William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Maude, is this yours? Big Anna was wearing it under her shirt.

— Even in Mauberge, even in a coal mine.

Otto's face expressed nothing: unobserved, his features apparently had no reason to arrange themselves one way or another. His brow was level and without lines, his lips together and even. But slight marks of agitation drew up round his eyes when he raised them toward the door, where Esther stood with a woman wearing an orchid upside-down, and two or three others clustered about the guest of the evening, who afforded a spectacle of sartorial sloppiness and postural dilapidation consistent with the humility 'which he offered, in his soul-searching best-selling book, to share with others. At that moment Esther caught his eye with a querulous look which drew Otto's face up in immediate confusion, and widened his bloodshot eyes; though why, he could hardly have said, as he turned and pretended to be speaking with the woman in the collapsed maternity dress who had just said, — Monasteries are a good thing for America, they help keep the homosexuals off the streets.

Then Otto saw Anselm, who was whistling with soft harshness through his teeth, and watching Stanley. Otto looked away quickly, as though fearing to be recognized, and accused of something; but Anselm kept whistling, and watching Stanley.

— This self-sufficiency of fragments, that's where the curse is, fragments that don't belong to anything. Separately they don't mean anything, but it's almost impossible to pull them together into a whole. And now it's impossible to accomplish a body of work without a continuous sense of time, so instead you try to get all the parts together into one work that will stand by itself and serve the same thing a lifetime of separate works does, something higher than itself, and I… this work of mine, three hundred years ago it would have been a Mass, because the Church…

— But dear man. . came from across the room, the woman with the orchid upside-down.

— And it would be finished by now, because the Church. .

— But my dear Mister. . Pott is it? her voice came on as she stood spilling part of her drink on his shoe and burning Don Bildow's sleeve with her cigarette, — I am a birthright Friend.

As Anselm approached behind him, Stanley heard the vague harsh whistle, half turned, and then talked more rapidly and more directly to Agnes Deigh, who listened with strained attention. Anselm walked with slow careless indifference, bumping people as though they were pieces of overstuffed furniture. — Come on baby, one more glass of nice gin and we'll find you the cutest doctor, why you look good enough to eat!. . oww. . Anselm bumped, bumped the girl with the bandaged wrists who went on, — We've been thinking of getting a two-toed sloth instead, they just hang on the shower-curtain rod all day and you don't have to do a thing.

— Hey Stanley, where's your instrument? Anselm asked coming up behind him. He'd taken out a dirty pocket comb with some teeth missing. — Here, middle C is missing, but if you can find some toilet paper I'll accompany you in "We hasten with feeble but diligent footsteps". . didn't you bring your instrument?

— And I don't read Voltaire of course, Stanley continued, his voice quavering as he forced it, — but somewhere I came across some words of his, "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." That may sound irreverent, but. .

— It sounds downright God-damned heretical, Anselm said behind him.

— But. .even Voltaire could see that some transcendent judgment is necessary, because nothing is self-sufficient, even art, and when art isn't an expression of something higher, when it isn't invested you might even say, it breaks up into fragments that don't have any meaning and don't have any. .

— You sound like Simon Magus, invested, for Christ sake, Anselm said, putting a dirty hand on Stanley's shoulder. — Why don't you go see his heart, they've got it in the Bibliothèque Nationale. You might understand him. By osmosis.

— Simon Magus? Stanley said, turning, confused.

— Voltaire, for Christ sake. He patted Stanley on the shoulder. — How's your crack, Stanley? he asked him. Two people turned, raising eyebrows in shocked interest. Agnes Deigh pretended to be looking for something in her large pocketbook.

— Why, what. .

— The crack in your ceiling, what do you think I mean. — Oh, I didn't know you. . it's a little longer, three-eighths of an inch longer, I…

— What the hell have you got in your pocket? Anselm said, nodding at Stanley's side jacket pocket, which bulged, and weighed the jacket down on that side. — I'll be God damned, Anselm said, reaching into the pocket before Stanley could step away, — a cold chisel. I heard this but I wouldn't believe it.

— Well, I came up on the subway, and. .

— Bathysiderodromophobia! What did I tell you! said an onlooker. Anselm looked up, his eyes narrowed. — And what's that in your pocket?

— A stethoscope, Anselm said, — what does it look like.

— Anselm! What are you doing here? They looked up to see Don Bildow. — Where is… you're supposed to be taking care of…

— I took her to a movie, and left her there until I come back.

— To a movie! But. . what movie, where, where is she, how could you. .

— All right, I'll tell you the truth. . well, don't worry about her. It's a good show, it will do her good.

— But you can't. . couldn't do a thing like that. .

— Don, an excited young man interrupted, grasping his arm, and nodding at someone across the room, who stood looking at a copy of the small stiff-covered magazine. — That poem, that poem by Max, he says it isn't by Max at all, he says. . well come over, quick.

Anselm said, — What poem? and followed them across the room, rolling his magazine now with the cover outside (Pin-Up Cuties) with one hand, picking up a drink with the other, and already showing the yellowed edges of teeth in a grin.

Stanley looked after them bewildered; then he saw Esther, whom he did not know, approaching Otto, and attempted an irresolute signal, saying — There's Otto, I still have the twenty dollars he lent me, I haven't needed it… His signal went unseen; he listened at a strain of music, and returned to Agnes Deigh, whose eyes were closed. — And do you know what Handel had inscribed inside the cover of his harpsichord? Musica Donum Dei. . they still have it, he finished in desolate consolation, looking up, embarrassed at the prospect before him, the flesh abandoned by the lights of the discriminating will.

Very near him, the tall woman had just caught her husband in time to prevent him from confessing (to some "total stranger" as she would tell him next morning) that he had two psychoanalysts, neither known to the other, whom he played off against each other and managed to keep ahead of them both himself. — Our bene. . one of our dear friends, she interrupted, as Stanley attended with fugitive interest, — has the most exquisite Queen Anne sofa which he's hinted he might be willing to sell, tor a price of course. Of course there's nothing we need less than a Queen Anne sofa, she went on pleasantly, including the total stranger and, with an icily cordial smile, Stanley's gape, and then she turned a rueful look on her husband, — but it might rather help things along, to buy something tonight from your employer. .?

The total stranger mumbled something about a Cadillac that smelled like a phobia inside; and Stanley, again abashed by the cordial dismissal in the tall woman's smile, and the weary bravery in the superciliary shadow of her look, sought refuge in more immediate terrain, anticipating it as unlit as he'd left it, and so doubly startled at being so sharply fixed in the illumination of both eyes upon him.