William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Isn't this the nicest plant! she said, and her patient turned: until that moment the anthurium had really looked rather obscene.

About the only person whom the blasts of the whistle did not intimidate into silence was Arny: it brought him round just enough to raise his head, and speak for the first time in two hours. He said it was getting late, and he thought he should call his wife. But he did not speak distinctly, and the blasts of departure drowned out every other sound.

He was part of a gay throng on a promenade deck, where someone fluttered up to ask, — Where's Rwu-dy?

— Baby you'll find that one in the bridal suite. Alone.

The whistle blasted them into silence again. Arny alerted, and spoke.

Up above, the tall woman said, — My God, what do you suppose we've got next door this trip. . will you listen to that?. . pouring-on party?

Her husband put down his glass and stared at the passenger list for First Class. — Two United States Senators, he said finally, and got his glass back.

Aft, as near as he, could get to his wife and the two with her who had come down to see him off, Don Bildow waved again and straightened up. His wife cried something out to him. He waved. It was past midnight.

— If you can't be good, be careful, she repeated. He waved. Then, — Oh! Oh! Oh! Look!… he forgot and left his Methyltestosterone tablets, he won't be able to do anything without them. Look, he left his Methyltestosterone tablets…

He waved. With the other hand he held on his plastic glasses. The wind stirred his brown and yellow necktie. From down below, he looked like he was being abducted.

The whistle blasted again.

— Baby you were sweet to come see us off but you'd better get back on sho-wer. . we're going to sail.

— But I'm coming twoo.

Lines were cast off, and the ship, as large as a country town, commenced a grotesque rearward motion, now as though embarrassed at its size, like a football player backing out of a doll house. Finally, faced in the right direction by six tugboats, it recovered its dignity in imperious puffs of smoke and a shrill blast of steam that lowered enough to sound, to penetrate chasms ashore and be rendered back in particles, each one more faint, as though the island were loath to let it go.

Well below the water line, Stanley opened his door and looked into the passage. — It's all right, he said, — come on out.

Other Pilgrims were already apparent, and Stanley had, a few minutes before, met a priest whom he liked immediately, a man with a plump face which carried joviality easily, but could instantly recover a medieval sternness which, one realized, was there all the time. His name was Father Martin, and he accounted for the large number of Pilgrims, some of whom he was shepherding toward the impending Canonization ceremonies in Rome, which Stanley forthwith hoped, somehow, to attend. They had quite a chat in that minute or two.

— Come… he said again, and took her arm. — Don't you have any coat? You didn't bring any coat at all?

She looked at him and shook her head, her eyes impossibly large it seemed to him as hi's own widened. Then as though aware of the warmth of her elbow in his hand, he took her hand which was cold and led her up to an open deck.

She'd brought no luggage, only a sort of bundle, and what was tied up in it he had no idea, except for a paper book tied on the outside. It was labeled The Story of Barbara Ubrick. There was a picture on the cover captioned, Smothering a baby. And below, Why nunneries are within high walls, barred windows and bolted doors.

— But. . where did you get this?

She had looked at him with these wide eyes, instantly frightened at his wrath but with no challenge, no question but that it must be justified. — An-selm, she answered him; at that he'd looked away quickly, put the thing back, its cover turned down, and stood looking away unable to confront the sad hope that had suffused her empty face for that one moment, and the bright pleasure her eyes had almost dared over this thing they were to share, that he had brought her to.

She hardly spoke, except when he spoke to her and even then, only if he addressed a question, which she would answer very slowly, deliberate and brief. Though once she had burst out with, — Then do Pilgrims need a pass-port too? Or I shall wear a cockleshell, and he will know me and he will know me well. . Which disarmed Stanley: what could she know of Santiago de Compostela? or when with the same light about to break in her eyes, waiting only his confirmation, she had asked whether it were true, Did the mice eat Saint Gertrude's heart? — For she is patron saint of them. .

As now, he took his hand from her and stood, staring at the lights of the Jersey shore, unable to believe that this was New York, and he was leaving it; and as dreadfully convinced that it was.

Even now the name Anselm threw him into a whirl, the more so now if what they had said a few evenings before, what Hannah had said and they had accepted, if it were true: and if it were true then ever) thing else was true.

With one hand in his pocket he clutched the gauze-and-news-paper-wrapped tooth, as Anselm's dream, — I dreamt about you last night. . I'm sure it was you. . and the tooth almost came through to bite into his palm. At that the other hand came up in reflex to take her arm, and missed, though her arm did not move at all there on the rail: missed only so that his knuckles rubbed her bare arm and she turned that anticipating vacant beauty upon him, her eyes unblinking though the wind was rising and came round the upper decks full upon them now, as she waited, awaited his temper: and Anselm persisted, the more strongly, on the floor, ritu quadrupedis, — Succubus. .

The daring instant of a smile on her face provoked him, — Aren't you cold? Until he asked her she might have been anywhere; now with his prompting question the smile and, if it had been warmth, left her. She shook, three times or four, sharply as though to atone for a multitude of slight shivers.

He looked away, not toward the shore, or where the shore might be, but up forward; and saw only a man on the deck above leaning at the rail, a man in a Chesterfield with the collar up, a black Homburg hat and a long face which seemed to empty through the triangular chin, that, and a glint of gold, at the cuff was it? a finger?

— Don't you want to come in?

After a moment he left her there, and with a shudder of cold went below himself. Roll and go, the motion of the ship was becoming familiar and inevitable to hundreds of people, the sole reciprocation that bound them together.

Already through the Narrows and into the Lower Bay, past Sandy Hook, and into ten fathoms of water when Stanley realized that it was some time since he'd left.her out on deck, and hurried up stairs and passages again with an anxious look on his face.

She was not where he'd left her. But he was confused enough with the unfamiliarity of it all to be uncertain that this was where he'd left her, where he stood at the rail and started to call out, at the moment a wave hit the side and threw up spray, and knocked his voice right back into him. He swung round and looked at the water, terrified.

He heard her call him; and he looked still more alarmed.

She was up on the deck above, and waved to him. He saw her there with great relief, finally, and saw a shadow that had been standing near her turn and disappear in the dark. When she came down, he could not scold her for the fright she'd given him, and so he reprimanded her, — You shouldn't go up there, that's First Class. . and he pulled the door open with more effort than he would have thought necessary.

— Was there somebody up there with you?. . were you talking to somebody?