The World as I Found It (29 page)

Russell stood there frozen. Wittgenstein was swaying like a tree. And then Wittgenstein whirled around, his voice pleading.

You must not on any account abandon me! Even if I do come to nothing. As I must! You must not!

But of course not, Russell insisted. Never …

Not knowing what to do, Russell did what he had never done: he placed his hand on Wittgenstein's arm and gave him a paternal pat. It was fearful to see Wittgenstein's mood swerve from imperious certainty to abject fear and helplessness. But what most struck Russell was this fleeting sense he had of tenderly consoling Ottoline or some woman. But even more unsettling was Russell's sense that, at bottom, he was only consoling
himself
. It was himself Russell saw before him, the incarnation of his own suspended judgment.

O
TTOLINE
, meanwhile, was growing increasingly concerned for both Russell and Wittgenstein. Not incidentally, she was also thinking of herself: these storms that rocked Russell spilled over on her, too.

Not that Ottoline found such pressures entirely unwelcome. Despite her incessant complaints about her social responsibilities, she obviously relished the task of balancing so many geniuses, near-geniuses and neurotics. Julian at least had a governess. For these others, Ottoline often felt that she was the governess.

Considering her schedule, Ottoline was amazed that she managed to give Russell the time she did. Why, just to answer his letters took two and three hours a day, and this wasn't even counting what he expected her to read. At the moment, Ottoline felt like a music hall juggler, the kind who sets plates spinning on bamboo rods, then dashes madly back and forth trying to keep them all from crashing down. Chief and worst lately, there was Lamb, triumphantly working for two days, then grandly pouting for a week in preparation for a show in May, where he knew he would be denied the public outcry his genius so richly deserved. So here would be Mummy O, dropping by his studio (the same she had found and furnished for him) with little gifts and sops of hasty sex when Lambykins was feeling needy. He was a pill. Oh, O, I'm so this, he'd purr on the telephone. Oh, O, I can't … Oh, O, I need … And there she'd be, sending her own maid on odd days with brooms and cooked food from her kitchen. Or dispatching friends to his studio that they might cheer him on, marveling at his desultory, half-finished canvases, each a Sistine Chapel, to hear him.

There were in Ottoline's gallery a half dozen other young men, all in various unfinished, promising, declining or disheveled states. These were more casual, Platonic friendships, but inevitably these ill-defined attachments also harbored vague sexual tensions that required from Ottoline an endless round of letters, pick-me-ups, strategic remembrances and not a few small deceptions.

And last, there was Lytton — a special category. Despite his own incessant demands, Lytton was a great confidant; and best of all, he came without the usual snares and unease resulting from S-E-X. In the process of beginning
Eminent Victorians
now, Lytton was in need of pleasant, painterly places. And Ottoline's London residence, Bedford Hall — this, Lytton said, was his Watteau and Gainsborough! Bedford Hall ranked high on Lytton's list as he made his robin rounds, staying here a week and there a month until his welcome wore thin, or he got bored.

Aside from Lytton's brilliance and charm as a guest, gossip was his stock in trade, and, like a pack rat, he always carried off a whiff of scandal for every thorned nosegay he left. Ottoline had learned her lesson, burned once already when her innocent remarks about Wittgenstein got back to Russell, via Moore. Bertie scandalized! Bertie betrayed! Ottoline did think Bertie's indignant letter was a bit much. What was the harm if Moore knew about Wittgenstein? she wrote back. It was a matter of confidence, he replied: his comments were not for public consumption. And besides, he said, Wittgenstein was better off in a smaller circle.
Smaller
circle? replied Ottoline sarcastically. You're only a circle of
two
!

Flimsy as Russell's reasons were, Ottoline had still been embarrassed. But now, it was late January and Lytton was over. And the weather was so interminably dreary, like old porridge, mucking cold and gray. And,
per favore
, they were both trying to be gay that afternoon, she and Lytton, the better to banish these winter weeds!
Sí
, they were being Italian today, which suddenly made everything seem sunny, so warm and carefree. They could get so silly together — such fun a man and woman could have when sex was not lurking. After a morning spritzer of brandy with soda, Lytton, whose moods were like layers of water, warm over cold, declared he would have made a fetching woman. To prove his point, he wriggled into his hostess's high heels, rolled his trousers past the knee, then pranced before the wall-length mirror.

