William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— But you. . stop, my dear fellow, stop that laughing and come out.

— That's why it's funny, because it's vulgar, do you see?

— Damn it, come out of there.

He came out, and followed Basil Valentine across the room laughing. — Oh, and they. . said I dishonored death! Did you see that face? Then he stopped. — Where did it come from?

— My dear fellow. .

— No, tell me, who painted that face, tell me.

Basil Valentine stood taking a cigarette out, which he hung under the swollen lip. — Your benefactor there did it, he said, and motioned away.

— He did it? He? — What do you think all this. . foolishness about climbing into a suit of armor.was, this. .

— Oh no! No! No! The same thing, yes, oh yes, the same thing he wanted, but the only way he knew, but you. . you. .

Basil Valentine tasted blood. The cigarette paper had torn his lip again. He stood backed against the pulpit. But he could not turn away as he had in the lion house: for these were the same eyes on him, the same movements the lioness made, approaching, the head hung, one foot crossed over the other in a bound, and the eyes again on him in another approach, and no bars between them. The broken smile on Valentine's face yielded its weak incipience as he tried to draw his lips tight against a feeble sound that escaped them, initiating defense, or some proposal. Then he straightened up, a step from the pulpit. The threatening shadows had stilled, the figure retreated across the room to stand over the low table in the dull glow of the fireplace. — And you were the boy! Valentine said in a tone gone almost childish with recrimination. — The boy in your story? whose father owned the original? The boy who copied it, and stole the original, and sold it, for "almost nothing" to… him.

— To him! How did I know, I didn't know who bought it, I just sold it. The original! I thought. . do you know what it was like, coming in here years later with him, and seeing it here? Waiting, seeing it here waiting for me? waiting to burn this brand of final commitment, as though, all those years, as though it was what I thought, instead of… a child could tell, even in this light. .

— Perhaps you were right all the time, Valentine said quietly, coming closer.

— But this is a copy!

— Of course it is. When the old count sold his collection in secret, this was one of the copies he had made.

— And, the original? all this time. .?

— All this time, the original has been right where this one is now. Basil Valentine stood very near him by the table. — Of course it was the original here for so long, the one you sold him. And this, I picked this one up in Rome myself scarcely a year ago. Do you recall when we first met? right here, across the table? Of course that was the original. I said it was a copy simply to hear you defend it. I knew Brown would trust your judgment. And I knew Brown would be troubled enough to have it gone over again, by "experts." I brought the idea into his mind simply to let him kill it himself, so that once I'd exchanged the two, no matter who called this a copy, he'd simply laugh at them. He'd just made absolutely certain, hadn't he? And the original? It's on its way back to Europe where it belongs. I exchanged them quite recently. Do you think he knew the difference? And Valentine laughed, a sound of disdain severed by a gasp of pain at the shock in his lip.

— Yes, thank God! The figure across the table stood illumined at its edges with the steady glow of the fire. — Thank God there was the gold to forge!

Valentine smiled his broken smile, coming closer, as the other retreated a step up the room.

— And you wanted me to copy the Patinir, so you could steal it, so you could steal it from him too.

— Steal! Look at him, look;H him over there. Steal from him? Look at… his hand on the carpet, Valentine shuddered. — Like a fat soft toad on the carpet, the ugly venomous toad with the precious jewel in its head, look at it. Hands like that, on these beautiful things? Then drawing his hands together before him as though in protection, Valentine's wrist pressed the weight at his waist. He stepped forward suddenly, keeping his arm there, and said, — Listen. .

— Good God!

— It's all different, Valentine said, — it's different now, now that you and I are. . alone.

— You. . what do you want of me?

— And you! what do you want? Basil Valentine burst out, advancing again as this figure before him moved backwards up the room, not unsteady, but from side to side, back toward the staircase and the hulk flung at its foot. — Yes, your by all that's ugly! And you, handling you like a jewel, he went on, his voice rising. — You and your work, your precious work, your precious van der Goes, your precious van Eyck, your precious not van Eyck but what I want! And your precious Chancellor Rolin, look at him there, look at him. Yes, why didn't you paint him into a Virgin and Child and Donor? Do you think it's any different now? That that fat-faced Chancellor Rolin wasn't just like him? Yes, swear to me by all that's ugly! Valentine hissed, and got breath. — Vulgarity, cupidity, and power. Is that what frightens you? Is that all you see around you, and you think it was different then? Flanders in the fifteenth century, do you think it was all like the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb? What about the paintings we've never seen? the trash that's disappeared? Just because we have a few masterpieces left, do you think they were all masterpieces? What about the pictures we've never seen, and never will see? that were as bad as anything that's ever been done. And your precious van Eyck, do you think he didn't live up to his neck in a loud vulgar court? In a world where everything was done for the same reasons everything's done now? for vanity and avarice and lust? and the boundless egoism of these Chancellor Rolins? Do you think they knew the difference between what was bizarre and what was beautiful? that their vulgar ostentation didn't stifle beauty everywhere, everywhere? the way it's doing today? Yes, damn it, listen to me now, and swear by all that's ugly! Do you think any painter did anything but hire himself out? These fine altarpieces, do you think they glorified anyone but the vulgar men who commissioned them? Do you think a van Eyck didn't curse having to whore away his genius, to waste his talents on all sorts of vulgar celebrations, at the mercy of people he hated?

Blood flowed over his broken tooth. He'd turned away, but swung about again unable to stop. — Yes, I remember your little talk, your insane upside-down apology for these pictures, every figure and every object with its own presence, its own consciousness because it was being looked at by God! Do you know what it was? What it really was? that everything was so afraid, so uncertain God saw it, that it insisted its vanity on His eyes? Fear, fear, pessimism and fear and depression everywhere, the way it is today, that's why your pictures are so cluttered with detail, this terror of emptiness, this absolute terror of space. Because maybe God isn't watching. Maybe he doesn't see. Oh, this pious cult of the Middle Ages! Being looked at by God! Is there a moment of faith in any of their work, in one centimeter of canvas? or is it vanity and fear, the same decadence that surrounds us now. A profound mistrust in God, and they need every idea out where they can see it, where they can get their hands on it. Your. . detail, he commenced to falter a little, — your Bouts, was there ever a worse bourgeois than your Dierick Bouts? and his damned details? Talk to roe of separate consciousness, being looked at by God, and then swear by all that's ugly! Talk to me about your precious van Eycks, and be proud to be as wrong as they were, as wrong as everyone around them was, as wrong as he was. And Basil Valentine flung out a hand to the broken hulk on the floor, toward which he backed the retreating figure before him. — Separation, he said in a voice near a whisper, — all of it cluttered with separation, everything in its own vain shell, everything separate, withdrawn from everything else. Being looked at by God! Is there separation in God? Valentine finished, and held out his hand again, but more slowly, less steady, to withdraw it immediately the two retreating before him came up, breaking the surface as the voice broke the silence he left.