William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Why don't you just sit down here? Esther said as they reached the couch. — Can I bring you some coffee? She hesitated, and turned away.

— That's funny. That's funny, Benny said, sitting down slowly. — But you didn't tell me what he's doing now. That's funny. God. Benny blew his nose, and looked round him. He saw the back of his own flannel suit, and heard the voice of the man in it saying, — It's not really my line of work, I'm really a sort of historian, a musicologist, you might say, but I've been trying to get permission from the city to operate a public toilet concession in New York. . Could you hand me those crackers?

The woman in the collapsed maternity dress said to someone, — And you see that person in the green shirt, you see that scar on his nose? Well I understand that he had his nose bobbed, an expensive plastic surgeon did it and some girl paid for it, didn't leave a mark, and then one night when he was in bed a radio fell off the shelf and gave him that scar, there's poetic justice. . heh, heh heh heh…

— What's his name?

— Him? It's… I can't think of it, but it's one of those nice names, you know the kind they take, like White, White is a good nigger name.

Nearby, Mr. Crotcher had settled into an armchair, and begun moaning accompaniment to a harpsichord fraction of the Harmonious Blacksmith. He stopped to look down, and say, — Good heavens, good heavens, where did you come from? Get away. You're going to have an accident, get away, getaway getaway getaway. . The baby, with a welt rising on its forehead, had begun to climb up his leg. Out of sight, the girl with bandaged wrists was saying, — After all, this is its first birthday, so this is kind of a birthday party for it too…

— Started to call himself Jacques San-jay when he went into interior decorating, someone said. — I knew him when his name was Jack Singer.

— So after that, the old man left me with nothing but fifty tons of sugar that I can't unload, and they're forcing me to take delivery. Do you think Esther would mind storing it here?

— Yess, said the dark man in the sharkskin suit, — I was told that the Stock market in New York was a complex affair.

— Maybe I ought to have it dumped on the old man's doorstep. Chr-ahst, after a trick like that. Now all I have to do is sell one of his God-damned battleships. .

— Ah? How fortunate, said the shark-skinned Argentine. — For a moment I thought I was at the wrong party.

— Dear God no, the tall woman was saying, — my husband hasn't got any friends. He doesn't have the time.

— Well look, it's obvious to any thinking person. The Swiss have banks all over the world. What's more necessary to a successful war than banks?

Mr. Feddle, concentrating on an open book (it was Frothingham's Aratos) was bumped aside by someone looking for an encyclopedia. — Got to look up a mutt, named Chavenay. Sounds French.

— You have to really live there to understand why France has turned out so many great thinkers, and artists, a girl said. — Just live there for awhile and get a load of what they have to revolt against, and anybody would be great.

The boy who had got an advance on his novel said, — I wanted to sort of celebrate, but what the hell. Where are the nice places? They're all business lunchrooms, do you know what I mean? Expense accounts. They're all supported by expense accounts. It's depressing as hell.

— But my dear boy, why should all this bother you? said the tall woman, who had appeared. — You don't have to eat in these places all the time. Look at my husband, he has to.

— I know. But it's depressing as hell, where can you celebrate?

— I'd suggest Nedick's, said the tall woman.

— I'd suggest Murti-Bing, said the young man with no novel to advance.

— Oh, where is that? said the tall woman. — I don't believe I've ever eaten there.

— Fifty million tons of food a year eaten in New York, what does that mean?

— Something terrible happened, Stanley. Agnes put her hand on his.

— I'm sorry, Stanley said. — If you'll just give me my glasses. .

— No, dear, I'm not talking about that, and that was so long ago, that night. . She was looking in her purse. — Here, she said, — you'll have to read it yourself. What am I going to do, Stanley? Her hand shook as she dragged the letter from her bag. — It was a terrible thing to do, an unforgivable thing to do to this poor man but he's got to forgive me, and how can I… what can I do to

… so he will?

Stanley unfolded the letter from the Police Department; and Agnes felt a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turned. — Did you see a kitty-cat here, lady?

— Why there was a kitten here somewhere, Agnes said, looking round her, — but I guess the kitty-cat has gone to bed. What are you doing up so late?

— My mummy sent me up to get some sleeping pills, but I can't find the lady who. .

— Now don't you bother the nice lady, said Agnes, rummaging in the bottom of her large purse, taking out a French enameled thimble case. — I have some right here. Is three enough? You just take these down to Mummy. And I've already written him. She looked up at Stanley.

— Thank you, lady. Where'd you get the funny watch?

— Why, Mickey Mouse is my loyal faithful friend, said Agnes. — I can always trust him.

— What have you got the funny things sticking on your face for?

— Where. . Agnes raised her hand, to feel the strip of tape at her temple, put there to discourage wrinkles when she lay down. — Oh my God, and they've been there. . why didn't someone. .

— What are they for, lady? the child asked as Agnes tore them off, and opened her compact.

— Go along down to Mummy now, for God's sake.

— He would understand, if you went to him, Stanley said, handing the letter back. — If you went to him and. .

— I couldn't face him. To ask forgiveness. .

— Is a sublime test of humility. .

— And he's really rather an awful person I think. .

— And from your interiors an even greater trial.

— I want to do something, and. . but don't you think I might just send him something? Maybe some sort of nice gift. . yes, something nice and you know fairly expensively nice for his daughter?

— I think, Stanley commenced soberly, — that really, for your own good. .

— Oh, let's stop thinking about it for a little while, she interrupted. — I just get so… tired of the terrible things I get in the mail. She smiled up at him briskly, and tightened her grasp on his hand. — Tell me about your music, Stanley, this long whatever-it-is that you've been working on for so long. Oh, and your tooth? I'm sorry, I forgot to ask.

— I think it went away, the toothache, it didn't last, but my work, it's an organ concerto but it isn't finished yet.

— But you've been working on it for months.

— For years, he said. — And you know, I look at the clean paper that I'm saving to write the finished score on, and then I look at the pile of… what I've been working on, and, well I can see it all right there, finished. And yet, well. . you know I never read Nietzsche, but I did come across something he said somewhere, somewhere where he mentioned "the melancholia of things completed." Do you. . well that's what he meant. I don't know, but somehow you get used to living among palimpsests. Somehow that's what happens, double and triple palimpsests pile up and you keep erasing, and altering, and adding, always trying to account for this accumulation, to order it, to locate every particle in its place in one whole. .

— But Stanley, couldn't you just… I don't know what a palimsest is, but couldn't you just finish off this thing you're working on now, and then go on and write another? She ran her hand over his, resting on the chair arm there; and Stanley called her by her Christian name for the first time. — No, that's. . you see, that's the trouble, Agnes, he said. — It's as though this one thing must contain it all, all in one piece of work, because, well it's as though finishing it strikes it dead, do you understand? And that's frightening, it's easy enough to understand why, killing the one thing you. . love. I understand it, and I'll explain it to you, but that, you see, that's what's frightening, and you anticipate that, you feel it all the time you're working and that's why the palimpsests pile up, because you can still make changes and the possibility of perfection is still there, but the first note that goes on the final score is… well that's what Nietzsche. .