William Gaddis - The Recognitions

"As the brilliant spring day drew to its peaceful close, I stepped forth from the cell to which I had been assigned by the spare yet virile old prior, and where I had come to know unwonted pangs of loneliness, sleepless nights and Spartan fare. ." He had to type with one hand, for he was pulling the ribbon along with the other, so he worked with reverent slowness. Through some vent in that vast stone pile, exhalations of the organ reached him, and the overhanging light, dim at its best, went dimmer each time the organ rose. Beside him on the floor where he'd thrown it, lay the crumpled writing of a day before, the delicately telling description of the preparations in the sacristy before a high Mass, which, upon rereading it after overhearing the tall woman's remark, appeared too delicate and too telling, and he realized it might be misunderstood. (It was that sniff of her perfume that did it.)

"Beneath the clear star-studded canopy of the spring night, the darkness was transfigured by the voices of these men raised on high in a shining message of faith to all men-mankind. At this moment I recalled the simple candor in the face of Saint Dominic Francis Doma saint painted by the great Spanish artist Elan unknown Spanish artist of long ago, and it was this same glowing faith that showed in the figurescowled figures before me, moving into the shadows without a faltering step. One felt, at that glorious moment, that their faith lit the way before them, escorting the Eucherist to their beloved Superior, who lay now hovering between life and death. The same Gregorian chant, perhaps, that rose to these very walls some thousandcenturies agone, rosecame gently forth once moreyet once more, too soft to echo from the stones. Rather, there was the inspiring suggestion that the simple and beautiful melody lived on in the stones which had witnessed and overheard devotions from time immemorial, and the divingdivine errand passing before them now drew it forth. Their pace did not hasten, despite the crucial nature of their divine erpurpose, but moved at once inexorable and resigned to the will of Him who drew them forth on this divine,carrying the Eucharest to that belovedhumble manfigure even now being delivered from the life that bound them together, even as did their singing in this darkness on the earth they trod. So it was that late that night, when the beloved oldvenerable man had passed across the veil to his Heavenly Reward, I lay back upon my hard pallet and considered the world whose sounds still Jang in my ears, and where I must, perforce, so soon return, the world he had voluntarily shut out so long before, the world of vanity and selfishness, of lies and deceit, of wars and rumors of wars, of men devoting themselves to the service of both God and Mammon. He stopped, to gaze at the wall showing blank between the machine and the reproving sign hung above the table. The light dimmed almost to a mere color, and rose again, at which the bird outside struck the glass, and fluttered against the pane; but he saw nothing and heard nothing, preparing himself for the leap:

"And then of a sudden, my heart started sprang up in my breast, as I understoodfound the true meaning in ofin the message broughtheld forth forto all mankind, of all faiths, and creeds, and color, in this symbol of life eternal. My bones no longer seemed to cut through the flesh into the hard pallet where I lay, the night air engulfed me but it was a night in spring, and it raised me up. For as the lights of their tapers shown so small against the gigantic darkness of the night, still they shown from afar off, as they lives they ledlead shine in atonementbefore Him whWho created all, in atone.ent for the dark deeds of the world -they-today. No, I thought, such lives as these cannot be in vain. And as the fresh life ofin the air rose everywhere about me, the symbol which these good men bore to one of their number soon to be taken from them among themamongst them became a part of it theit. The deep thrill of the Spring, and of all life reviving, paralyzed me for that instant as, weven now, Easter week approached, and with it, the message of life beyond the grave, and to all mankindhumanity, that hope which springs eternal in the human breastevery human breast that opens its portals to its fellowthe service of its fellow man., and in this expression of Histhe divine will, no longerfears death no longer, but procures acquires secures insures obtains nearsdraws nearer to Resurrection."

He sat back, and drew his fingertips across his forehead. Then he stood abruptly, and turned away from his achievement. His chest, which had caved during this exercise, filled with a deep breath, and the bold strokes of the Honourable Artillery Company stood forth, as he strode across the room to the windows. He had had faith, but he realized, looking down now on the drift of roofs below, broken in genuflection, from the facade pitted by five centuries, it had simply been a question of time. At that moment the bird fluttered against the glass. Its wings beat the panes, and it clung with its delicate talons to the leading which separated them. It struck at the glass, at the same time turned its head from one side to the other so that its beak did not strike, its tail spread in balance. If it was the light that attracted it, that was soon turned off; for the bird was gone when he took the blanket over near the windows, and lay down to sleep on the floor. He felt he owed it to them. Nor was it difficult, waking next morning in the sensual shelter of the bed, to believe he'd slept on the hard bricks. He had spent a numb quarter-hour there and now, hurrying over to stand before the windows, the inspiring hardness of the uneven floor beneath his feet erased the night in bed (for if he'd dreamt there, he could not remember), and he looked out at the dawn with eyes as clear as the early sky itself, and features as reasonably detailed and separate as the illuminated composure of the landscape before him, where the world had emerged from that dangerously throbbing undelineated mass of the unconscious, to where everything was satisfactorily separated, out where it could all be treated reasonably.

He looked relieved, and got the windows open. The voices he heard came from directly below, where he saw Stephen and the old man arguing on the porch of the church. What it was he could not make out, since it was all going on in Spanish. They would come nearer the doors of the church and then the old man would back him away, waving the keys he had there on the end of the stick. Once or twice it looked as though Stephen were going to seize them, but the old man got them up out of his reach, and then, the third or fourth time that happened, the old man closed with him. From above, they looked about to grapple, but the porter had an arm round the younger man's shoulders, and as he talked led him over to the steps, where he went on talking to Stephen in lower tones, gesturing now and then with the rod away toward the mountains.

In the window, the distinguished novelist turned away once or twice himself, as though caught, or fearful of being caught, eavesdropping, but he kept looking back down at them. Finally he did go over to the writing table, and turned papers up there for a minute distractedly. And when he got back to the open windows, he saw the old man standing down there alone. He looked where that one appeared to be staring, saw nothing but an empty street ascending out of sight behind the walls of houses, where, a few minutes later, he was climbing himself.

He'd looked over the seat of the Irish thorn-proof trousers, found it in need of no more than a brushing for the gray matter dried there, put on the suit and come out for what he'd have called a meditative walk, by which he seemed to mean aimless wandering amid unfamiliar scenery, qualified now by the consciously exerted realization that he was now, after his period of enclosure, outside the walls.