William Gaddis - The Recognitions

They make money, the Town Carpenter whispered hoarsely. — And a good thing such a recourse lies open, it gives them something to do, keeps them out of our way. He straightened up, looking at his balloon ascension stand, his arms still folded, and dingy underwear elbows protruding from his sleeves. He drew his lips tight together over the gums, and nodded. — Fortunately men like you and myself appear every century or so, to keep the way open. But, he called as he walked to the corner of the barn and stood there undoing the front of his clothes, — we must watch out for them, you know, trying to intrude. Here, he said, waving his free hand at the balloon stand, — they try to intrude. Traveling in their trains and their airplanes they try to intrude on the greatest career of the hero. Why, travel's become the great occupation of people with nothing to do, you find second-hand kings and all sorts of useless people at it. There now, it's always the heroic places you find them intruding, trying to have a share in the work of great men, looking at fine paintings and talking as though they knew more of the thing than the man who painted it, and the same thing listening to fine music, because they suspect the truth but they won't pay the price, they all suspect that a man needs something to do, he finished, standing over the light cloud of steam he left rising from the gray boards of the barn.

— Something to do? Most of the trouble in the world is made by people finding something to do.

— There now, the Town Carpenter said, buttoning himself up as he straightened round, and nodding as though he had heard. — Of course they misuse things, every fine thing we have and make and discover, and the finest things get the most abuse. The generals and the missionaries and. . but we cannot waste time on them, he said raising his eyes from the balloon stand to the sky, — there's but one thing you can do with a balloon.

— Going up? There's only one thing to do when you get up there.

— Danger? They don't know the meaning of it, sitting up there in their airplanes, and surprised when they drop out of the sky. Why, they haven't time to be frightened, they're so surprised, brought up so carefully, insured against accident. Why, their heads are smashed like melons before they know what's happened to them, sitting up there in their business suits at sixty miles an hour wondering if their fountain pens will leak, and then there they are spread all over twenty acres of somebody else's land. No, not the danger. The loneliness. It's the loneliness, the price they won't pay. The Town Carpenter remained abstracted for a minute or so; and the wind which had just come up sounded around the corner of the barn. He gazed up at the sun, which had become involved with a cloud much the shape of a camel, an odd-legged one to be sure, but as the Town Carpenter was quick to point out, — Bactrian. They watched it. The sun entered almost between the two humps and then, from the speed of things up there, looked to be attempting an escape, its body visible along the fleeting edge, as though every instant it would break away. — See him go, see him go, the Town Carpenter said, standing there lopsided. Then he turned and said in a tone of confidence, and commiseration, — The great misfortune of the sun, it has no history. That's why it never gets lonely up there.

Then with a surprising agility he had gone round behind the balloon stand, and from there he called, — This? did you see it? I keep it inconspicuous, they're all very interested in it, the American Legion. . He swung about a length of two-inch pipe mounted on a swivel. — I've seen them sneaking around to look through it, but when they find no lenses in it, they think I've dismantled it. Of course there's no lenses in it in the first place, they'd only confuse things.

— Then, what is it?

— Yes, since they don't know what they're looking for, of course they don't see anything, wandering around in the daylight. There's so much daylight you can't see anything up there, unless you cut a path through it. Why, in good weather, one afternoon I saw Aldebaran, the red Eye of the Bull, keeping watch on the Pleiades, you know. That means it's a very old star, being red like that. Yes, the red Eye of Taurus, he muttered coming back, — keeping a watch on them. They bear some watching, the Pleiades. . Do you know? One night I was assailed in the darkness. A man struck me, square across the eyes, and do you know, from that blow? the force of it brought light to my eyes? and I identified him afterward, I saw him plain as could be. His American Legion cap showed as plain as could be. Then he looked round evasively. — Tell me, he said, close by again, — did you bring your great Mirror?

— Mirror. .?

— There now, it's not easy to transport, I imagine. The great mirror in which you can see all that goes on in your kingdoms. But… we need it here, he said bending closer, and with another quick look round, — the American Legion. They watch me all the time, you know. Very interested, very interested in this of course. He included the balloon stand in a gesture. — Though it's no secret. Why, more than one night they've come and picketed the house here. With your great mirror, we could keep an eye on them, the Town Carpenter finished, and watched intently the pockets searched before him until the gold cigarette case was brought out, empty. — For the messages! he exclaimed, taking it. — And with the secret inscription. There now, later you will explain it to me, he said, running his thumb over the words; then in a sudden feat of conjuring the gold case was gone inside the frontal folds of his clothing, and he stood with a large watch snapped open in his hand. — Of course I'd have known you anywhere, he said raising his brilliant eyes from the watch face. — There now, eleven-thirty. Later on we shall simplify things. Why, all the others are drowning in details. That's what happens to them, you know. That's where we'll outwit them. We must simplify. .

His words were caught on the wind. The dog followed him. Before he was out of sight, there was the sound of thunder, rolling like a body to rest in the south. The Town Carpenter shook his fist at it, but did not diminish his step.

The wind had come up quite sudden. It commenced to blow with that terrible quality peculiar to the winter wind, pointless, and the more bitter. March winds make a boisterous kind of sense, blowing seeds and seed-pods, blowing off the white pustular symptoms of winter, awakening, preparing for growth; and a vengeful sense in the fall, so long as a leaf remains where it grew, but the winter wind blows nothing, and blows that nowhere, blows with destructive violence where there is nothing left to destroy, vindictive and viciously fingered to leave no crevice untouched. Looking up, even the balloon stand is testament to something, erect with the stupid patience of objects so violated, testimony found futile as the wincî itself in the envy as quickly rejected as it is longed after. The clouds conspired over Mount Lamentation had lost their distinct edges, and mounted in a dark mass as though what lay beyond there were already suffering what the wind, if simply to justify itself, threatened to bring closer. It blew round the corners of the carriage barn, over the snow clotted against the mound of what had been the kitchen midden for as long as he could remember, over the snow crusted on the ground behind the barn, showing its surface here and there as though that ground had never been disturbed, as though the surface were all of it that existed.

He drew his shoulders closer together still, and almost lost his balance as he turned away from this desolation where something moved with the sudden effortless ease of an apparition, unconcerned with inertia, unrestricted by the ingenious arrangement of muscle and tendon, weight and intention whose failure to coincide threatened to upset him now. He made the gesture he might have made if he had had a stick in his hand, and expected it to support him; and then twisted like a man menaced on one hand by the very thing he has turned to escape on the other. Whether the empty carriage barn had put forth the shade of Heracles, caroling a missionary jaunt beyond the mountains, or John Huss had approached from that distant direction to urge those already baptized against false miracles, ecclesiastical greed, and seeking tangible evidence of Christ's presence instead of in His enduring word; and whether the two met on the horizon to merge, to vie, or simply compare wares, there was no time to consider, for he looked up to see the bull, its great head thrown up against the wind and the storm it threatened, the great rounds of the eyes wide open, fixed on webs of red veins. Where it had come from, or to what purpose, its casual properties and the questions which might have been asked on a day in June, none of that — was provoked by the bull's appearance. Its back end wheeled as it came to the fence and stopped there, in a halt of defiance which challenged the wind and left it to be consumed in its own violence.