William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— All right, how much is four million lires? What are lires, Spanish or Italian?

— Eyetalian.

— What do these spies want with Eyetalian money? for Christ sake.

— That's their business.

— Six thousand six hundred sixty-six dollars and two-thirds of a cent, a junior reporter reported, after careful miscalculation.

— Lemme see that God damn letter again. "A respectable business man and professor," for Christ sake. "A mere child in arms when this unhappy incident occurred," for Christ sake. "Reparations. . my unblemished character. . four million (4,000,000) lire. ." for Christ sweet sake.

— You're a Catholic yourself, aren't you?

— Christ yes, but not one of these ignorant spic Catholics.

— So?

— So we're screwed. We'll settle for three million. How much is that?. . And what the hell is all this?

— These are some of the letters from that hotel room where that dame jumped out the window, the photographer said, and continued pulling them out of a bulging pocket. — You didn't send me a speedwriter down so I just brought some along before the cops moved in.

— Any good reporter would have done that in the first place. Why didn't you bring them all?

— I would have needed a truck. .

— So you just left the rest of them there, for every other paper in town to sift through. .

— I mailed one of them.

— You what?

— There was a thick one all sealed, with the name of this Doctor somebody on it, so I just looked his name up in the phone book and wrote an address on it…

— You stupid bastard. You stupid stupid bastard. What address?

— I don't remember, the first one I saw under his name, I think it was somewhere on Fourteenth Street. .

— Oh you stupid bastard.

— I just thought I'd do her a favor, I…

— You just thought. . Christ! How did you get onto this paper? How did any of you get onto this newspaper? And how much is three million lire, didn't you figure it out yet?

— All I get is sixes, six six six… — All right, shut up. And now what's this? — A watch. I found it on the pavement beside her. — Jesus Christ. The battered thing dangled between his fingers. — Even Minnie wouldn't know him.

It was roses, roses, all the way

And like an avenue of flags unfurled, the newspapers quivered in the hands of passengers whose faces reflected costive content and requited destitution, prodigies of unawareness, done with plotting against life, secure in disenchantment, recovered from the times when Cleopatra's gnathic index, or Nefertiti's cephalic index, might have made a difference, while the train shook only negligent response from attitudes which flouted the aesthetician who devised the divine proportion of seven to one from the dimensions of the human being.

All save one: for there was an alertness about Mr. Pivner's attitude, as there was an eagerness in his face, which distinguished him, hurrying home now under the ground. Eddie Zefnic was coming over again this evening, and they were going to listen to something on the radio which Eddie said was very worth listening to.

Above ground, he hurried, scarcely pausing at curbs, scarcely pausing to greet ferry when he got his paper, almost run down at his own corner where a truck swerved past bearing before his eyes a primitive family pictogram and the legend, "None of us grew but the business." Even near his own door he scarcely paused when he dropped a coin into the tin cup of the blind accordion player who had been stationed there the last few evenings.

Once inside he did not waste a moment, did not even pause to lock the door behind him, entered in darkness straight across the room to the floorlamp, which he turned to its highest brilliance. He ate with no sensation but of what was too hot, what too cold; looked three times to make sure of two quart bottles of beer in the icebox; took his injection with professional dispatch; and then, his shoulders drooping in weariness, squaring again with pride, he drew on his dressing gown, pulling its generous folds tight: for he still had the sense that it had been a gift from the guest he expected. He turned on the radio and it responded with The Bells of Saint Mary's, played by the Department of Sanitation Band. Uncertain just what it was that Eddie had said would be very much worth listening to, he left it at that and sat down with his newspaper. the ghost artists He read the advertisement automatically.

We Paint It You Sign It Why Not Give an Exhibition?

He gazed at it a minute longer without understanding, and then went on to an article which said that Swedish scientists hoped soon to be able to breed men ten feet tall.

He could not concentrate. It was not that he was without his glasses, which he had hardly worn since Christmas: he could read clearly enough. It was not that the newspaper was less provoking than usual: quite the other way, in tact. In addition to the frontpage story, where he read fragments from the letters found in "ankle-deep" dispersal in the hotel room (including a proposal of marriage addressed to a man executed for murder some time since, a discrepancy accounted for with evidence of a crumpled news item torn from an old paper used to wrap the roses), there were other diverting tribulations: the bones of Sitting Bull, buried in North Dakota, had been dug up by unauthorized persons and buried in South Dakota; a man apprehended on a charge of engraving ten-dollar bills said that it had grown out of etching nature studies, he had "just drifted into counterfeiting from a hobby of fooling around with engraving copper plates"; a Reverend Gilbert Sullivan had been arrested for practicing phrenology without a license and, on the side, distributing literature which described his South African kingdom, holy water from the spring of Nebo, Uncle Ned's Black Cat bone dust, Eagle-Eye Joe's controlling powder, Aunt Sally's Black Cat pussy-foot oil, and Mother Duck's holy No. 8 oil. . then the doorbell rang.

— It's The Messiah by Handel, Eddie said after they had exchanged slightly embarrassed greetings, and he put down his armload of new books. — It's on this real little station, he went on, approaching the radio with a businesslike air, the slight apology in his tone articulating the expression on the face of the owner of this modest plastic affair who stood behind him, one hand clasping the other anxiously.

— What have I du-un. . and so friends to get your free. . managed to hold onto the ball… en este momento. . and now in a brand new. .

— Is it… time for it yet? Mr. Pivner asked hesitantly, prompting, self-conscious, a shyness reflected in the face of his skinny earnest guest as a hand dug into a pocket and the gold watch snapped open, and Mr. Pivner looked at him, and into his future with the thrill he had once known contemplating his own.

— I don't get much chance to listen to music any more since I'm studying so much, Eddie said, standing over the radio with an uncompromising look on his face, and like Pandora's box, the stream of things shut up in that marvelous creation poured out as he turned the dial. — It ought to be right here, he murmured, as though indeed seeking the one beneficence which remained behind when the lid was lifted and all of the torments and absurdities lying there in wait rushed forth, to inflict themselves with such thoroughness in man's life that he came to take them for granted as a part of it. — There's no… hope, Eddie muttered, as brackish laughter, turned on like a tap, burst in his face.

— Eddie…

— Owners of television sets in the metropolitan area witnessed a stark human tragedy in their own living rooms, when. .

— Listen. .!

The Messiah was trying to squeeze through an infinitesimal aperture, where it was being jostled, shouldered, pushed aside and out of shape by an acrobatic contest among violins performing Paga-nini's Perpetual Motion, on one side, and a cordially inane voice addressing friends, finally a quiz program where a house was being given away among much disciplined merriment.