William Gaddis - The Recognitions

Mickey Mouse pointed to ten minutes of four.

The first thing she saw when she entered her apartment was the unnatural radiance of the sunlamp. Agnes Deigh paused there, still holding her keys, as though to appreciate fully the affliction before her, worse second by second as she hesitated, considering what might have happened had she not arrived; even perhaps that there was still time for her to leave, quietly as she had come, back into the trans-figurating weather: but before she was able to contain this possibility sufficient to examine it, and find there one of those mortal shocks with which life rarely presents us opportunity to abandon the bonds of circumstances woven with such care, and start off upon any of a thousand alternative courses among which, like the needle in the haystack, lies the real one: habit betrays us, as it betrayed Agnes Deigh. She put a hand on the Swede's shoulder, and made a sound.

— Owwwayy. . what. . what. .

— How long have you been asleep under this thing?

— What time is it? — Almost four, she said, and finally turned the sunlamp off.

— Oh my God, my God, I've been here for. . owwwww… what shall I do?. . the Swede wailed.

— There's some butter. I'll get some butter.

So that is what she did. — I'll die. . she heard him a minute later from the bathroom, applying it. — How could it happen? But just look at mel. .

Instead she looked away, and said, — I wish you'd. . But she had looked away in time, and broke off, biting her lip, her eyes fixed at the same level (staring at a table lamp) as though she could not raise them.

— Baby, Ba -by! Oooooooooo.

— I wish you'd put something around you, she said, recovered, looking up, and caught her lip again, for it had almost happened again: she had almost said what she did not know she meant, instead of what she meant to say; just as, that day in the office when she had intended to ask, Are you Catholic?. . and had suddenly heard herself demand, Do you believe in God?

The Swede had got back into the bathroom. Agnes Deigh sat down, and opened the only letter that was waiting for her. She read,

Dear Madam. . The case you reported to us as sadism and brutality reported by you to this precinct Tuesday December 20 at 10:17 A- M-resulted in false arrest for which you may be held responsible. Dr. Weis-gall who you accused, was punishing his daughter in which case unless injury results no third party is obliged to intervene. This case is marked closed in our files but we feel it our duty to warn you that if at future date you accuse someone of criminal action that you investigate the facts thoroughly before reporting it to the Police. We also feel it our duty to warn you that Dr. Weisgall may be justified in communicating with you as agent of his unjust arrest, and any future action will take place between yourself and the injured party. .

— Baby who sent you ros-es? The Swede had emerged, clothed. Agnes looked up. She made a sound, almost told him, and bit her lip on that stark erect syllable. Then her telephone rang. — What? she said into it, shaken. — Hello?. .

(-Hello, Mrs. Deigh? — Baby I've got to find a doctor. — Yes, what is it? who is it?

(—I'm sorry, this is Stanley and I think I left my glasses at your house once, and when could I… how. . — I hate to run off like this baby but I'll call you, from the hospital probably, but I can't go to the hospital on Christmas Eve. . —Stanley, Stanley, I… I'm so glad you called. Yes, I found them. I found your glasses, Stanley. But I won't be home now, I'm going to a party in a little while. But could you come there? Couldn't you meet me there?

(—But I'm getting a toothache, but yes, all right, I can come for a little while but I have to go up to this new hospital where they moved my mother. .

— Yes here, here's the address. . She lead it to him; and almost a full minute passed after she'd hung up the phone and sat, staring at the letter she'd just received, before she looked up and realized she was alone.

Immediately she got pen and paper and started to write. "Dear Doctor Weisgall. I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am for my recent mistake. How can I explain it to you so that you will forgive me? A woman's life is not. ." She stopped and read that; as she would stop and read again, and again, until the letter on the edge of the wastebasket started, "Dear Doctor Weisgall. Perhaps it is not until late in life that we realize that we do not, ever, pay for our own mistakes. We pay for the mistakes of others, and they. ." And the letter which fluttered to the floor, "Dear Sir. I trust that you are intelligent enough to distinguish between a vulgar act of meanness and revenge, which God knows I have no reason to commit, and the act of a citizen and a human being doing what she believes. ." when she got up to find two strips of tape. Then she stood at the window stretching the skin at her temples, sticking the tape there to discourage wrinkles while she rested. Unblinking, she stared out at the snowfall a minute longer; and when she turned on the room her moving eyes found the roses. They were full blown with the steam heat: and that instant her gaze struck them, three petals fell.

The snowflakes frolicked about the Swede's face, which was growing larger and more brilliantly red by the minute. He hit at them, as though they were a flight of insects sent to plague him. It did no good. They came from every hand until, seeing a bar, he fled from the white swarm inside, where patrons looked with impolite interest at his high buttered countenance. He got into the telephone booth, after only one drink, and dialed. — I came out in this blizzard to find a doctor but I don't know any doctors. .

(—My doctor's away. . on vacation… in prison… I can't think which. . The tone was vague.

He dialed three more numbers, got no answer, and returned to the bar to try to think of telephone numbers.

— Nothing?

— Nothing. Nothing at all, except this. . wet, said Maude, standing against the door she had closed behind her. Snow crystals melted and dripped from her coat to the floor. — I had to come home in a taxicab.

— The same judge?

— Oh yes, and I almost hate him even though he does look like Daddy.

— That's a good sound reason itself.

— Arny please don't be cruel, not today. It's Christmas Eve, Arny. I feel so awful. Even when my doctor said, Does she look like she's malingering to you? Would you undergo an operation on your spine if you were malingering? And their lawyer said he was sorry but. . Oh Arny, I get so tired.

— Do you want a drink?

— No. My doctor gave me some morphine. Are you drinking this early?

— Just a couple before I have to start drinking at the party.

— Arny I wish you wouldn't drink so much. Have you filled out the papers?

— What papers?

— The papers. You know, the ones for the… I can't pronounce

it, for Sweden.

He planned to fill out these papers, declaring their fitness as parents, after the party. Now he poured the last of a bottle of whisky into his glass and sat down slowly, making a wry face, supporting the lower part of his abdomen with a hand inside his trouser pocket.

— I'm hungry, he said abruptly. — I didn't have any lunch.

— Do you want some spaghetti? Maude said vaguely.

— Spaghetti in the middle of the afternoon? he mumbled, as she went toward the kitchen. But what Maude thought was spaghetti turned out to be a box of waxed paper. She offered salad; but they were out of whisky. When he went out for some, she sped him with, — But get a quart, there's something sinful about a pint of whisky.

— Sinful?

— Well, naughty. . She sat down wearily, and had hardly managed to assume that suspended look of a passenger on a railway train which came over her when alone, when the telephone and the doorbell both rang at once. She shuddered right through her frame, put out a hand in each direction, and finally got to the door. But when she'd let Herschel in, and picked up the telephone, all she could say was, — What?