Now and again when I was calculating which of the boards I could get at next with my crowbar up there, by the way, I was reminded of Brunelleschi and Donatello.
Early in the Renaissance when Brunelleschi and Donatello had gone about measuring ancient ruins in Rome, this would be, and with such industry that people believed they could only be searching for buried treasure.
But after which Brunelleschi returned home to Florence and put up the largest dome since antiquity.
While Giotto built the beautiful campanile next door.
Even if there would appear to be no record in art history as to whether Giotto did that before or after he had painted the perfect circle freehand, on the other hand.
And as a matter of fact Giotto's campanile is square.
Although there is practically no place in Florence from which one cannot see either of those structures, incidentally.
Well, as there is practically no place in Paris from which one cannot see the Eiffel Tower, either.
And which might certainly disturb one's lunch, should one not wish to look at the Eiffel Tower while eating one's lunch.
Unless like Guy de Maupassant one had taken to crawling about on a floor and eating one's own excrement, say.
God, poor Maupassant.
Well, but poor Friedrich Nietzsche, too, actually.
If not to mention poor Vivaldi while I am at it also, since I now remember that he died in an almshouse.
And for that matter poor Bach's widow Anna Magdalena, who was allowed to do the same thing.
Bach's widow. And with all of those children. Some of whom were actually even more successful in music at the time than Bach himself had been.
Well, but then poor Robert Schumann as well, in a lunatic asylum and fleeing from demons. One of whom was even Franz Schubert's ghost.
For that matter poor Franz Schubert's ghost.
Poor Tchaikovsky, who once visited America and spent his first night in a hotel room weeping, because he was homesick.
Even if his head at least did not come off.
Poor James Joyce, who was somebody else who crawled under furniture when it thundered.
Poor Beethoven, who never learned to do simple child's multiplication.
Poor Sappho, who leaped from a high cliff, into the Aegean.
Poor John Ruskin, who had all those other silly troubles to begin with, of course, but who finally also saw snakes.
The snakes, Mr. Ruskin.
Poor A. E. Housman, who would not let philosophers use his bathroom.
Poor Giovanni Keats, who was only five feet, one inch tall.
Poor Aristotle, who talked with a lisp, and had exceptionally thin legs.
Poor Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who I also now remember was one more person who died in a plague. But in her case while taking care of other nuns who were more ill than she.
Poor Karen Silkwood.
Well, and poor all the young men who died in places like the Hellespont, by which I mean the Dardanelles, and then died again three thousand years after that, likewise.
Even if I hardly mean the same young men.
But meaning poor Hector and poor Patroclus, say, and after that poor Rupert Brooke.
Ah, me. If not to add poor Andrea del Sarto and poor Cassandra and poor Marina Tsvetayeva and poor Vincent Van Gogh and poor Jeanne Hebuterne and poor Piero di Cosimo and poor Iphigenia and poor Stan Gehrig and poor singing birds sweet and poor Medea's little boys and poor Spinoza's spiders and poor Astyanax and poor my aunt Esther as well.
Well, and poor all the youngsters throwing snowballs in Bruegel, who grew up, and did whatever they did, but never threw snowballs again.
So for that matter poor practically the whole world then, more often than not.
And of course without even thinking about that Wednesday or Thursday morning, this is.
Even if for the life of me I have no idea why I am talking about one bit of that now, either. Any of it.
When all I had actually been about to say was that I have no real explanation for not having written anything in these past seven or eight weeks.
Even if I have already listed several, such as going for supplies, or devoting more time than usual to my dismantling.
Although another reason may very well be that I have appeared to be frequently tired lately, to tell the truth.
As a matter of fact what I ought to have perhaps just said was not that I have no explanation for not having written anything in the past seven or eight weeks, but for having been so frequently tired during that period.
In fact I am feeling tired right at this moment.
Perhaps I was feeling tired when I spent that week lying in the sun before I last did do any writing, too, now that I stop to think about it.
So that I am less than positive that I have brought in as many items for winter as I will need after all, actually.
Or that I have done nearly as much dismantling as is necessary, either.
Especially since any number of the boards are still waiting to be sawed, as it happens.
Although I have never considered sawing the boards to be part of the process of dismantling, incidentally.
Being rather a question of turning dismantled lumber into firewood.
After it has been dismantled.
Even if such a distinction is doubtless no more than one of semantics.
And in either case perhaps I will do some more of that, later today.
Perhaps I will find the painting I have lost later today, also.
Although doubtless I have not mentioned that I have lost a painting.
Well, assuredly I have not mentioned having lost it, what with not having written one solitary word since some time before that happened.
It being the painting of this very house, that I am talking about, and which until at least last August had been hanging directly above and to the side of where this typewriter is.
I believe the painting is a painting of this very house.
In fact I believe there is a representation of a person lurking at the window of my very bedroom in it, even, although one had never been able to be positive about that.
Well, because of the brushwork being fairly abstract at that point, basically.
Still, through all of this time I had been certain that I had put the painting into one of the rooms here that I do not often make use of, and to which the door is generally closed.
As a matter of fact it is a room I surely must have mentioned, since I had been equally certain it was the identical room in which I had more than once noticed a life of Brahms and an atlas.
The former having become permanently misshapen because of dampness, in fact, whereas the latter was lying on its side.
Because of being too tall for the shelf.
And with the shelf being the identical shelf that the painting was leaning against, additionally.
Nonetheless the painting is not in that room.
And for the life of me I have not been able to locate the life of Brahms or the atlas either, even though I have also looked into every other room in this house, including the several additional rooms to which the doors are likewise generally closed.
As a matter of fact I have also walked to the house in the woods behind this house, suspecting that I might have been mistaken as to the whereabouts of all three items, but the painting and the life of Brahms and the atlas do not appear to be in that house, either.
In fact the only item in that house which I remembered having ever given even a second glance, in addition to a reproduction of a painting by Suzanne Valadon that is taped to the living room wall, was a soccer shirt with the name Savona printed across its front.
Which I have now washed at the spring and am wearing as I type.
As a matter of fact I have been wearing the soccer shirt for some days.
Even if I have no idea what it is, really, about wearing the soccer shirt.
And even if I am still at a total loss in regard to that painting.