William Gaddis - The Recognitions

A number of people, in tact, suddenly recalled other engagements and hurried off to fill them. Though the tall woman, as she described it to her husband next morning, simply led him off "as meek as Moses"; the bearded young art reviewer paddled away on a crest of enchantment, already repeacing the story to people who had not been here to enjoy it, squeezing the hot little hand folded deep in his own; and the sharkskinned Argentine, his black hair high in a dorsal fin cutting the spray around him, fled murmuring — I was not warned about this sort of thing in New York. . turning his glassy eyes for a last look at the bold spectacle on the floor, thankful, at least, that he was not, like M. Crémer, being hindered from leaving by the figure looming over it.

— Attention? eh? qu'est-ce que tu veux, aìors! va done. . laisse moi passer…

— Yes, yes, yes. . Crémer, yes. Yes, damn you. De 1'argent, vous savez, damn you, il faut toujours en avoir sur soi. .

— Eh bien, tu es fou, eh?

— Now listen, listen. . the tone changed abruptly, — you've got to listen to me. .

As the grip relaxed, Crémer wrenched away, brushing his neatly creased sleeve as he made for the door. There was some confusion at the large closet there, turned for this evening into a cloakroom; but M. Crémer emerged in short order wearing a voluminous camel's hair coat, enough sizes too big for him so that he considered it a perfect fit, and a Hollywood label inside, as he discovered a block or so away.

While here and there, inside the great room, eyes vaguely approaching the door were still caught by the eyes of the youthful portrait hung there, and turned away with such unconscious abruptness that they usually fled back to the broken thing on the floor for confirmation, and as quick there to avoid the half-face found refuge in the gauntleted hand flung out, its delicate lines palm up and open, and looked back to the portrait for denial.

The squat procession passed by, the third-in-line murmuring with the subdued reverence of a tourist speaking of something quite other than the hideous sarcophagus which he pretends to his guide he's come three thousand miles to see, — Tchikovsky you can almost take straight, but what can you do with Bach?. . the second-inline considering lighting, camera-angles, and the over-all general effect of the heavy figure in perfect grace despite its distension hurled down among roses, serving not contradiction but complement for the lighter one mounting over it, grown out of it and rising continuously in the tension of growth. . distinct close-up possibilities there, the thin empty hand in a shape of its own ascending in wild emergency and the eyes the same. . while their leader himself confirmed, — We oughda get ouda here. . bad publicidy. . And they advanced, suddenly remarkable for the fact that they all appeared a good half-head shorter than everyone else, except for the last of them, who, with a forehead, might have stood a half-head taller. They found the cloakroom and, considering their numbers, came out rather badly.

The R.A., who had resolutely sought the exit down near the Christmas tree for reasons buried near three-quarters of a century in his, or Sir Walter Scott's past (he had trouble distinguishing them), came forth over the empty field.

— Here now, don't you know!

— No listen, listen. . you've got to listen to me, you've got to… to… wait. . wait. .

— Ghood heavens, my dear boy, I don't hev to wait for ennathing. . here here now, turn loose, eh? You can't mphhht don't you know, eh? What the devil do you think I am, a mphhht. .?

— No wait, if you'll listen, if you'll. . listen to me.

— Here now, there's a good fellow, turn loose, eh? And mphht stop waving thet dirty hendful of mphhht whatever-it-is in my face, don't you know…

— Listen.. . Wait. .

— Here now, my dear boy. . The R.A. turned himself loose, but stood there a moment longer, — Nice hot bath, eh? Nice hot bath and a good night's sleep, eh? Thet'll straighten you up, eh? Ghood heavens yes, don't you know. . And he got off quite nimbly, and spent hardly a moment in the cloakroom, for his threadbare tweed coat was one of the few garments left, and he would never have considered making off with the trenchcoat which hung beside it. So he was quite quickly out on the street, in a swank neighborhood, he noticed, for there was nothing in the refuse bins but empty bottles, and the elegantly long white boxes of florists.

The last stare Basil Valentine had matched, as he stepped back, one step, and another, startled him only because he had for so long been staring down the room at its counterpart the yellowed mimosa, and here his arm was taken in a tight hold, and — Come away, this is not a good place to stay now.

