The World as I Found It

by Bruce Duffy

  Of course, it would have been all too easy to say his father was being spiteful or malicious. Plainly, it was the family’s own rising concern that was prompting this investigation, insofar as the father knew what he was doing or the worsening effect these questions had on his son. As a student of comparative industry, Karl Wittgenstein had traveled widely in England, especially in Staffordshire and other industrial areas, where he had toured steel plants, looking for improved processes and equipment. He liked English theater, especially Shaw, and knew the British Museum by heart. His English was flawless — far better than his son’s. And he probably had a better grasp of the English people, whom, as with people everywhere he traveled, he felt quite free to stop — perfect strangers — and question at length as if they were workers in his own factories. People answered him, too. Yes, Wittgenstein found it most troubling how his father commanded such immediate docility in the human herd.

  There was, in short, little Wittgenstein could have told his father about England. But still the old man continued with these circling questions as he worked away at an enormous welcoming meal that featured Jung-schweinsbraten, a young roast pork loin covered to its crackling with a thick cream sauce, and that culminated some five courses later with a snowy meringue Spanische Windtorte — four pounds of sugared egg whites that he couldn’t look at when it appeared, vaguely polar, through the lapping candlelight.

  And the food at Trinity? asked Karl Wittgenstein conspicuously, noting his son’s lack of appetite.

  It is food, replied Wittgenstein, who, perhaps in reaction to his father, had always shown a certain indifference to food, an indifference not unlike his coolness about meeting Berthe Ketteler’s daughter the following afternoon.

  Wittgenstein continued. I eat simply. Vegetables, mainly. Meat disagrees with my digestion.

  A misstep, this; his mother carefully daubed her lips with her napkin, leaving it to his father to ask, There is something wrong with your digestion?

  Wittgenstein waited three beats, then replied, Not if I eat as I should.

  And the food here? asked his father pointedly. It is too rich for your digestion?

  A pleasant change, replied the son agreeably, though he felt his smile curdle.

  Resumed his father helpfully, A change before you go back to your bland fare, you mean — so you will know the difference. Barbishly, his father then quipped for the benefit of the table, Ever the philosopher — our latter-day Epictetus. Then, seeing his son’s withholding look, Karl Wittgenstein asked, You have not read the Stoics?

  Wittgenstein froze, as if it were natural to expect that, as a student of philosophy, he must be conversant with every facet of the subject. Gathering his forces, Wittgenstein replied, I understand the basic outlines of the Stoic creed. That is enough.

  His father stared at him. They don’t teach the Stoics at Cambridge? he asked, as if to say, The English are so debased?

  They teach the Stoics, replied the son patiently. If one is reading philosophy in the Tripos or studying the classics. But that is not what I’m about.

  Oh? asked his father, saying only oh, but by that meaning, Pray, then, tell us what you are about?

  Boldly, Wittgenstein brushed this aside, pointedly asking, You were asking about food at college?

  Yes! his father chimed. Rising up on his elbows, Karl Wittgenstein seemed pleased that his feckless son was finally showing some backbone. And perhaps this, Wittgenstein reflected, was his reason behind this inquisition — not necessarily because it was a good reason, but because it was necessary for Wittgenstein to believe that his father actually had a reason.

  But then, having asked his son how he liked English food, Karl Wittgenstein answered his own question. Well! he said. For myself, I really do think English food is amply deserving of its reputation for dreadfulness. At least in the main. The wealthy, of course, do not really eat English food. They still lick the boots of the French — French cuisine is the rage. Even their menus are in French, though they do persist, especially at breakfast, in serving grilled lamb kidneys, herrings and other solidly English offal.

  Out to charm his family now with observations far more picturesque and amusing than any his son could have made, Karl Wittgenstein added with a look of astonishment: But do you know what? The English do not know how to bake! Oh, there you would find nothing like this magnificent Spanische Windtorte, and certainly none executed so beautifully (eyeing his youngest son, who had hardly touched his). It’s quite true, he said, looking around the table with raised brow. Their baked goods have none of our subtlety, none whatsoever! Like lead. Rather like Jewish baked goods, I’d say.

