Ludwig Wittgenstein and David Hume Pinsent Consider a Purchase of Scandinavian Furniture

It was a lingering winter; all the streets

were melted ice and ash, and two young men

fresh from the matinee of Scriabin

stumbled home to stain their Cambridge sheets

and argue over tonal innovation:

Ludwig denied it; David found it quite

interesting as maths—to stop a fight

he turned the topic to a renovation

of their rooms; a year before, in Norway, they

had seen a form of rigorous design,

like a truth-function formed by Wittgenstein

himself—but neither one of them could say

quite what he meant; they passed into a silence

as necessary as it was immense.