So if it is a fact that Brahms was known for carrying candy in his pocket to give to children when he visited people who had children, then surely it is likely that Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the children he gave candy to.

Very possibly this was what was in Wittgenstein's own mind all of those years later, in fact, when he said that you do not need a lot of money to give a nice present, but you do need a lot of time.

By which I mean that if the person Wittgenstein had wished to give a present to had been a child, he could have naturally taken care of the problem exactly the way Brahms generally did.

Doubtless one does not stroll about Cambridge carrying candy in one's pocket to give to Bertrand Russell or to Alfred North Whitehead, however.

Although what one might now wish one's self is that Wittgenstein had been in the basement with me yesterday, so as to have given me some help with that Dasein.

Well, or perhaps even with that other word, bricolage, that I woke up with in my head, that morning.

Or likewise with the whole sentence that I also must have said to myself a hundred times, a little later on, about the world being everything that is the case.

Surely if Wittgenstein was as intelligent as one was generally led to believe he ought to have been able to tell me if that had meant anything, either.

Then again, something else I once read about Wittgenstein was that he used to think so hard that you could actually see him doing it.

And certainly I would have had no desire to put the man to that sort of trouble.

Although what this for some reason now reminds me of is that I do know one thing about Martin Heidegger after all.

I have no idea how I know it, to tell the truth, although doubtless it is from another one of those footnotes. What I know is that Martin Heidegger once owned a pair of boots that had actually belonged to Vincent Van Gogh, and used to put them on when he went for walks in the woods.

I have no doubt that this is a fact either, incidentally. Especially since it may have been Martin Heidegger who made the very statement I mentioned a long while ago, about anxiety being the fundamental mood of existence.

So that what he surely would have admired about Van Gogh to begin with would have been the way Van Gogh could make even a pair of boots seem to have anxiety in them.

Even if there was only the smallest likelihood that a pair of boots Van Gogh used to wear were the same pair he also once painted a painting of, obviously.

Unless of course he had painted with only his socks on, that day.

Or had borrowed a second pair of boots.

And on third thought it may have been Kierkegaard's boots that I was thinking about, and Van Gogh who had owned those.

Actually I rarely read footnotes.

Although doubtless it is also partly age, which will sometimes blur certain distinctions.

And by now there could well be a question of hormones too, and of change of life.

In fact the entire story may have had something to do with somebody sitting in one of Pascal's chairs.

And what I had really intended to have said by now was that I was familiar with the names of the writers on certain other of the books from the carton as well, besides the seven by Martin Heidegger.

Such as Johannes Keats, for instance.

Although there was also a translation of Anna Karenina in which case it was the title itself that I was able to recognize.

This simply being because the title in German appeared to be virtually identical with the title in English, as it happened.

But what I find interesting about this is that if the copy of that book had been the original book itself, and had not been translated, I would not have been able to make sense out of the title at all.

When one says that one does not read one word of Russian one is saying so even more truthfully than when one says that one does not read one word of German, obviously.

In spite of practically every other word in the latter looking like Bronte. Or Durer.

Though there were also several items in the carton that I was not able to identify in any way whatsoever.

By which I mean that there were certain volumes on which I could not make sense out of the titles and did not recognize the names of the writers either.

Doubtless none of these was a book which had been translated from English, however, where I have the largest familiarity with writers, but had been written in German to begin with.

Which is scarcely to say that I am not familiar with certain German writers also, on the other hand.

Certainly I am familiar with Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance.

Well, or with Goethe.

Although by saying that I am familiar with either of these writers I do not necessarily mean that I am extraordinarily familiar with them.

As a matter of fact by saying that I am familiar with them I do not even necessarily mean that I have read a solitary word that either one of them ever wrote.

Actually the sum total of that familiarity may well extend no farther than to my reading of the backs of the jackets on phonograph records.

Such as the back of the jacket on Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss, for instance.

Or the back of the jacket on The Alto Rhapsody.

Possibly my including the back of the jacket on The Alto Rhapsody would appear to be less relevant than my including the back of the jacket on Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Certainly if I had never read the back of a jacket on The Alto Rhapsody I would not be familiar with the fact that what Brahms had based The Alto Rhapsody on was a poem by Goethe, however.

Neither am I forgetting The Damnation of Faust, by Berlioz, on the other hand.

Or Gounod's Faust.

Or Liszt's Faust Symphony.

Even if I am perhaps now showing off again.

In either event it was certainly not my intention to demean any German writers by remarking that I did not recognize their names.

Possibly any number of these writers were quite famous in Germany and the news had simply not reached me by the time I stopped reading.