  Karl Wittgenstein drew his hand over his beard as if he would yank it down, smiling as his children set their jaws against him. Such a dinnertime provocateur! With the table his stage, Karl Wittgenstein then launched into a penetrating, high-spirited discussion of national traits as revealed in the art of baking and desserts: the hardtack English, so stoical and unimaginative, with their runny trifle and puritanical plum puddings caked with hard sauce; the larcenous French, all hot air and flummery, as shown by their own pale imitations of Viennese pastry; and the unregenerate Italians, so oily and lazy, with those doughy pastries, swimming like sodden meatballs in fruity sugar water.

  But, said Karl Wittgenstein, raising one finger. Compare to this, if you will, our own Torten, so lively, layered and varied in texture; and yet, he added contrapuntally, yet so reliably and indeed densely honest! Consider the sheer compositional variety of, say, the Indianer Torte, Josephinentorte, Pralinentorte, the Neapolitaner and Breslauer. A veritable library of baking, one might say. Why, it is a culture even conscious of its history, what with the Nelsontorte and Austerlitztorte. And of course, Karl Wittgenstein suggested with a wave of the hand, he could go on. And on. Yes, even that raconteuse Gretl had a hard time competing with her father at his own table.

  Later, at the café before the symphony, though, Gretl was typically scathing about her father’s suppertime antics.

  And that nonsense about the Stoics! Go on, she urged Wittgenstein, look by his bed. I’m sure he’s reading the Stoics — Kant and Hegel, too, and everything else he’ll want to throw at you while you’re home.

  Paul was sitting opposite Gretl, beside Mining. As for Kurt, he was sitting at the end of the table with his legs crossed, pulling at his little waxed mustache while reading — much to Gretl’s annoyance — one of the café’s spindled newspapers.

  Must you read that now? Gretl asked suddenly.

  Crumpling the paper together, Kurt said with a devilish smile, But I’m listening! Of course I’m always listening to you. That’s what we’re all here for, aren’t we?

  Said Gretl oversweetly, We might listen to you, too, Kurt, if you put down that mask of a newspaper.

  Well, said Kurt glibly, laying down the paper and moving his seat toward the table. Here I am.

  Still, he offered nothing, and Gretl, seeing no other takers, resumed these digs at their father. But instead of boosting Wittgenstein’s spirits, her barbs only made him more uneasy. Nor was he the only one. Covering her mouth politely, Mining was laughing in spite of herself at her renegade sister. For Mining, who was devoted to both Karl Wittgenstein and Gretl, it was a strained and dangerous laughter. As her father’s favorite, Mining had always found herself caught in the middle. Between Gretl and Wittgenstein. Between Gretl and Paul. Between her father and everybody else.

  Of all Karl Wittgenstein’s children, Mining was the most balanced and mild, with the least desire to hurt him. But Mining paid for her father’s love. At thirty-nine, she was, and would forever be, unmarried, a fact obvious to all but Mining, who had never extinguished dreams of marriage and children, clutching them ever more doggedly the more unattainable they became. This rankled Karl Wittgenstein, who as usual had it both ways, reproaching her for not marrying even as his daughter subconsciously held back from attachments, knowing how devastated he would be to lose her.

  A heavy, mate
rnal woman, Mining had a habit in conversation of shyly dropping her head inconsolably, like a cow deprived of her calf. Wearing a round, drab dress and perforated old lady’s shoes, she made Gretl seem all the more vibrant and secular. But for all their differences, the sisters were inseparable, Gretl depending on Mining’s calm good sense and Mining sustaining herself on the life of her flamboyant younger sister, who it seemed could have everything in life that she couldn’t, including a husband and a son of three on whom Auntie Mining doted.

  Gretl was getting carried away with her claim that their father carefully researched his dinnertime disquisitions. And as she had always done, Mining patiently pulled her back, saying, Gretl … Gretl, now you’re exaggerating. You know you are.

  But this only egged Gretl on. What do you mean? she retorted. At night before dinner when we were small, I used to see him in the library. We were all so stupid. He’d pick out a volume of the encyclopedia! One night it was arthropods, the next Borneo, then dodo birds. We were the dodos!

