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trip to Königsberg. I was perfectly happy not to be going, as a conference on the “epistemology of the exact sciences” was no sort of tryst. The days before the meeting, Kurt hummed with a particular, keen vibration. He was enthusiastic, a new state for him. He was in a hurry to present his work.
    I was cooling my heels under the arcades when he finally emerged from the café, long after most of the others had left. I was thirsty, hungry, and planning to make a scene, just on principle. From the way his shoulders were hunched, I knew it was the wrong moment.
    “Do you want to go out to dinner?”
    “We don’t have to.”
    He buttoned his jacket carefully. It no longer had the impeccable drape of the previous summer. It seemed to belong to another, stouter man.
    “Let’s walk for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
    For him “walking” meant cloaking himself in silence. After a few minutes, I couldn’t bear it any longer. What can you do except talk, to solace a man who refuses to eat or to touch you? I knew of no better remedy for anxiety.
    “Why do you persist in meeting with this Circle when you don’t share their ideas?”
    “They help me think, and I need to get my research in circulation. I have to publish my thesis to qualify for teaching.”
    “You look like a little boy who’s been disappointed by his Christmas presents.”
    He turned up his coat collar and stuck his hands in his pockets, unbothered by the damp night air. I linked my arm in his.
    “I dropped a bomb on the table, and everyone patted me on the back, called for the check, and … that was it.”
    I shivered too. From hunger, probably.
    “You’re sure of yourself? You haven’t made any errors in calculation?”
    He dropped my arm and chose another column of paving stones along which to advance.
    “Adele, my proof is irreproachable.”
    “I’m sure that’s true. I know the way you open a window three times to make sure it’s closed.”
    A group of revelers hurtled into us. I galloped in my high heels to catch up with Kurt. He hadn’t paused in his train of thought, and I had to strain to follow it.
    “Charles Darwin said that a mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there. I, on the other hand, stand in the purest light.”
    “How can they not believe you, then? Your field is certainty. Everyone knows that two plus two equal four. This is a truth that will always stand!”
    “Some truths are temporary conventions. Two and two don’t always equal four.”
    “But come on, if I count it out on my fingers …”
    “We stopped basing mathematics on felt experience a long time ago. In fact, we make a point of manipulating nonsubjective objects.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I hold you in great respect, Adele, but some subjects are truly beyond you. We’ve talked about this before.”
    “Sometimes, you can move a complex idea forward by trying to state it simply.”
    “Some ideas can’t be stated simply in ordinary language.”
    “That’s exactly it! You imagine yourselves to be gods! You’d do better to take an occasional interest in what’s going on around you! Are you aware of people’s suffering? Do you have the slightest concern about the coming elections? I read the newspaper, Kurt, it’s written in the language of men!”
    “You should learn to control your temper, Adele.”
    He took my hand, the first time he had ever done so in public, and we walked under the silent arcades to the cross street.
    “In certain cases, one can prove a thing and its opposite.”
    “That’s nothing new, I specialize in it.”
    “In mathematics, this is known as ‘inconsistency.’ In you, Adele, it’s contrariness. I have just proved that there existmathematical truths that cannot be demonstrated. That is incompleteness.”
    “And that’s all?”
    Irony never served as a bridge between us; he saw it as a simple error in communication. Sometimes it forced him to reformulate, find