Even if the very painting by Van Gogh I have just mentioned is a painting of a fire which is not really a fire but is only a reflection of a fire, actually.
And which perhaps I have never even seen except in a reproduction either, since on second thought I do not remember it at the Uffizi after all.
Wittgenstein was never married, by the way. Well, or never had a mistress either, having been a homosexual.
Although in the meantime when I just said in the meantime I truly did mean in the meantime.
It now being almost an entire week since I additionally said I would doubtless think of my cat's name in a day or two.
And this in turn being by far the longest period I have allowed to go by without sitting at the typewriter.
My shoulder and my ankle no longer hurting as badly as they did, however.
Which is not to say that the pains in my shoulder or my ankle had anything to do with my not sitting at the typewriter.
Or that the pains no longer being as bad as they were has anything to do with my being back.
For some reason all I felt like doing was lying in the sun, for a time.
Which is also to say that it has stopped raining, obviously.
Well, one hardly having been able to lie in the sun if it hadn't.
Obviously.
In fact I have been having some rosy-fingered dawns again after all, too.
Even if how I happened to feel through most of the week was depressed, to tell the truth.
I believe I have said that I felt depressed at least once before, actually, while writing these pages.
Although perhaps what I more exactly said I felt once before was a certain undefined anxiety.
Which in that instance would have only been because of my period coming on, however.
Or because of hormones.
And so which would have not really been anxiety at all, but only an illusion.
Even if one would certainly be hard put to explain the difference between an illusion of anxiety and anxiety itself.
And in either case how I still felt this time was depressed.
Even if I had no idea why.
And moreover even if feeling depressed and having no idea why can generally leave one feeling even more depressed than that.
I was fairly certain that none of it had anything to do with not being able to remember the name of my cat.
Well, and too, once the rain had stopped but the woods were still wet everything was extraordinarily beautiful, and all of the wet leaves glistened and glistened.
So that it scarcely could have had anything to do with the rain, either.
Which I had been finding agreeable to ignore by walking in it in any event.
Finally on Tuesday I understood why I was feeling depressed.
Which was the same day on which I noticed that my rowboat would have to be bailed out, incidentally, should I wish to make use of my rowboat.
Although when I say this was Tuesday I am saying so only in a manner of speaking, naturally.
Having had no idea what day of the week it has ever been through any of these years, of course, and which is surely another thing I must have mentioned.
Still, certain days feelinglike Tuesday, for all that.
And even if I could also not remember having ever bailed out my other rowboat at all, although certainly I must have done so, now and again.
Unless it had never once rained while I still had my other rowboat.
Or I had never had another rowboat.
Certainly I once had another rowboat.
Just as I once had another cat, in fact, besides the cat I once wrote letters to all of those famous people about, and which was why I was feeling depressed.
This having been a cat before that cat, and which I had completely forgotten about when I was doing that list of so many other cats, last week.
In fact I suspect there is something ironical in my having been able to remember Helen of Sparta's cat, or even Carel Fabritius's burnt sienna cat, and not remembering this particular cat.
Especially since this particular cat was not really mine but was Lucien's.
And even though I had a husband at the same time, named Adam, whom I do not remember very frequently, either.
What happened with this cat having been that Adam and I suggested to Lucien that he should be the one to give it its name.
And which Lucien then commenced to look upon as an extraordinary responsibility.
Well, being only four, doubtless he had never had a responsibility before whether extraordinary or not.
So that for a certain period all that Lucien ever appeared to be doing was fretting over a name for the cat.
And which in the meantime we called simply Cat.
Good morning, Cat, being what I would say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.
Good night, Cat, being what either Adam or I would say when we put the cat out for the night.
All of this having taken place in Mexico, incidentally, in a village not far from Oaxaca.
And naturally in a village in Mexico one puts one's cat out for the night.
Well, the village scarcely needing to be in Mexico for one to do that in either, of course.
Later, in fact, I remember having done the identical thing with my Martin Heidegger cat, once when I was painting in Rome, New York, for a summer.
Although in that instance with the cat having been a city cat I did worry to some degree, perhaps.
Even if a cat which had been locked up in a loft in SoHo for all of its life ought to have found it agreeable to be outside at night, surely.
But be that as it may, Lucien never did seem to decide upon a name for that earlier cat.
Or for so long that very likely it would have been impossible to stop calling it simply Cat by then in either case.
Although as a matter of fact we had taken to calling the cat Cat in Spanish too, sometimes.
Buenos dias, Gato,being what I would sometimes say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.
Buenas noches, Gato,being what Adam or I would sometimes say when we put the cat out for the night.
For three years we called the cat that, either Gatoor Cat, and then I went away from the village not far from Oaxaca.
Even though I did go back, once, years and years afterwards, as I have possibly said.
And in a Jeep was able to maneuver directly up the hillside to where the grave was, instead of being forced to follow the road.
Having still been making use of all sorts of vehicles, in those days.
Well, having still been looking, in those days.
If having been quite mad for a good deal of the time, too, of course.
Mexico having appeared as reasonable a place in which to begin to look as any, however, whether I was mad or not.
Even if I am convinced that I remained in New York for at least two winters before I did look elsewhere, actually.
And even if one surely does not have to be mad in the least, in being drawn to the grave of one's only child.
So that when one truly comes down to it perhaps I was only partly mad.
Or mad only part of the time.
And able to understand that Lucien would have been almost twenty by then at any rate, and so well on his way to becoming a stranger.
Well, or perhaps not yet quite twenty.
And perhaps not at all on his way to becoming a stranger.
There being certain things that one will never ever know, and can never ever even guess at.
Such as why I spilled gasoline all over his old room on that very next morning, for that matter.
After turning my shoes upside down, naturally, in case of scorpions, even though there could no longer have been any scorpions.
And then watched the image of the smoke rising and rising in my rearview mirror as I drove and drove again.