William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— As a matter of fact, I just finished dinner with my father a little while ago.

— Otto's part of a series of an original that never existed, Max said as though he had not heard.

— What do you mean, you…

— That's what you told me yourself yesterday, didn't you? Max drew him on.

— But no, Otto rubbed his hand over his eyes. — The series didn't exist but the original existed. The original did. It had to. He sat there looking glazed-eyed for a moment, then turned to Stanley. — I just had dinner with my father, he said, as though remembering back over a great distance, or attempting to separate a distant image from one which had recently supplanted it. — For the first time, he added.

— Did you like him? Stanley asked uncertainly.

— It's a funny feeling. It was strange, sort of… I feel like I'd lost something, like… I feel like nobody sort of… Staring straight ahead of him, he rubbed his forehead, and his wrist, descending, paused to press against his ribs, where no identity interrupted his contagion with himself. — I don't know, he mumbled, licking his naked lip, and went on in a low tone to Stanley, — Look, if you had a friend, somebody you haven't seen for a long time and he… someone else takes his place, but he still… I don't know. Never mind.

— You're drunk, Anselm offered.

— That's funny, Otto persisted without looking up at Max. — To say the original never existed! Look, he went on to Stanley, — Suppose you knew somebody who used to be a friend and who. . and you found out he was, well like Mister Feddle, putting names on things that weren't his, I mean. .

— You know who I envy? Anselm broke in on them impatiently. — I envy Christ, he had a disease named after him. Hahaha, hey Stanley?

Stanley pretended not to hear. He looked up from his cold coffee and said to Otto, — But if Mister Feddle saw a copy of a play by Ibsen, if he loves The Wild Duck and wishes he had written it, he wants to be Ibsen for just that moment, and dedicate his play to someone who's been kind to him, is that lying? It isn't as bad as people doing work they have no respect for at all. Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of… recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty?

— Why don't you go home and read Saint Anselm before you talk like this? said Anselm sitting forward, opening his eyes which he had closed as though attempting sleep here. — "The picture, before it is made is contained in the artificer's art itself," he said. "And any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself."

— Saint Anselm. Dig him, said the haggard face bobbing over the back of the booth. — What are you trying to prove?

— I'm proving the existence of God, God damn you. Saint Augustine says a man who is going to make a box has it first in his art. The box he makes isn't life, but the one that exists in his art is life. "For the artificer's soul lives, in which all these things are, before they are produced."

— Where's God? In the box?

— You dumb son of a bitch…

— What's your favorite song, Anselm?

— Nola. Now screw, will you.

— I wish I had written The Wild Duck, Stanley said.

— I'm high, man.

— On what?

— On tea. We been balling all night. Have you got any? Hey Saint Anselm, have you got any charge? The haggard face hung over the back of the booth like a separate floating entity, rolling the eyes toward Max, to say, — He's in training. To be a saint.

— I notice he doesn't eat meat, is that the reason Anselm? Max asked. — So that your body won't. .

— What God damn business is it of yours?

— Save the bones for Henry Jones. . gurgled the haggard face.

— Anselm, preaching leftovers of the bleak ruin of Judaism, Max commenced with sententious ease, — a watered-down humanism. .

— Cause Henry don't eat no meat. Hey Anselm, I got something for you.

— What are you supposed to know about religion? Anselm turned on Max.

— As Frazer says, Max explained indulgently, — the whole history of religion is a continuous attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find sound theory for absurd practices. .

— And what does Saint Augustine mean when he talks about the Devil perverting the truth and imitating the sacraments? — This sacrament will go the way of all the rest of them, Max smiled. — It won't be long before they're sacrificing Christ to God as God's immortal enemy.

— Hey Anselm, listen to this, Daddy-o noster. Daddy-o, up in thy way-out pad. You are the coolest, and we dig you like too much. .

— The god killed, eaten, and resurrected, is the oldest fixture in religion, Max went on suavely. — Finally sacrificed in the form of some sacred animal which is the embodiment of the god. Finally everyone forgets, and the only sense they can make out of the sacrament is that they must be sacrificing the animal to the god because that particular animal is the god's crucial enemy, responsible for the god's death. .

— Crucial!. . Anselm spat out.

— Thy joint be right, the squares be swung. . the haggard face continued, reading from a scrap of paper.

— And what does Justin Martyr mean, when he says "the evil spirits practice mimicry"? Anselm demanded. — Crucial!. .

— Help us to score for some scoff today, and don't jump us salty if we come on like a drag, cause like we don't put down other cats when they goof. . the haggard face went on in the silence straining between Anselm and Max. — For thine is the horse, the hash, and the junk. .

— God damn you! give me that God-damned thing! Anselm burst out, swinging round and tearing the paper from the loose fingers; and the haggard face dropped out of sight, to bob up once more with, — Cause face it… and disappear again, as Anselm tore the shred of paper into smaller and smaller bits.

— Look Anselm, Max said coming up to him, — why don't you be reasonable? You'll end up like Charles, this pose of yours. .

— Like Charles! And you, what… be reasonable! Anselm got to his feet. — This pose! this. . Gott-trunkener Mensch, yes, you… be reasonable! That's what they called Spinoza, your prince of rationalists, damn him, you know what they offered Spinoza to conform? A thousand florins. "Conform outwardly" they told him, but what did he do, he changed his name from Baruch to Bene-dictus. The prince of rationalists!

Max had taken a step back, and another, smiling as though embarrassed for Anselm, as Anselm came on. — And what did they do, they damned him, the lens-maker Spinoza. They excommunicated him, right into the darkness of reason. The Schammatha, they damned him in the name that contains forty-two letters, they damned him in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and the Tetragramraaton, in the name of the Globes, and the Wheels, and the Mysterious Beasts… Max was backing toward the door, toward the man in the checked suit who said, — To tell the truth I wouldn't dare go in there, they're all nuts. — I'm freezing to death, said his companion.

— In the name of Prince Michael and the Ministering Angels, Metateron, Achthariel Jah, the Seraphim, the Ofanim. . Anselm went on shrilly as Max backed out into the night. — The trumpets dropped, they reversed the candles, Amen, there's the Schammatha, damned right into the darkness of Reason. . and he stood quivering in the empty doorway for a minute, indifferent to the eyes turned on him. Then he spat in the street and came back to the table where Otto had just stood preparing to leave. — Here, take this, Anselm said to him, holding out his magazine. — There's a special article in it, Can Freaks Make Love? with illustrations, a "rare photo of Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, with two of their natural children. ." He slumped in his chair again, and after a moment started to whistle, rasping through his teeth.