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.

Which I may or may not have painted myself, incidentally, if I have not said.

Actually I have no recollection whatsoever of having painted that painting.

Still, ever since it turned up missing I have had the curious impression that I just could have.

Or at least that I certainly once imagined it as a painting that I might possibly paint but then did not.

Which is the sort of thing that a painter will now and again do, of course.

Or not do, rather.

But in which instance there could have scarcely been a painting for me to have lost after all, obviously.

Or would that have to mean that there might have been no life of Brahms and no atlas either, then?

Except that if there had not been any atlas how could I have once looked up Lititz, Pennsylvania, in it, on an occasion when I happened to be curious about Lititz, Pennsylvania?

And if there had not been any life of Brahms how could I have once lighted some torn-out pages from it on the beach and then tossed them into the air to see if the breeze might make them fly?

When I was trying to simulate seagulls?

Even if most of the pages happened to fall right next to me, as a matter of fact.

Because of having been printed on extraordinarily cheap paper, doubtless.

But so that there must have unquestionably once been a life of Brahms in this house.

And in which a part I always liked was when Clara Hepburn gave Ludwig Wittgenstein some sugar.

Although what I would really like to find even more than I would like to find the painting is my missing cat, to tell the truth.

Even if it is not really a cat and is not really missing, actually.

Well, being only Magritte, who used to be Vincent.

Which is to say that the tape would appear to have blown away from the outside of that broken window, being all.

Still, one had gotten to be quite fond of that frisky scratching.

Although even just to see some floating ash again would be agreeable, too.

Even if one would hardly go to the trouble to name some floating ash, on the other hand.

There is a numeral on the back of the soccer shirt, by the way.

Possibly it is a nine. Or a nineteen.

In fact it is two zeros.

Have I mentioned that I have taken to building fires down near the water, after my sunsets, incidentally?

I have taken to building fires down near the water, after my sunsets.

Now and again, too, looking at them from a distance, what I have done is to make believe for a little while that I am back at Hisarlik.

By which I really mean when Hisarlik was Troy, of course, and all of those years and years ago.

So that what I am more truthfully making believe is that the fires are Greek watchfires, where they have been lighted along the shore.

Well, that certainly being a harmless enough thing to make believe.

Oh. And I have been hearing The Alto Rhapsody again also, these days.