William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Who. . what do you want? Jean cried, pulling a sheet to her throat, uncovering her neighbor, whose light gray flannel suit lay on the floor.

— Why you. . why…

— Get out, get out of here, what do you mean coming in a lady's room like that.

The door banged.

— Now just who the devil was that?

— Don't worry, honey, it's only a fairy I met down in the bar.

— A fairy?

— You know, queer. He said he was a writer, and they're always queer nowadays.

— There he goes, said the man in the checked suit. — Out the side door. Look out of the way, you dumb bastard.

— That's no way to talk to Santa Glaus.

— Well get out of our way,

— Merry Christmas. Have you got a dime for old Saint Nick?

— Get the next cab in the line and follow him.

The two cabs pulled away from the curb half a minute apart, and a police car drew up before the hotel.

— I could sue you for false arrest, Mr. Pivner said when he got into the lobby, with a policeman, — if that would do any good. Do you know what you've done?

Behind him the policeman talked with the tall bellboy, who said, — Well Jesus, / thought he was drunk. The guy with him was. The policeman said, — We got him down to the station house and found a needle on him. We thought he was a junkie. He's real pissed-off.

— Do you know what you've done? Did you see him? A boy with a scarf like this on, he came here to meet me, that was my son, my son…

The policeman turned to the revolving door, and the tall bellboy said to him, — While you're at it, take Santy Glaus along. He's driving us nuts out there.

The controversy in the sky, by this time, was no nearer settlement; there was really no promise of armistice at all, though the haggling might continue, precipitating fine rain for periods of monotonous variance, broken by impatient bursts of sleet. The skyline of the city was reduced to two dimensions. There was no depth; accustomed to mass, and there was no such sensation, but instead buildings in immediate isolation, their heights'awhirl in the weather, their lights incredible in the night, their feat un-diminished by comparison with the mass which had clung to their sides pretending support, cowering now out of sight, would be there next day if it were fair, pretending, and sharing the steep triumph of these hampered giants tonight abandoned in trial to their integrity.

The first cab turned into Jones Street; the second waited at the corner. — He's going into that doorway where all those cops are. What's he doing there. — How should I know what he's doing there. I never should have trusted him. — I wouldn't trust a fairy. — He's not a Catholic. I should have known. They watched Otto talk with one of the policemen, and get back into his cab. — How'd'ya ever do a thing like that? — It was pride, it was the deadly sin of pride, I was so proud of those. . those. . O Mary, pray for me… If I hadn't been so proud I would have watched my step. . — Let's just let him go, said the man in the checked suit as Otto's cab left the curb. — The hell with him.

— Let him go? with all that? You think it's worthless, that paper? You think it's a cheap job I did? Driver follow that cab.

The juke-box played Return to Sorrento.

Someone said, — Have you read this? It's by a woman who spent the entire winter last year in Rome, she tells all about it here.

At hand, a limp wrist hung on air. — I was in Florida for two fearfully rainy weeks, and I didn't get browned very much. . Laughter sprinkled up around him.

— I'm a drunkard, said one of two young men sitting at a table with Victoria and Albert Hall. — Nothing but a drunkard, he repeated despondently. — You think that's bad, I'm a drunk and I'm queer too, said the other, — an alcoholic and a homosexual. — So? demanded the paterfamilias. — I'm a drunk, a homosexual, and a Jew.

She looked them over calmly, and finished her drink. — I'm alcoholic, homosexual, and a Jew, she stated. -And I'm crippled. When the next round of drinks arrived, she was the toast.

— Have you heard the one about the muscular fellow named Rex? who had minuscular organs of sex?

— Do you know, II y avail une jeune fille de Dijon?

— Es gibt ein Arbeiter von Linz?

—'The whole gripping story is founded on fact. Look at the beautiful girl shown in the accompanying cut. ." Anselm read aloud. — Are you listening? "Note the cruel marks cut in her tender body by the lash of the cat-o'-nine-tails wielded by the hands of a heartless and Christless Mother Superior in whose heart all human sympathy had been assassinated by the papal system. ." He lowered The Moan of the Tiber to look up at Stanley. — You're still brooding over that thing? he asked, seeing the torn strip of newspaper in Stanley's hand. — That's yesterday's paper, the whole of Saint Mark's is probably under water by now. What are you drinking so much coffee for?

— I have to stay awake, when I get home to work, Stanley said and looked anxiously at his wrist watch.

— To work! Anselm muttered. — What are you waiting for? But he appeared to have no interest in what Stanley might answer, or not. He sat slumped, looking sullenly out from the table at the evening victims of the Viareggio. The spots on his face were dulled, his eyes lit with a smoldering rancor now and then as he watched them, but his tone was vague when a tall girl with dark hair reaching her furpiece said to someone, — Well I have yet to see an animal reading a book. . and Anselm mumbled, — How'd you like to get your hand in her muff? Then he brought a hand up, fingers turned in upon the palm, and commenced to bite his nails. A minute later he had slumped again, motionless, and started to whistle, dull and rasping through his teeth.

Stanley looked up. — What's that? What you're whistling.

— Too Much Mustard.

— Too much. . what? No, what is it? It's familiar, it's Bach?

— Yes, it's called I can give you anything but love, Anselm answered without looking up. — Bach wrote it when he was three, he added, — for Mother's Day.

— Anselm, Stanley said inclining toward him slightly, — is there something, is something wrong?

— Is something wrong! Anselm turned at him. — That's the stupidest… But his voice tailed off, he lowered his eyes from Stanley, and scratched his head.

— If there's anything I could. . do?

Anselm looked at the blunt black ridges of his nails, then held them out. — I've got a sycosis, see? Not psychosis, like these other crazy bastards. Plain sycosis. Scabs. And he went back to scratching his head.

Mr. Feddle entered, an alarm clock swinging from his neck on a piece of twine. In the doorway he bumped the man in the checked suit, whose companion said, — Go in and get him. — I couldn't just pull him out of there, said the man in the checked suit. — He won't stay long, he's too jumpy to hang around a dump like this. — Look out, there he goes!. . — Goes, hell. He's going to the can.

As he stood, occupied, the mirror was beside him at his left shoulder, and Otto stared into it. He continued to stare as he turned a minute later, buttoning his trousers, weaving slightly, and allowed the smile to come to his face slowly as though savoring the renewal of an acquaintance long away, dead perhaps, for all they knew, in the jungles; returned now, and returned affluent. Then the smile left his face as slowly, and the same reckoned composure with which it had come: with all the sincerity of a suppliant before an icon he said, — If I were a character in a play. . would I be credible? When the door banged open he was standing looking down at the pale left hand extended from his sleeve, and licking the strangely naked upper lip.