William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Van der Goes, there was an overwhelming uncertain passion about it, wasn't there, Max commented, turning a page, not back, but over to a portrait, — Van der Weyden, it's rather saccharine. .

— Saccharine. .? Stanley stayed his hand, with the first evidence that he was looking at the pictures over the other shoulder.

Max shrugged. — Ingratiating then, he said, lowering the magazine from Stanley's hand, to turn another page, — there's nothing like the perfect control. . Max added and, having turned the page whose caption he was paraphrasing, went on, — There is a great sense of lucency and multiple perspective about these early Flemish. .

— The separate multiple consciousnesses of the. . things in these Flemish primitives, that is really the force and the flaw in these paintings, Otto said, — you might say, he added.

— What do you mean?

— Well, you might say that the thoroughness with which they feel obliged to recreate the atmosphere, and the. . these painters who aren't long on suggestion, but pile up perfection layer on layer, and the detail, it's… it becomes both the force and the flaw. .

— Where'd you get that? Max asked him; and when he got no immediate answer, looked up. Otto looked down immediately, but his expression did not change: it was fixed, like the dull compulsive tone in his voice which had come to it when he interrupted. — Like a writer who can't help devoting as much care to a moment as to an hour… he went on, now slightly more hurriedly, his voice, like the anxiety mounting with slight stabs in his face, straining an automatic effort of memory whose fullness he could not grasp, but only repeat its thrusts. — The perfection. . Then he silenced, staring down ahead of him.

— There is an illusion of increased powers of eyesight, looking at these, even in reproduction. They're almost perfect, Max commented, flicking over pages. He glanced at Otto's averted profile, and turned to Stanley. — Isn't there, Stanley?

— Yes, but, Stanley began, faltering, — these men, these painters who were creating right out of themselves, and all of this, all this harmony with everything around them, with all the things, all the spiritual things around them that supported them, that they knew would be there tomorrow, and, in the Guild, why in the Guild it was the opinion of your fellow artists that mattered, not competition before a lot of people who didn't know anything but the price. The Guild even took care of your burial, he added plaintively.

Max laughed, his brief cordial mockery. — I'll bury you myself, Stanley. You can go home and make up all the music you want to now.

— But it isn't making it up, inventing music, it's like. . remembering, and like, well van Gogh says about painting, when he would take a drawing of Delacroix as a subject and improvise with colors, not as himself, he says, but searching for memories of their pictures, the "vague consonance of colors," the memory that was himself, his own interpretation.

They stopped together at another curb. A store loudspeaker poured out upon them a vacuous tenor straining, — I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. . with insipid mourning hope. And Stanley, escaping, abandoning his companions to that lugubrious assault, moved from the curb as though called forth by Cherubini: trumpets and the clash of brass: the horn sounded, and he leaped away from the immense and silent automobile guided by a brittle dame hung like some florid gothic tracery behind the steering wheel, her chin jutting just above it, sweeping round from Washington Square.

Max picked up the practice keyboard from the street and brought it up to him on the curb opposite, where he stood quivering. — What happened? he asked. — That moving Christmas music?

— Well it isn't. . they have no right to… Stanley tried to speak, out of breath, accepting the cardboard keyboard like a delicate instrument.

— What do you want on Sixth Avenue, The Messiah?

— They have no right to… cheapen. .

— Ask them to play, Yes We Have No Bananas, Max said, smiling. — That's from The Messiah, and it's more their line.

— What do you mean? Stanley was trying to wipe the tire marks from the length of the white keys.

— I mean Yes We Have No Bananas was lifted right out of Handel's Messiah. Come on, Max said taking his arm, and looking round for Otto. — What's the matter with both of you today?

— You don't have to… tell me things like that, Stanley said, pulling away.

A man standing with his back to a shop window said, — It won't snow, it's too warm to snow. And Otto, looking where the man was looking, over the buildings at the northern sky, realized that he was not shivering with cold, but simply shivering. And he heard Max say,

— You want everybody to be like you, that's your trouble Stanley.

— I want everyone to be like I want to be, Stanley answered.

Otto met Stanley's eyes. And though the sky was dull, and there was no such color in sight, they appeared green, brilliant, burning into green in that prolonged moment as Otto stood bound and apparently unable to mount the curb between them. But it was only a moment, the passage of a shadow, and Max's voice, breaking between them, brought Otto up.

— You might say that the man who wrote Yes We Have No Bananas was searching for memories? a vague consonance of sounds?. . Max began good-humoredly. Then looking at Otto he said, — What's the matter, you look all disjointed.

— I don't know, but. . yes, disjointed, Otto said mounting the curb, speaking unevenly as he fell in beside them. — Like… do you know what I feel like? Like when a clay reproduction is made of an original statue, and then they take the copy and cut it behind the head with fine wire, and behind the arms and the legs, and those are all moved and it's cast again.

— Why? Where'd you hear that?

— To be sold as part of a series, a series of the original, a series that never existed, I… I read about it in a book a friend of mine had, a friend a long time ago, he… listen. . Otto groped.

As though spurred by his faltering confusion, Max interrupted, — I knew there was something I meant to tell you. That story you sent to Edna, for a magazine that publisher she works for owns, they're bringing out my book you know.

— What about the story, I sent it in for some guy I met at your party.

— She thinks you wrote it, Max told him. — That you wrote it and sent it under another name.

— She thinks I wrote it? But why would I have written it? I didn't even read it, I… why would I do a thing like that.

— I guess she thought you were playing it safe.

— But she. . but God damn it… Otto brandished the sling.

— She says you used to be clever when you were in college, writing, but you sort of faded out, Max went on agreeably. — She says the reason you were clever was because you didn't know how to be honest.

— Well the only reason she's honest is because she's too God damn dumb to be clever, I mean if she was honest, but she. . why the hell should she go around saying a thing like that about me? for no reason?

— No reason? Max repeated, and put a hand on Otto's shoulder. — Nobody resents you more than somebody who's loved you.

Otto twisted away from him, but unsteadily as though trying to retain the hand on his shoulder but turn his face to hide the trembling lip. — Why do I… why do people have to be so… so… he mumbled brokenly as detailed fragments of expressions broke over his face one after another until he grabbed with a whole hand round the eyes and drew the hand down, as though to wipe away these abrupt strokes on the surface which mocked the clear image of his anger beneath. Then he brought out a cigarette, and caught both lips round it.