Valentine pulled away. — You… go on, eh? Go on. I'll be in touch with you tomorrow.

— But you. . are too nervous now, you are not well, this is not a good time to leave you. . alone?

— Alone? Go on. You go on, will you?. . After a pause, in which Basil Valentine's face rehearsed every muscle the other restrained, he said, — What do you know about this? What do you know about. . me?. .

— Perhaps as much as you know about me. Yes. And the gun, now. You have no reason for it?

— Yes, I… leave it with me, I… I'll be in touch with you in the morning. Basil Valentine turned away, into the dark hall, and into the bathroom, where he locked the door.

He stood still on the tile floor, and he heard Fuller on the kitchen stairs. Then he went to the mirror, and stared at what he saw there. The swollen lip twitched, and he drew it into a smile. Then he raised a finger and pressed it, and looked into the eyes for as long as he could, and then to the soft shine of the gold signet ring. The weight at his waist was heavy as he thought what it was, and took the gun out and laid it on a hamper. Then he took off his jacket, and with a good deal of unfastening of buttons and buckles, and stretching of elastic, undid himself, and sat to a weak hypospa-dial stream. He stood, and saw bubbles on the surface he'd discolored, bubbles drawing into the features of a face. He flushed it, and swung on the mirror again, doing himself up (and that was the detail, the totally irrelevant detail, the floating face, which he remembered long afterward).

From the closed kitchen came the whine of the dog as Valentine emerged; and from the great living room, broken strains of music, as he approached, and stopped in shadow, watching, and licking his lip, and, as the voice came, listening.

— Yes, your daughters all were fair, and. . your daughters all were fair, but the youngest. . here, I didn't know you had a radio here? music here?

Basil Valentine first looked to the foot of the stairs, there saw nothing but the still caparisoned bulk. Then he saw the figure at the far wall, as still as everything else in the room, and his back turned on it, tuning the radio, stopping methodically along the stream that poured from it, bursts of brackish laughter, shreds of music, the human voice in aggressive counterfeit, lowered in counsel, raised in song, sincere in extolling absurdities, absurd parading devotion up and down the scale: a vapid tenor, widely known and loved, wound Silent Night round his throat, and strangled on it, into the brackish laughter again, and then from the north Beethoven's Missa Solemnis emerged, commenced to fill the place, and was gone into jazz, When the Saints Go Marching In. He left it at that, turned his back on it and walked vaguely across the room, empty-handed now. — You and I… he said approaching the foot of the stairs, — You and I… you were so damned familiar. .

There, he went down on one knee, and tried to open the visor again but gave that up after a moment, and raised his hand to look at the blood he'd got on it. Then he looked back at the figure before him, and said quietly, breathing sharp in what sounded like a laugh, — II sangue? ti soffoca il sangue? O yes, ecco un artista. . Good God. . Then he looked the figure up and down, and went off balance toward the feet, where he sei/ed the exposed ankle and worked his fingers there seeking a pulse. — Yes, there's where they nailed the wren, there's where they nailed up… He pulled himself back to his knees again, staring suddenly feverishly at the chin and throat, his weight resting in a hand on the breastplate, where he turned his eyes and pushed it with the heel of his hand and all the weight he could give it. It sank a little, and came up again, and he rested there until his eyes caught the penknife on the rug across, and he reached over to pick that up and open it as he stood. — Yes. . what chance had you, when hierophants conspired?. . Then he walked away. — Good God, he said, wandering off toward the pulpit bar opening and closing the penknife blade in his hands, and the music continued, — I willingly fastened a tail to my back, and drank what you gave me, but damn it, there. . He stopped and poured brandy into a glass, and with it turned and looked around the room. Then he put the glass down again without raising it to his mouth and took three steps, gone for a minute beyond the pulpit bar and out of sight for Basil Valentine who stood where he had stopped, tingling the tip of his tongue on the broken tooth and aware of a warm dampness filling the crotch of his trousers. A full minute of this, and Valentine prepared to step out, but put a foot back instead of forward as the figure emerged again, tucking something in an inside pocket, and, it sounded like whistling a broken delayed alto to the music, which he broke off with, — Oh yes, "I'll scratch you a bit till you see awry. . But all that you see will seem fine and brave. ."