so love the sea. England was surrounded with it, you know.

Much as Pinsent missed Wittgenstein, he was glad his friend was not there with him now. No, Pinsent was flustered enough as he searched the floor for a dancing partner. Oh, go on, he told himself, giving himself a mental push. If he could wear a vain hat, he thought, he could bloody well ask a girl to dance!

For an hour Pinsent had had his eye on her, one of the bridesmaids, a girl about his height, with dark hair and green eyes. She looked shy, the way she kept adjusting her corsage. The soles of his new shoes creaked as he stole across the floor and asked a dance. She didn't refuse! And pretty, too! But he was a clumsy oaf, feeling the heat from her perspiring back as he forced conversation, noticing the heavy smell of her corsage. Katherine, her name was, Dorothy's cousin. Twice they danced before she thanked him, saying, with conspicuous politeness, that she wanted to speak to her uncle. Stiff as he thanked her. About face, his neck flaming. Same old story. The usual rot. And sure enough, he saw her dancing later with someone taller, better looking, more confident. Dratted new hat! Stupid vanity! For his penance, Pinsent left it sitting brazenly on the rack, too dwindled and shamed to wear it home.