  Stop, said Mining, smirking in spite of herself.

  It’s true, said Gretl, whose voice squeaked when she got really excited. Gretl loved raising the dust around her, clapping her hands together, her eyes teary with laughter. In her excitement then, Gretl was like a sputtering balloon. She carried on, saying, I’m sure I could show you the book he read tonight before supper. You know his tricks, Mining. I showed you once — I know I did!

  Gretl, said Mining doubtfully. Gretl, this is pure fancy.

  Wittgenstein’s brother Paul did not take Gretl’s remarks so playfully. Priggishly correct, he said flatly, Oh, nonsense. Why must you delude yourself with this?

  Paul’s angry because he never caught on to him, mocked Gretl. Mugging for the others, she quipped, Poor Paul, he thought Papa was an authority on arthropods, too.

  Replied Paul with disgust, Yes, and on artful dissembling.

  This did not deter Gretl. Turning to Wittgenstein beside her, she said, Listen to me. Go into the library before dinner tomorrow. Tonight I’m sure it was desserts or baking. They could feel the gears turning as Gretl looked round the table, then exclaimed, Honestly! Don’t we have a book on desserts or something? Why, I think we do!

  Challenged Paul, Please, show me this book. I very much want to see this book.

  But Gretl wasn’t about to be pinned down. As usual, she had just spied somebody she knew, desserts forgotten as she said, Please, will you all excuse me a moment? I know we have to leave, but I must say a word to this person. I’ll get my coat. I won’t be a minute …

  A word, muttered Paul. Thanks to Gretl, we can all be late.

  Oh, shush, said Mining, laying her hand on top of his. Shall we go, then?

  It had been Gretl’s idea to get the siblings together that evening, and as they left the café she was remembering why such gatherings never worked.

  As a group, there had probably never been much symmetry among them, but now what moorings they had once had as a family had torn loose. For the Wittgenstein children, this was partly a function of age and changing interests, but there was more to it than that. Gretl had a genius for human and family politics — this as opposed to the scrapping of purely political politics. Being a profoundly social creature, the perspicacious Gretl was able to see people in configuration and arrangement like hues of color that had definite orders and values, with harmonious blends and also some unexpected combinations. Gretl loved nothing better than to make bold and unexpected pairings of people, and she was not afraid to experiment. But with her family, Gretl found her social gifts sorely thwarted: so little worked. She, Mining and Ludwig got on well; Mining and Paul also got along, as did Paul and Ludwig. Between herself and Paul there was friction, but less if Mining was there as a buffer. As for Kurt, he got along with everyone and no one. The man was a shell. He wasn’t really there.

  Gretl wasn’t the only one who felt this frustration. They all knew something was wrong, and because the deaths of their brothers loomed largest in their memories, they tended to feel that this must be the main problem. The answer must be simple — simple as a child’s answer. And so they would find themselves wondering what life would be like had their brothers lived, as if the dead could somehow complete or recompense the living for having died.

  But suppose their two dead brothers had miraculously returned. Suppose the crippled body of the Family Wittgenstein regenerated these two missing limbs. Yet this was impossible! Such a miracle would have struck the Wittgenstein children as wrong, and not merely because the dead do not return to life. Above all, they would have found it grossly unfair, after all those years away, that their brothers should get off scot-free, leaving them to bear on five backs what was meant for seven.

  If logic was the text, grief was the subtext of this equation that Wittgenstein was now beginning to unearth. More than life separates the dead from the living, and more than logic separates this world from the next: with logic there is illogic, too. As a philosopher, Wittgenstein was just coming to the realization that logic cannot make anything more logical: a thing is either logical or it is not; there is no in between. Likewise, he had concluded that all sentences are well formed and intelligible, insofar as we have given them sense. But what sense was he to make of his own grief, so ill formed and seemingly unintelligible, with neither words nor limits, nor any reason but that it is grief and never entirely goes away.

