William Gaddis - The Recognitions

Roaring alight where the night never ended, underground, she said, — Arthur, get up on your feet. Don't you know me? Don't you know who I am?

He looked at her.

The train halted. Its doors opened, and before she could move they closed behind him and left her, recovering from her moment of indecision, seated and staring straight ahead.

On all fours, he trotted down the emptied platform. He paused for a moment and raised his head to look round him; then he went on, and bumped open the door to the men's room with his head. It was empty. He rose to his knees and reached into his pocket. The crumpled picture he threw into a toilet. With his other hand he undid his clothes, and opened the razor. He paused so, staring up at the dim illumination of the weak electric bulb, his voice audible only then, — In nomine. . though his lips continued to move, without a tremor, as his hands worked quickly, with deft certainty, unseen.

— Why you could tell it a mile away.

— And the broad with him. .

— The broad with him. .

— You could have told her a mile away. Hello Jimmy. Merry Christmas. Come on in and have one for Christmas.

— Happy Yom Kipper. What're you doin.

— I'm drinkin, what's it look like I'm doin? Set one up for our friend here, Barney.

— It's a free country.

— Cozy fan tooty.

— The same to you. What does that mean?

— That's fuck you in Latin.

— That's not Latin.

— O.K., so why should it mean anything? Cozy fan tooty, that's just an expression.

— Well here's good luck. Happy Yom Kipper.

— That's how much you know, "happy yom kipper." Happy Yom Kippur was around Hallowe'en.

— So you're meine Yiddische Sendy Glaus?

— That's no joke now, that's no joke. If it wasn't for the Jews there wouldn't be no Christmas.

— So you're a Jew? — So I'm a Jew. Tell him Barney, ain't I a Jew?

— Come on, you're no more Jew than my dick.

— Quiet down, now. Quiet down.

— I been pissed off at him for five years.

— Yeah, well you ought to be good and wet then.

— Quiet down, now.

— O.K. Barney. Thanks for the beer. Just tell Santa Glaus here to hold his water.

— You both better quiet down or go. It stopped snowing.

— It finally stopped snowing?

— You're not being a perfect host, Barney. You're supposed to be the perfect host.

— It finally stopped snowing? Well I'll be damned.

— Merry Christmas,

— And it finally stopped snowing,

— Happy Yom Kipper, — Well I'll be damned.

Undisciplined lights shone through the night instructed by the tireless precision of the squads of traffic lights, turning red to green, green to red, commanding voids with indifferent authority: for the night outside had not changed, with the whole history of night bound up in it had not become better nor worse, fe\ver lights and it was darker, less motion and it was more empty, more silent, less perturbed, and like the porous figures which continued to move against it, more itself.

Mr. Inononu turned from the window and walked, apparently aimless in the suit which billowed silently about him, toward the fireplace, where something smoldered.

— Fas et Nefas ambulant, pene passu pari. . He cocked his head for a moment and listened. — Prodigus non redimit vitium avari. . He studied the face before him, as the words came on, — Virtus temperantia quadam singulari. .

Mr. Inononu's nose was no more than two inches from the Vul-liamy clock on the mantel. He stood peering into it as he did every face, an intent scrutiny of clinical exactness, brevity, and disposition. Then he raised his eyes to the gilt cupíd, sniffed silently, lowered them to the fire smoldering in the grate, at which he sniffed audibly, and went on to the desk to examine its furnishings, the twitching fingers of his hands folded behind him the only signal of the agitation which the distant voice of his host provoked in him. Basil Valentine's voice continued, the book held in white hands above the clear water, reading in his tub.

Mr. Inononu stood a stolid five feet and four inches from the ground, draped in a brown suit which was some shades lighter, or at least softer, than his skin. His face reared in enigmatic blossom from the calyx of a sharp black beard. His brows were heavy and as black, doing little to hide or even temper the blacker eyes beneath them. The dark skin kept its patina to the back of his crown, where a black fuzz, gradually nourished into distinct hair, collared the back of his head and rose in slight peaks above his ears. Full face, as the Vulliamy clock had had him for a minute, there was something distinctly oriental about Mr. Inononu.

As he went on around the room, silent on the carpet, he seemed to have difficulty resisting putting out a hand and touching things. He was touching the gold egg atop the column near the couch when Basil Valentine entered, a book closed in one hand, the other holding closed the untied front of the blue dressing gown. — An egg?

— It's damaged, obviously, Valentine muttered.

— You are very nervous this evening, Mr. Inononu commented, turning from the column with a look which another face might have matched to his tone of solicitude, but his own reflected merely passive curiosity. His clothes were cut full; and for all the quiet alertness of his manner he seemed to billow in a wealth of folds and creases, moving to a bookshelf where he stood reading titles and touching the spines as he did so. — You are in the nineteenth century, he murmured running a thumb down Azigazi pozitiv filozofia. —And Móricz, side by side with Gárdonyi?. .

— You came to discuss literature? You've already kept me waiting…

Mr. Inononu made a deprecative sound with his lips. — A Veres költö. . you are fond of Kosztolányi? he asked, returning to the couch. — I would recommend to you Bródy? I do not see him on your shelf. His Faust orvos, his Don Quixote kisasszony. .

— Have you looked at these papers? Valentine interrupted him impatiently. — You've already made me late for an important. .

— I did not know which ones. . still, you are not ready to leave yet.

— Which ones! They're right there in front of you, on the table there, if you'd simply looked, instead of poking around. .

— I disturbed nothing on your desk, Mr. Inononu said, watching him look sharply over the books and papers spread out there. When Valentine turned, having difficulty inserting a cuff link, Mr. Inononu picked up the papers from the marble-top table and said, — This information deals with a Rumanian, Yak is his name?

— Among other things, Valentine answered shortly;

— He is presumed to be in Spain now?

— So they think. I think he's here, myself.

— You have information you have not communicated?

— I have no information, Valentine dismissed it quickly, going on to the other cuff link. — Even if he is, it will take them long enough to find him in this. . chaos, he raised his eyes to the window. — Whatever name he's using now, he's certainly sold his passport, or burned it by this time if he has any sense, any sense of… you, Valentine brought out harshly under his breath. He stood there abruptly motionless, staring at the glass without seeing through it, his eyes fixed on the reflection, the pacific image of this guest who sat as though occupied with an academic treatise. — He's a scholar, you know, this Rumanian Yak, a scholar, and that means nothing… to you? he went on in dead monotone. — A scholar, a, a man you've never seen?