I am naughty Francesca.
Whoopsidaisini!
he cried, almost toppling over. I have most wicked legs, no?

Oh,
sí
, enthused m'lady, who had sprawled back on the bed, shrieking.
Molto hairy
.

Such fun they had, trading secrets and mimicking everyone. After they had pilloried half of London, Ottoline told her hushed guest that she had something else to tell him —
if
he could keep his cursed mouth shut. Lyttonni — for that was his
nom de biche
today — Lyttonni was, but of course, the very soul of discretion. Crossing himself, he said he was a veritable priest in Her Ladyship's confessional.

Oh, assolutamente!
From me, Bella, not one
solo mio
!

I'm
seriosa
! warned Ottoline. You get me in trouble again, and I'll never tell you another secretini,
capire
?

Oh,
sincero, signora
! said Lyttonni with caressing hands.
Sincero
.

He wore her down with his entreaties. And of course she wanted and intended to tell him — and why not? It was not really gossip, not in the sense of being malicious. And she had Lyttonni's word. So, she unburdened herself. It was this Wittgenstein, she said. He was so tragic and tormented. A suicidal genius. And poor Bertini, she moaned. Wittgenstein was driving him to distraction with his criticisms and insistent demands as they strove to solve questions that, to hear her tell it, sounded almost Newtonian in their implications.

Lyttonni was so understanding, so full of pungent ideas. And so it was decided: for Bertie's own good, this Wittgenstein really must be given other outlets. Air was needed. He must broaden his horizons. Lyttonni, for one, wanted to meet him —
very
. So, no doubt, would Keynes. But in the meantime, Lyttonni had an idea that was, on second thought,
splendido
! Ottoline would tell Bertie that Wittgenstein ought to meet Moore and perhaps even take his course. Moore, reasoned Lytton, would be the perfect counterbalance to Russell, and all concerned would benefit — Russell, Wittgenstein and the
signora
.

It was a brilliant stroke. And such a load off her mind. But Lyttonni, he was a wee curious? This Wittgenstein, he asked with a wry wink, he is handsome? … Does he … I mean,
signora, is
he …?

Stop! chided O, the tease. I don't know.

Bella!
pleaded Lyttonni.

I don't
know
, she insisted. Stop —

Oh, Ottoanaschini,
soccorra me!

Looking away, she waggled her fingers like a marionetteer.
Comme ci, comme ça
.

Trulyoso?

I don't know! I mean, Bertie won't quite say. And not a word! You never heard a
word
from me!
Not one!

Oh! Lyttonni brushed his lips. Of this there need be no mention. Of this there was no question.

* * *

Much as it galled him at bottom, Russell did see the sense of Ottoline's suggestion that he introduce Wittgenstein to Moore. Broader exposure probably would be good for Wittgenstein now. Certainly, Russell did not want to feel selfish, nor to invite charges of being exclusive with a strong prospect. And it was safe now, he thought; the bond between them was too strong for Moore to threaten it. Besides, he doubted that Moore had much to offer Wittgenstein, Moore being more at his depth in metaphysics, ethics and psychology. Moreover, Russell was fairly sure — gleefully so — that Moore's elaborate, sometimes plodding style of lecturing would quickly frustrate Wittgenstein.

Still, in almost inverse proportion to his confidence here, Russell felt a superstitious urge to test Wittgenstein's loyalty. Russell was sporting about it, though. Talking to Wittgenstein about Moore, Russell gave his colleague every chance, making a good many left-handed compliments and pointing out how Moore's tortoise tactics had fooled many a quicker adversary, including himself. Russell even gave Wittgenstein a copy of
Principia Ethica
, saying what a stir the book had caused ten years before. And when, two days later, Wittgenstein returned the book, saying that it gave him headaches — saying that Moore, in his circuitous, Latinate style, said over and over in pages what could have been said in a single paragraph — why, poor, shocked Russell was warmed to the heart.

