Wittgenstein's Nephew Read Online Free

figure is my friend Paul, who was hospitalized with me on the Wilhelminenberg and who also was isolated, shunted aside, and written off. I want to see him clearly again with the help of these notes, these scraps of memory, which are meant to clarify and recall to mind not only the hopeless situation of my friend but also my own hopelessness at the time, for just as Paul’s life had once again run into an impasse, so mine too had run into an impasse, or rather been driven into one. I am bound to say that, like Paul, I had once more overstated and overrated my existence, that I had exploited it to excess. Like Paul, I had once more made demands on myself in excess of my resources. I had made demands on everything in excess of all resources. I had behaved toward myself and everything else with the same unnatural ruthlessness that one day destroyed Paul and will one day destroy me. For just as Paul came to grief through his unhealthy overestimation of himself and the world, I too shall sooner or later come to grief through my own unhealthy overestimationof myself and the world. Like Paul, I woke up in a hospital bed on the Wilhelminenberg, almost totally destroyed through overrating myself and the world. Paul, quite logically, woke up in the mental clinic, and I woke up in the chest clinic—he in the Ludwig Pavilion, I in the Hermann Pavilion. Just as Paul had more or less raced himself almost to death in
his
madness, I too had more or less raced myself to death in mine. Just as Paul’s career had repeatedly been brought to a halt and been cut off in a mental clinic, so mine had repeatedly come to a halt and been cut off in a lung clinic. Just as Paul had again and again worked himself up to an extreme pitch of rebellion against himself and the world around him and had to be taken into a mental clinic, so I had again and again worked myself up to an extreme pitch of rebellion against myself and the world around me and had to be taken into a lung clinic. Just as Paul, at diminishing intervals, found himself and the world insupportable, as may be imagined, so I, at diminishing intervals, found myself and the world insupportable and
came to myself
, as it were, in the lung clinic, while Paul came to himself in the mental clinic. Just as the mental specialists again and again ruined Paul and then got his energies going again, so the lung specialists again and again ruined me and then got my energies going again. Paul, I am bound to say, was ultimately conditioned by madhouses, while I, it seems, have been conditioned by lung hospitals. He was educated by madmen for long periods of his life, I by lung patients; he developed in the company of madmen, I in the company of lung patients; and to develop among madmen is not so different from developing among lungpatients. He learned the crucial lessons of life and existence from the madmen, whereas I learned my equally crucial lessons from the lung patients—he from mental disease, I from lung disease. It might be said that Paul succumbed to madness because one day he lost control, just as I succumbed to lung disease because I one day lost control. Paul went mad because he suddenly pitted himself against everything and lost his balance, just as one day I too lost my balance through pitting myself against everything—the only difference being that he went
mad
, whereas I, for the selfsame reason, contracted
lung disease
. But Paul was no madder than I am: I am at least as mad as he was, as he was said to be, though I have lung disease in addition to my madness. The only difference between us is that Paul allowed himself to be
utterly
dominated by his madness, whereas I have never let myself be utterly dominated by my equally serious madness; one might say that he was taken over by his madness, whereas I have always exploited mine. Paul never controlled his madness, but I have always controlled mine—which possibly means that my madness is in fact much madder than