William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— What are you grinning about? You look pretty pleased with yourself.

— What? Oh… he spun around. — Max. — What happened, you sell your play or something? — My play? I… yes, yes that's it. How did you know? Yes. . — Good, Max said over his shoulder. Smiling, he added, — Look, I hope you didn't think I had anything to do with what people were saying.

— People? Otto repeated vaguely, going toward the door. — You know, that you'd plagiarized. .

— Oh, oh that, yes, no, no I wouldn't have thought that, Otto said, and left Max bound there to deepen the steaming gully in the cake of ice in the drain. He saw Stanley sitting at a table with Anselm, who was listlessly turning pages in a magazine which bore the picture of a girl sliding down a bannister, and the challenge, Can Freaks Make Love? on the cover. Anselm tore something out and pushed it across the table to Stanley who looked at it and then away quickly, his eyes searching the room for refuge until he lowered them to the floor.

— Hey, Hannah? Look at those two, said a tall round-headed young man in an expensive suit. — Did you ever see that Kollwitz print, "Zwei Gefangene Musik hörend"? That's what they look like, two prisoners listening to music.

— Stanley is a sort of prisoner, Hannah said half to herself. — Anybody is who's always broke. He handed her the beer he'd got her.

— You can talk! Hannah turned on him, accepting the dripping glass. — You work for your money, so you don't have to worry spending it.

He stared at her; then cleared his throat and asked, — Say, is that really Ernest Hemingway behind me?

— What if it is, what would that make you?

— He, I… I'd like to meet him, I think he's a great writer.

— You think some of it will wipe off on you? You're still a salesman. Did you ever read Cummings' poem, a salesman is an it that stinks to please. and you want to write?

— I do in my spare time, I've taken a course. .

— Go stink to please somewhere else.

— Yes, I… all right, all right. . He turned two hundred dollars' worth of tweed on her, and said, — Mister Hemingway? My name is George. .

— Glad to see you, George, said the Big Unshaven Man. — What are we drinking?

Otto paid for his whisky-and-soda with a twenty-dollar bill, and stood unsteadily looking about him.

— What are you mumbling about? Hannah demanded from just beneath the level of his gaze. He was looking at a tall blond girl who had just said, in Boston accents, that Paris was like a mouthful of decayed teeth.

— Hannah? I just sold my play, Otto repeated, but aloud this time, as though finding confirmation in what he heard.

— You sold your play? her query sustained him, but no further than, — Can you buy me a beer? as she put an empty glass on a table behind her. He struggled to the bar, got her a glass and handed it to her over someone's shoulder, but when he'd paid for it and turned again she was gone, leaving only her query echoing Max's, sanctioning what he had heard in his own words, and ratified now with a murmured yes and a smile of discovery. But immediately he saw Max, standing at the table with Anselm and Stanley, looking in his direction and talking through a smile, he felt unsteady again, called upon to defend himself, and his hand rose to the empty fall of his jacket as he approached them.

Max always looked the same, always the same age, his hair always the same short length, in his smile the humorless agreeability of one who could neither suffer friendship nor celebrate enmity, a parody on the moment, as his clothes caricatured a past at eastern colleges where he had never been.

— And if it's only through sin that we can know one another, and share our human frailty? Stanley went on, staring into his coffee. — And by doing that, we come to know ourselves. .

— Crossing the Atlantic Ocean to get laid. He can't even get it up without a dose of methyltestosterone, Anselm interrupted, without looking up as Otto approached, without a pause in his speaking he tore something from his magazine and held it out to Otto, who read, "lonely? 25cents brings magazine containing pictures, descriptions of lonely sincere members everywhere, seeking friendship, companionship, marriage. ." — What better reason is there to get out of this stupid white Protestant country, for Christ's sake. Yes, for Christ's sake. At least Catholic countries take sin as a part of human nature, they don't blow their guts when they find you've gone to bed with a woman. Somebody like him is scared to try it here, he'd rather go where nobody knows him, a bunch of stupid foreigners he doesn't have to respect because they don't speak English, and don't have any money, where nobody will point at him in the street if they see him coming out of a whorehouse. Christ. It breaks my heart. Somebody like that, it breaks my heart. But you know what breaks my heart? He looked up directly at Otto, who started, the smile jarred from his face, whose eyes, evading a wince, found Max's.indulgent smile. — That that's sin! Anselm hissed, looking back at the table top. — That. . Chhrist!

None of them spoke. Stanley clung to his coffee cup as though moored there. Otto tottered slightly. Max stood reflecting the vacant satisfaction he found in expose.

— With all the. . rotten betrayals around us, and that, that. . that one moment of trust, is sin? Anselm whispered, looking at none of them.

None of them spoke until Anselm said, — You're spilling your God-damned drink, what's the matter with you? and Otto, righting his glass and licking his naked upper lip, came round to the other side of the table and the empty chair Max stood beside, bumping a girl who was carrying Everybody Can Play the Piano under her arm, and saying, — Well I thought his approach was rarther crude, just coming at me like that with a dollar bill wrapped around it…

— You're not sitting here? Otto asked Max, who stepped aside with the courtesy accorded infirmity. — Who's going abroad? Otto asked after a moment, seated. Stanley looked up at Anselm, as though to give him opportunity of answering, then said himself in a quelled tone, — Don Bildow. . sounding as though he wanted to say more, but could find no more to say. And Otto looked up, over backs and shoulders, to see Don Bildow's white face bobbing behind the plastic-rimmed glasses; and heard, from someone falling toward the table, — Everything is either concave or convex. . someone caught and raised to receive this intelligence, — Nothing, absolutely nothing, can convince me that all of us and everything isn't shrinking at the rate of one millimeter a minute. .

— Has anybody seen Esme? Otto asked, his voice in an abrupt strain. — I just went by her house, he added hurriedly, and brought his glass to his lips.

— Nobody there? Max asked behind him. — Well no, no not really, I mean no. — Not even Chaby?

— No, he was… he wasn't there, no. I mean, I didn't see him, I didn't really go in, I. . I just passed there, Otto finished looking up confused, rummaging his pale left hand, whose freedom no one had noticed, in a pocket, and seeing Stanley's ragged mustache, licking a lip whose nakedness no one had remarked. — Would anybody like a drink? he asked, and signaled a waiter who did not see him. Behind him, someone said, — A million people try to disappear in America every year, a million Americans try to erase themselves, that's a statistic and it doesn't include criminals either, a million a year, a million people a year. .

The juke-box played Return to Sorrento; and nearby someone said that Saint Francis Xavier was only four and a half feet tall.

— "Does Drunkenness Threaten Your Happiness or Your Loved Ones? Our Remarkable New Discovery Quickly and Easily Helps Bring Relief from All Desire for Liquor!. . No Will Power Is Necessary To Stop Drinking. This Is Strictly a Home Method!. ." Anselm read, returned to his magazine and his dull tone. — I'd just like some coffee, Stanley said.