Right next to the windows I washed.

I see no way of refuting either of those statements. Even if, as I indicated, there appeared to be something wrong with the first of them when I typed it before.

This is not something I intend to worry about, although I can fully understand how one might worry.

Well, perhaps I have already said that I actually do worry.

Although I have just now eaten a salad.

While I was eating the salad I thought about Van Gogh being mad again.

Lord above.

Van Gogh was not mad for a second time. It was I who was thinking about him once more.

And in any case it was Van Gogh trying to eat his pigments that I was more exactly once more thinking about.

Perhaps the fact that I was eating myself was what reminded me of this, although what I was eating myself were various sorts of lettuce, along with mushrooms.

When Friedrich Nietzsche was mad, he once started to cry because somebody was hitting a horse.

And Jackie Robinson was who, for Brooklyn.

Also Campy, was somebody called?

Actually, there were prostitutes in Van Gogh's life too, although I know of no record of Gustave Flaubert having written to Van Gogh either.

I scarcely mean to give any particular weight to this matter of prostitutes, incidentally, even if I would perhaps sometimes appear to.

Certain matters simply come up, being connected to the subject at hand.

Being sweaty after hitting tennis balls would hardly have appeared to be connected to the subject of Richard Strauss getting into bed to die, for instance, though it proved to be connected to that subject.

As a matter of fact even so trivial an item as Guy de Maupassant eating his lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower is very likely connected to something, just as inevitably.

Even forgetting that I have just eaten my own lunch, or that Maupassant was even more mad than Van Gogh.

In fact I would almost be willing to wager that there is some way in which Maupassant is even connected to the soccer shirt with the name Savona on its front, should one wish to pursue such a question.

I cannot conceive of why anyone would wish to pursue such a question.

And actually I never really knew what it was, about wearing that soccer shirt.

Although Maupassant's rowing is now in my mind again, too.

Had I held onto the shirt, doubtless I might have worn it when rowing my own boat.

In fact it is perhaps unfortunate that I did not hold onto the lot of those shirts, in which case I might have worn a different one each time I rowed.

What I find interesting about this notion is that from the front it would have always looked as if I were wearing the same shirt.

Savona, it would have always said.

From under one arm to the other.

Assuredly the numerals on the back of each shirt would have been different, however.

So that possibly I could have even changed my back in sequence.

Although I am perhaps overlooking the question of sizes.

What with the one I did wear having already been too large, doubtless many of the others would have been even larger than that.

One is scarcely about to return to Savona to check on this, however.

And in any event I have practically never worn a shirt, while rowing.

Very likely I was not wearing anything on the day when I played tennis either, to tell the truth.

I am still having my period, by the way.

Having my period is another matter I do not particularly mean to give any weight to.

In this case it is just something that happens to be happening.

Although I have lost track of how long it is now, actually.

Doubtless I could look back through what I have been writing, and try to calculate that. But I am fairly certain that I have not indicated all of the days.

Sometimes I indicate them and sometimes I do not.

Lately I have often merely stopped typing and then started again, without putting in that it is tomorrow.

I did not put in throwing away the lilacs either, which was at least yesterday.

And doubtless if I did look back I would be distracted by other things I have written anyhow.

In fact without looking back at all, but by merely thinking about doing so, I have now remembered that a prostitute with whom Van Gogh once lived was named Sien.

Something I doubtless did put in, somewhere, is that I once knew a great deal about many painters.

Well, I knew a great deal about many painters for the same reason that Menelaus must surely have known a great deal about Paris, say.

Even if I seem to have skipped Rogier van der Weyden and Jan Steen.

Somehow I would also appear to know that Bach had eleven children, however.

Or perhaps it was twenty children.

Then again it may have been Vermeer who had eleven children.

Though possibly what I have in mind is that Vermeer left only twenty paintings.

Leonardo left fewer than that, perhaps only fifteen.

Not one of these figures may be correct.

Fifteen paintings do not seem like very many, especially when several of them are not even finished.

Or are deteriorating.

Then again it is perhaps quite a lot if one is Leonardo.

Actually Vermeer left forty paintings.

Brahms had no children at all, although he was known for carrying candy in his pocket to give to the children of other people, when he visited people who had children.

And at least we have finally solved the question as to which life of Brahms it was that I read.

Surely a history of music written for children, and printed in extraordinarily large type, would place emphasis on the fact that somebody being written about in that very book was known for carrying candy in his pocket to give to children when he visited people who had children.

Even if Brahms had not done this very often, surely it would have been emphasized there.

In fact it is not even impossible that Brahms hardly ever carried candy in his pocket to give to children.

Very possibly Brahms did not even do this more than once in his life, and the entire legend was based on that single incident.

Helen ran off with a lover only once in her life herself, and for three thousand years nobody would ever let her forget it.

Here is some candy, children, Brahms doubtless said, once.

Brahms gave candy to children, somebody wrote.

The latter statement is in no way untrue. Any more than it is untrue that Helen was unfaithful.

Although when one comes right down to it, who is to say that Brahms may even have not liked children?

Or even disliked them, to the extreme?

As a matter of fact quite possibly the only reason Brahms ever gave candy to any of them, even the once, may have been so they would go away altogether.

Actually, Leonardo did not have children either, although nothing appears to have been said about candy either way, in his instance.

Still, so much for your basic legend.

So much for solving the question as to which life of Brahms it was that I read, as well, since what I have also now just remembered is the affair that Brahms perhaps had with Clara Schumann.

I say perhaps, since it would appear that nobody has ever quite solved this, either.

Assuredly there would have been no hint of it in the history of music written for children, however.

Doubtless what Van Gogh wished was to reform Sien, when he invited her to live with him.

This was before he cut off his ear, I believe.

Often, in reading about Van Gogh, one gets the impression he must have been the first person to say hello to Dostoievski, in St. Petersburg.

Actually, it strikes me as quite agreeable to think of Brahms having had an affair with Clara Schumann.

Once, when I was a girl, I saw a film about music in Vienna, called Song of Love.

All I can remember about the film is that everybody took turns playing the piano.

But also that Katharine Hepburn had the part of Clara Schumann.

So perhaps it is the notion of Brahms having had an affair with somebody like Katharine Hepburn which strikes me as so agreeable.

Especially if his affair with Jane Avril did not last.

And even if I have no idea what I have been saying that has now reminded me that Bach was almost blind, before he died.

This was from copying too many scores late at night, if I remember.

Homer was blind too, of course.

Although possibly this was only something that was said, insofar as Homer was concerned.

I believe I have already mentioned that there were no pencils, then.

Which is to say that when people said Homer was blind, it was because what they really did not wish to say was that Homer did not know how to write.

Emily Bronte was one more person who did not have children.

Well, doubtless it would have been extraordinarily interesting if Emily Bronte did, what with the considerable likelihood that she never even once had a lover.

Still, I would perhaps find it difficult to think of anybody I would rather be descended from than Emily Bronte.

Unless Sappho, of course.

Well, or Helen.

To tell the truth, I may even have made believe that I was Helen, once.

At Hisarlik, this would have been. Looking out across the plains that once were Troy, and dreaming for a while that the Greek ships were beached there still.

Or that one could even see the evening's watchfires, being lighted along the shore.

Well, it would have been a harmless enough thing to make believe.