William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Thank you, Valentine said, bowing quickly from the waist and excusing himself, — I must see our host for a moment.

— Of course. .

— It proves no more than that the ends justify the means, and that eventually connivance is necessary to the accomplishment of good, said the intruder, carrying on with some perspicacity what he believed to be a conversation. — I believe that we can call its success in a society supposedly based in reason, as logical an outcome as the pragmatic approach of modern American psychoanalysis, he went on, though the man to whom he was now talking had favored him with the briefest scrutiny, and stood now looking over his shoulder toward the center of the room, where Basil Valentine collided with Fuller, who was retreating backwards with a loaded tray.

— You idiot! Idiotl

— Oh yes sar, yes sar. .

— Here, what do you mean calling Fuller an idiot?

— Oh Mister Brown sar, Mister Valentine sar. .

And if Basil Valentine was surprised, Fuller was astonished; if Valentine was discountenanced, Fuller was thoroughly alarmed at this guttural defense from the last source either of them might ever have expected.

Recktall Brown stood with his hands flattened across his belly one upon the other, the diamonds hidden beneath the thick joint of a finger. And as Valentine's eyes turned to the pools floating rash defiance in those thick lenses, Fuller made good his escape.

On the shifting surfaces of voices, rising, hesitating, and breaking, rolling deeply and fading away, moving in even swells, shattering in conflict, figures moved around them, as Recktall Brown took out a cigar with one hand, found the penknife with the other, and stood there, waiting.

— Whatever this game of yours is, it's gone far enough, Valentine got out finally.

Recktall Brown just looked at him. He began to trim the end of the cigar. Finally he said, — It's my party.

— But you can't. . you can't…

— I can't xvhat. Brown did not raise his eyes from what he was doing.

— Good God…

Brown raised his eyes at that, to stare at the face before him. He looked very tired: that was the only way to explain the expression on his face which he lowered quickly, as though his features, so familiar in the daylight of triumph, or wrath, or satisfaction, might betray him. He finished trimming the cigar, and folded the penknife closed in his hand. — What did you do that for? he asked quietly, as he raised his face, and with it the cigar, — about the money in the account? Like you just told me in the back room. . the money I'd already paid him like he earned it. With the last word, he bit the cigar.

— What do you think I did it for?! Valentine stared. — And what are you suddenly so… My God, what's come over you?

— What did you do it for?

— To slow him down a little, to make him think twice before he went on with this. . idea of his. . But you. . you. .

— And he's trying it anyways. Recktall Brown turned away. Valentine got round in front of him, and broke out again,

— What's come over you? Why you. . and that picture you just showed, in the back room, they know something's wrong. They won't say anything, they won't even say anything to each other but they know something's wrong. You couldn't have chosen a more stupid moment. What are you trying to do, see how far you can push them?

Recktall Brown lit the cigar, and then laughed in his face. — They know something's wrong all right. Who the hell told you to paint that face on it? They loved that, didn't they?

Then a man appeared before them and said, — Merry Christmas, Brown. . holding out a glass across the. table of the Seven Deadly Sins.

— What's this? Brown said, taking it.

— I don't know. Whatever you're serving.

— Listen, you go find Fuller, and tell him to bring out some of that good brandy, the ones with the blue ribbons on.

Whoever that was, was gone.

There he stood, staring, as his vision shrank from the gold and the wealth of colors and delicate forms of Hieronymus ßosch to the mass of his own hands. As Crémer and a few others came up behind him, he stood back and made a gesture with the spatula shape of his thumb. — That's a beautiful thing, he said.

— Sar?

— What does Ds videt mean? — Sar? breaks in upon him again.

— God sees… or is watching, Valentine murmurs with a sharp breath.

— Fuller?

— Sar a gentlemahn whom I do not recollect enter demandin me to open the bottles you keep so close with the blue ribbons upon them. .

— That's right, Fuller.

— Yes sar. Fuller stands before him, finally able to move his hands, which he takes one in the other, clasped before him, and with a wrenching motion turns his sagging figure away.

— Fuller!

— Sar? Fuller startles, with a flash of gold. Recktall Brown stands looking at him, the full of his lower lip moving as though behind it the tongue is searching for something on the face of the gum. And finally, — Stand up straight, Fuller, Brown said, and turned away.

M. Crémer was finishing a conversation as they approached. — Enfin, there is so little of fine art in the world, one should not question too closely…? As said Coulanges. . pictures are bullion.

Someone had turned the radio on; but there was still enough noise in the room to keep it unnoticed. Here and there, a few guests departed.

As they came up they were, in fact, again discussing the painting they had been shown privately a little earlier; discussing, that is, not the painting itself, but the face of the central figure, as though in that portion they had found a mutually satisfactory repository for peripheral doubts. — It is done with some taste, certainly, the R.A. mumbled.

— Taste! Crémer exclaimed, smiling at Brown and Basil Valentine to include them in the hind end, at any rate, of this conversation. — Taste is one thing, and the genius to create quite another. Eh?. . Fie glanced up, and stopped at the expression on Valentine's face which, whatever it might have been, was exaggerated by the swollen lip into one of extreme contempt.

And the white-haired man, who was not looking at Basil Valentine, took up agreeably, — Yes, when I was young, you know? I recall considering my work… as a sort of mmph. . disciplined nostalgia for the things I umm. . might have done. Eh? Yes. Yes. . mmmph, he mumbled, looking down as Basil Valentine's expression turned upon him. Then he went on to break what he would later describe as an "awkward silence" with, — That face in there, don't you know. . the face on the. . ummph the figger in the van der Goes, the highlights round about the eyes, don't you know. Won't do, won't do at all.

— Won't do? Valentine demanded abruptly.

— Eh? Oh dear no, won't do at all. Zinc white, don't you know. Zinc white. I think you'll come upon that when you make an analysis of the pigments, don't you know.

— Zinc white?

— Oh dear, yes. An umm eighteenth-century color, don't you know.

Then (after what Créiner would later describe as un silence de mort) the older man bumbled on with, — Odd sort of fellow you had in here earlier. . eh! Damned odd, eh? Bit of a lunatic, you might say, eh? Prancing about with mmph two suits of clothes on him, eh? I mean, you know? Rather. . mmph. Ever seen the fellow before?

— Oh yes. . Basil Valentine came in, his voice very level, and even and cutting. He offered a cigarette from a packet of Virginia. — Mad, of course, as you say. He drinks, you know. .

— Oh yes, drinks, eh? Ummph. . shouldn't be surprised.

— A morbid condition aggravated by drink, I suppose would be more to the point. He has all sorts of delusions about himself, Valentine went on, turning to Recktall Brown. — He's been quite a problem for some time, hasn't he.