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from wanting — to him it seemed that even sex was easier. In his head a hum, a rhythm was hovering. On his lips, a question was forming …
    Where in the world is value to be found?
    It was the question of his life. Using logic as his calculus, he thought he would work progressively out from what could be said intelligibly until he reached the limits of what could not be said. And once having drawn this arc or limit, he would be able to better behold the logical form, or structure, of the world, isolating it in much the way a sculptor chisels down a block of alabaster, seeking to reveal the form glowing within.
    A vain presumption, he thought. He was no better than Archimedes boasting that he could lift the earth if only he had a lever long enough and a planet to serve as a fulcrum. But these self-reproaches did not make the dream desist, they only made it all the more powerful. He could see himself in his vision, which had dimension and depth like a body of water. His vision was so strong that he felt he could stand right out of it. Ascending a ladder of propositions, he would plant his shoes on the last possible rung. And looking down, he would peer, as if through sheer form, into another world darkly mirrored under the aspect of eternity.
    Yet how was this undertaking to be practically achieved? Was it to be had in the human heart for desiring — in the will for willing? He saw all too well that will has no power over the world, or its own reckless willing. The dissembling will only blames the hand, which blames the mind, which in turn blames the loins — dumb but no less turgid. And so the thirsting will turns on itself, curtailing itself from the misery of willing by deputizing the hand with its magnetic attraction to poison and sharp objects, to push and precipice and philandering air …
    He closed his eyes, wishing his expanding will to be smaller, milder, more reasonable. But the will was not compliant; it would not be ordered about like some cringing subordinate. SAY, ventured the riddling will or mind. SAY, said the soul, which is as various and contrary as it is many. SAY this kite is your will, with this much line and this much scope under the general sky. And just as in an aeroplane there is thrust and drag, so the thrust of will must be factored over fear, chiefly the fear of rampant willing, that hell-bent runaway. And then, as Wittgenstein realized this, he pictured in his mind the following equation:
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With:
W being Will
F being Fear
S being Scope
    It was the same old story. Here and no farther, God commanded the waves. Stand without and come no closer, said He to the barrier clouds, those lifebreakers that separate the earth from what lies beyond.
    Wittgenstein could smell the squall, could taste it on his tongue, bitter as blood and rusted iron. Higher and higher rose the silver waves, heaving down and exploding up the beach as the clouds bumped with a fulminating green light. Facing the sky, Wittgenstein thought of the myth he had made up as a boy to explain his life. It was the story of how souls connect with bodies to become people. Before birth, the newly washed soul, then a snowy, sexless nothing, waits for a body. The soul has but one chance. If the soul moves one way, it becomes a male, if another, a female. But if the soul moves wrong or clumsily, the person takes on the impulses of both, so that he is never free or far from torment.
    He then remembered how, as a boy, he had watched girls jumping rope, two twirling and a third swinging her arms, waiting to start jumping. Rhythmically, the rope slapped the pavement, walloping through the air. That rope would have sliced him in two, but for the girl it was easy. She was free. She watched the rope, not the intimidating sky. Effortlessly, she jumped in and out, chanting and stamping, turning four-square to the world that spun so tunelessly. And each time he saw how, as she jumped in, she closed her eyes, not in dread but