  These are the bitterest herbs, that we should so resent the malingering dead. In its first grips, grief makes itself a felt thing, but then, like an ice face, it shears off, sliding beneath the waves, as fathomless and deep as an iceberg. Wittgenstein’s drive to survey the limits and interior of logic, then, was not unlike this deeper need to survey the buried mass of his own grief, that hazy curtain dividing sense from non-sense. And entangled with this grief was guilt. Once having consigned the dead to the ground, the living do not wish the dead to return, not really. They feel that the dead are strangers to life, and especially to the present. Still wearing their old suits and gowns, and burdened with their outdated notions and former bad habits, the dead are like discharged servants: they have found another situation.

  This was the most unspoken truth around that table. Not only were the dead brothers not needed, they were not even wanted. For them to have returned would only have botched and complicated matters. Yet, in their minds, Wittgenstein and his siblings would periodically revert to these magical half-conscious wishes that said if only if and had not and if one could only make right these things that ought but aren’t and can’t and never will be.

  Wittgenstein would not soon, or perhaps ever, disentangle the grammar of these illogical propositions. In some his father was the subject, in some the predicate, but in none was his father a logical, complete or entirely human entity. Further, Wittgenstein’s grief was complicated by the fact that while the dead brothers had been troubled, scarred and indeed wretched creatures, they had never been even remotely likable. If Wittgenstein as a boy had merely disliked Rudi, he had thoroughly despised Hans, who was forever tormenting him with his cruel, belittling remarks.

  Still, a brother is a brother. As much as Wittgenstein’s anger at his brothers weighed on him, their youth made them heavier still, the young suicide being, next to a parent, the heaviest of all the dead, and far and away the most illogical.

  Wittgenstein’s two living brothers were another matter.

  Contrary to what their father had said at the table earlier that evening, it was Wittgenstein’s brother Paul, a year older than he, who was the real stoic in the family. Nothing could have driven Paul to suicide. For Paul, life itself was a wedge against his father; there was no need to scatter mere words against him, as Gretl did. Paul had no tolerance for what he saw as Gretl’s wasteful and frivolous troublemaking. A consummate rationalist, Paul, like Wittgenstein himself, was especially contemptuous of Gretl’s lay psychologizing now that she was on Freud’s couch. Invoking the satirist Karl Kraus, who regularly excoriated Freud and his fol
lowers in his weekly paper Die Fackel, Paul said the science of the “soul doctor” was the disease of emancipated Jews. Inside the ghetto, Kraus said, there was the business mentality; outside it, there was the soul doctor, just another manifestation of the Jewish business spirit, robbing men of their souls. As a Jew who believed he had expunged from his character all objectionable Jewish traits, Kraus regularly exhorted his fellow Jews to be less Jewish. All educated Vienna, including Kraus’s many enemies and detractors, read him religiously. Once an avid reader of Die Fackel, Gretl had now come to hate the satirist’s astounding denials. Paul and Wittgenstein loved him, though. They reveled in Kraus’s self-appointed mission to cleanse the Augean stables of the German language; and they took special delight in his vow to kick the “Austrian corpse,” which Kraus swore still had life in it, in spite of all signs to the contrary.

  It was not Freud but Kraus who was the disease, Gretl told Paul. Kraus’s much-vaunted word play did not impress her. She said he reminded her of a child who had opened his diaper and begun playing in it. Oh! crowed Paul. How analytical! The soul doctor could not put it better himself! And so Paul would persist in his Krausian misanthropy and sloganeering, needling her till inevitably things took an ugly turn, as they did one day when Gretl told her brother that he was bound in an invisible corset. You ought to let it out, she snipped. It might help your piano playing.

  Gretl immediately apologized for this remark, but characteristically Paul withdrew in icy contempt. No one in the family was colder or more tightly reined in; even Karl Wittgenstein was unnerved by his son’s seeming air of invulnerability. Yet how else could Paul, having assumed that death warrant of a musical career, have withstood his father? After years of exercise, Paul’s spiny, almost double-jointed fingers had grown almost reptilian in length. Tense as a bow, grimacing, he even enunciated with his fingers, flexing them with a slow and awful cracking, as if his whole rachitic psyche were on the rack. In this respect, Gretl was quite correct about his playing. While technically superb, it was too cold and tense, lacking that surrender necessary to overcome the corset of mere technique.