William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— And him, how the hell did he get in here?

— I'm sorry, sir. Miss Mims is away this week, and. . She cleared her throat. — Mister Valentine to see you, sir, she said, retreating.

— Friends? Otto heard as he came out. The tall man in gray pinstripe gave him barely a glance, from a face entirely empty whose eyes affirmed, clearly and immediately, that they did not know each other. — Of course, choose your friends with as much care as you choose your clothes, the man continued, speaking to someone no more than Otto's age. — Infinite care at the outset. .

In the outside hall, the pencil scribbling Chse frnds Ik clthes suddenly stopped: he had just seen Gordon, and he had no place to put him.

Down below, Otto came out upon the street muttering imprecations of a general, pointless nature, until the wind hit him, and provided an object for his curses as it blew him along, mussing his hair from behind.

— Did I hear you giving some future Menander advice? Basil Valentine asked, entering. — And did I hear the word, plagiary?

Brown finished trimming a cigar before he answered, — You heard it. You can hear it again.

— Again? Valentine had not sat down. He commenced to idle up and down the room. — How do you mean?

— I mean I just saw an advance review of your art book, some half-ass critic takes it apart.

Valentine paused, lighting a cigarette. He held the match before him, looking at the name. Then he blew it out. — How do you mean, takes it apart?

— He takes your own words out o£ it, and quotes them to…

— Yes, to condemn me. 1 see what you mean, Valentine said coldly. — He does sound rather. . hal£-assed, as you so graphically describe him.

— Not only that. .

— My dear Brown, nothing amuses me more than that, exactly that, Valentine interrupted. — Why do you suppose I put them there? To give your. . halE-assed reviewer opportunity to expose his own total lack of resources, in what he considers an exemplary demonstration o£ his own cleverness. Can you imagine the satisfaction that gives someone who has never done anything himself? Our great half-assed priesthood, so to speak, he finished with asperity, turning on Brown, or rather the cloud of cigar smoke that rose between them.

— Not only that, Brown went on with belligerent satisfaction as Valentine paced the floor away from his desk. — He says you plagiarized just about the whole thing, that you lifted. .

— Plagiarized! Valentine turned, and controlled his voice with a thin smile. — You make me feel like Vergil, when someone saw him carrying a copy of Ennius, and implied. .

— He says you lifted. .

— I'm simply plucking the pearls from Ennius' dunghill, was Vergil's answer.

— If you think you can lift whole parts out of somebody else's. .

— And now what? Valentine brought out quickly. — Making me out another. . Chrysippus? Seven hundred five volumes, he went on, recovering the forced dilatory calm of his voice as he spoke. — But the work of others pleased him so, that one of his books contained a play of Euripides almost entire. The. . drudgery of such a career would be appalling, he added in a mutter and turned away. Brown watched his nervous tread, and noticed a gesture familiar elsewhere: Valentine's hands, opening and closing on nothing at his sides. At the far end of the office, Valentine stopped, looking over the array of books and magazines on the table there. The slow-rising clouds from Recktall Brown's cigar seemed to accentuate the silence between them, and finally Valentine turned holding up a small stiff-covered magazine. — A symposium on re-ligionl he read from the cover. — A rather old issue. I gather you've bought it?

— Where'd you hear that?

— The only possible reason you could have a copy lying around. You must be buying the whole thing.

— It's no secret, Brown said. — I picked it up for nothing.

— It's about time you breathed some life into it, I suppose, Valentine said, dropping the thing on a chair by his coat. — It's become quite a dismal affair, a frightened little group who spend all their time criticizing each other's attempts in terms of cosmic proportions, and then defend each other against the outside world. Even the fiction, the stories they write are about each other, they don't know anyone else. A sort of diary of dead souls.

— A bunch of second-hand Jews. . Brown began, if only to interrupt.

— I doubt the windows of their editorial offices have been opened in decades, Valentine went on, in a monotone whose only purpose was to establish its authority to continue. — If there are any. What future do you plan for these. . critics?

— Critics! Brown muttered. — They call themselves critics just because they never learned how to make a living. It's got a lousy circulation of about five thousand, but it's got a reputation. Intellectual. I'm going to bring it around to where even a half-wit can feel intellectual reading it. The circulation will be twenty times what it is now.

Valentine laughed quietly, walking away again; and only when his back was turned did Brown, shifting in his chair, show impatience. He seemed prepared to let Valentine go on, wasting time until whatever had brought him here, and strained his nervous presence now, broke forth.

— Like that incredible book you published, what \vas it? Valentine went on, looking over the array on the table. — "Soul-searching" the reviewers called it. By some poor fellow who joined a notorious political group, behaved treasonably? And after satisfying that peculiar accumulation of guilt which he called his conscience by betraying everyone in sight, joined a respectable remnant of the Protestant church and settled down to pour out his. .

— It's already sold half a million, Brown said patiently. — That's what people want now, soul-searching.

— Soul-searching! Valentine repeated. — People like that haven't a soul to search. You might say they're searching for one. The only ones they seem to find are in some maudlin confessional with the great glob of people they really consider far less intelligent than themselves, they call that humility. Stupid people in whom they pretend to find some beautiful quality these people know nothing about. That's called charity. No, he said and shrugged impatiently, turning with his hands clasped behind him. — These people who hop about from one faith to another have no more to confess than that they have no faith in themselves.

Brown watched him carefully through the thick lenses, ambling slowly with head lowered, a slim hand raised to the strong profile of his chin, to stop again at the table and flick open the cover of a book there. — In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madam, he read. — Really. . "Selected and edited, with an introduction by. ." yourself? All the world loves. .

— There's no plagiary in that, Brown said. — Everybody who wrote something's got his name on it.

— You couldn't have sold a single copy if it weren't. But here, Esnie? who the devil. .?

— Who?

— "To esme, whose unerring judgment is responsible for whatever value this book may have. ." Your humility is really quite touching.

— Some girl in the office pulled those together for me, Brown said, drumming his fingers more rapidly, as his lowered eyes caught the edge of the poem scrawled under his sleeve. — Now what. .

— Your modesty is overwhelming, as always.

— You came up here to talk about my modesty? Brown broke out at last.

— Hardly. Valentine turned on him. — I dropped in to talk to you about your. . most successful protege. He smiled.

— What about him? What have you been up to with him?

— I? Nothing, nothing at all. If Valentine's composure had seemed to suffer, it was totally recovered; but Brown continued to look at him, hands splayed on the desk, as though nothing were more familiar than composure which was serene only when it had something to dissemble.