Doubtless I would have heard of many of them within a few more years.

Then again, perhaps some of the writers whose books I took from the carton were not German writers after all. Quite possibly there were just as many French writers whose names I did not recognize. Or Italian writers.

In fact this could have been just as true of certain writers who wrote in Spanish.

Surely it is no more than chance that I had ever heard of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz herself, actually. Or of Marco Antonio Montes de Oca.

Moreover even after having heard of them I might very well have forgotten about them again entirely, if their names had not had a certain resonance.

So perhaps it was not necessary for me to have apologized to any German writers after all.

Franz Liszt was one more person who was in the movie Song of Love with Bach and Clara Schumann, by the way.

I bring this up just in passing.

Well, or because of just having mentioned Liszt.

And Rainer Maria Rilke was another German writer I could have said I was similarly familiar with, had I wished.

Although what I am really still thinking about is how you could actually see Wittgenstein thinking, that way.

Even if thinking is what philosophers obviously do, on the other hand.

So quite possibly the lot of them were like that. Possibly every single philosopher from all the way back to Zeno used to walk around letting people see that they were thinking.

Possibly they even did this when they did not have a single thing more on their minds than the most inconsequential perplexities, as a matter of fact.

Not that inconsequential perplexities cannot now and again become the fundamental mood of existence too, of course.

Still, all I am suggesting is that quite possibly the only thing that Wittgenstein himself had on his mind when people believed he was thinking so hard may very well have been a seagull.

This would be the seagull which had come to his window each morning to be fed, that I am speaking about. One time when he lived near Galway Bay, in Ireland.

Possibly I have not mentioned that Wittgenstein had a pet seagull which came to his window each morning to be fed.

Or even that he ever lived in Ireland.

Or rather what occurs to me is that I may have said it was somebody else who had the pet seagull. And in another place altogether.

On my honor, it was Wittgenstein who had it. At Galway Bay.

Wittgenstein also played an instrument, incidentally.

And sometimes did some sculpture.

I enjoy knowing both of those things about Wittgenstein.

In fact I also enjoy knowing that he once worked as a gardener, in a monastery.

And inherited a good deal of money, but gave it all away.

In fact I believe I would have liked Wittgenstein.

Especially since what he did with the money, once he did decide to give it away, was to arrange to have it be used to help other writers who did not have any.

Such as Rainer Maria Rilke.

Actually, the next time I am in a town where there is a bookstore to let myself into, perhaps I will try to find something to read by Wittgenstein after all.

Galway Bay has a much lovelier sound when one says it out loud than when one merely looks at it on the page, by the way.

Well, doubtless it has no sound at all, when one merely looks at it on the page.

In fact even such words as Maria Callas do not have any sound when one is merely looking at them on the page, come to think about it.

Or Lucia di Lammermoor.

Hm. So what color were my red roses when I typed those words also, then?

In any case it had never crossed my mind that one might actually name a seagull before, I do not believe.

Galway Bay. Cadiz. Lake Como. Pamplona. Lesbos. Bordeaux.

Shostakovitch.

Oh, well. Meanwhile I have just been out to the dunes.

While I was peeing, I thought about Lawrence of Arabia.

This is scarcely to suggest that there is any particular connection between taking a pee and Lawrence of Arabia, however.

The reason I thought about Lawrence of Arabia, as a matter of fact, was simply because there was only one other book from the carton that I was able to recognize, and that happened to be a life of Lawrence of Arabia.

The reason I recognized that one, as it happened, was because the name Lawrence of Arabia had been kept in English in the title, in quotation marks.

Actually, I might have recognized it as a life of Lawrence of Arabia at any rate, since the book also contained several photographs of Lawrence of Arabia, but I had already made the assumption that it was a life of Lawrence of Arabia before noticing these.

Once I did notice the photographs I was delighted to accept this as a verification of my assumption, however.

Lawrence of Arabia did not look very much like Peter OToole, by the way, even though in some of the photographs he was dressed like Peter OToole.

This would be Peter OToole the way he was dressed in the film about Lawrence of Arabia, naturally.

I believe I have mentioned having seen Peter OToole in the film about Lawrence of Arabia.

Although on the other hand when I say that Lawrence of Arabia did not look very much like Peter OToole, I should perhaps also say that I am in no way certain of what Lawrence of Arabia actually looked like.

Granting, I have just said it was only yesterday that I saw certain photographs of Lawrence of Arabia.

Still, when I say that the photographs I saw yesterday were of Lawrence of Arabia, this itself may very well be no more than one additional assumption.

Naturally I could not make sense out of the captions that went along with the photographs.