As for Moore's class, Russell told Wittgenstein not to expect to be immediately stunned, and lo, Wittgenstein was not stunned. Still, he withheld judgment, remembering Russell's promise that Moore, like a magician, would soon whip away the black cloth, revealing Truth in all its pearly effulgence.

But, for God's sake,
when
? By the third class Wittgenstein was still waiting as Moore held forth with the sweat streaming down his brow. Why was Moore so infernally cautious? Wittgenstein wondered. Why, when Moore had considered every conceivable facet of a question, why did he immediately return to it the next class, unable to proceed until he had banished every possible confusion? Wittgenstein remembered Russell telling him that Moore's effect was cumulative, but this was more on the order of geological ages!

That was essentially what Moore did in those opening periods: he catalogued the world, leading the entities two by two into that ark in which he sought to memorialize all we know, think we know, and don't or can't possibly know.

If only Wittgenstein had watched Moore tunneling his way through a plate heaped with food — then he might have understood how Moore's mind grazed through this bounty that is the world. Moore had his philosophical gospel. It was the Gospel of Common Sense, of cutting the
nonsense
and plunging forthwith into the baptismal font of what we know, and know truly, despite all protests to the contrary.

To begin with, testified Moore, it seems clear that there are in the universe an enormous number of material objects of one kind or another. We know, for instance, that besides our own bodies, the bodies of millions of other men inhabit the earth. We know also that there are billions of animals and plants. There are an even greater number of inanimate objects — mountains and all the stones upon them, grains of sand, different kinds of minerals and soil, and all the drops of water in the swelling rivers and the sea. We recognize that there are also a multitude of objects manufactured by men, and we now accept the idea that the sun and moon, and those bright grains that are the visible stars, are themselves great masses of matter, most of them many times larger than our earth. And besides these material objects, Moore continued, we know that there are other phenomena. We know, for instance, that men possess minds, and that in this world, we encounter not just our own minds but
other
minds — minds not our own and often indeed almost nothing like our own …

It was such a long catalogue Moore enumerated; it was such an ungodly, prognathous mess of experience he was heaping up. Still, it was just and necessary, said Moore, that we cautiously examine these things. Through civil looking and thinking, he seemed to suggest, we could heft and smell these mental melons and cabbages — we truly could behold their phenomenological essences and so perhaps discern our own. But just as difficult and important as making judgments, he added, is the art of
withholding
judgment — of not precipitously surrendering to the ego's gluttonous caviling to be
right
, so it could eat and spew more. For surely it was folly to plow through the world simply to be through it.

In his ruminating rootedness, Moore had a positive genius for withholding judgment, for that relentless, often exasperating analysis necessary to prepare these victuals for proper beholding. Still, in his own good time Moore could make his point, could even startle with his point. Like Russell, Moore was still fighting those old skirmishes against the Hegelian idealists, those rebels against the Gospel of Common Sense. And so, harrumphed Moore, isn't it curious that skeptics routinely believe what is most fabulous and discount what is most obvious and indeed under their very noses? And let us also ask ourselves how it is possible that
material
philosophers have held that
material
objects do not exist. For, after all, argued Moore, if this view is true, then it follows that no philosopher has ever held it, since philosophers are themselves material objects —

Sir—

Up went the hand. Looking up, Moore acknowledged the arrogant-looking chap in the fifth row, the one with his mortarboard cocked like a wedge and a bit askew. Moore knew all too well who it was, having waited over a week for the inevitable objection.

Sir, said Wittgenstein, with yet a glimmer of admiration. Your point is certainly
interesting
. But tell me, please, what
material
difference it makes? Whether I am material or immaterial — why should this affect the truth of what I say? If something is true, then it is true. We do not judge its truth by asking by what
medium
does it come to us. Do I say I will not consider your argument because you use
spoken
words only? I might say I believe only in the written word.