William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— To voyage…

— With me?

— Charles Fort says maybe we're fished for, by supercelestial beings…

— Yes, without me. Alone.

— My grandfather, he fell down a well once, did I tell you? He talks of voyages, he's oriented by the stars. Orientation sidérale, the man who experimented with ants in the desert in Morocco. Then he seemed to tighten and hold her off suddenly, and she asked:

— What is it?

— In that dream, I just remembered my. my hair was on fire.

She felt him run his hand over his hair, and down his rough cheek in the darkness. — We'll talk about it in the morning, she said, — not now.

— Not flames, he said holding her again.

— You, you'd go to Morocco.

— But just burning, he whispered, almost wondrously, as she rose to engage the incredulous tension of his right hand, still murmuring:

— And be more. Moroccan. than the Moors.

Next morning Esther woke alone, to realize that she had been alone most of the night. She swallowed, and found her cold better. She smelled coffee and went to the kitchen, where half a pot of it was boiling furiously on the stove. She started to call out, felt a wave of nausea, and sat down and decided to eat something. She got out bread and butter and looked for an egg, but could not find one. Then she poured some of the boiling coffee into a cold cup, and the cup cracked; nonetheless she poured until it was full and took it into the living room.

Light showed from the studio, and she heard sounds behind the half-closed door. Then:

— Damn you, damn you. damn you!

— What? she brought out, at the door. — What a smell.

— Nothing. He stood facing her under the bare brilliance of the bulb, as though stricken, in the midst of some criminal commission, as lightning freezes motion.

— What is it?

— Nothing, I'm. talking to myself. — Are you working? still working?

— Yes, yes, working, he answered. His empty hands opened and closed at his sides, as though seeking something to occupy them. Then he caught up a knife in one, and with the other pointed to the straight easel, — On that.

— That? She looked at the familiar thing on the easel. It was a late eighteenth-century American painting in need of a good deal of work, the portrait of a woman with large bones in her face but an unprominent nose, a picture which looked very much like Esther. She found it so, at any rate; and even when he'd said, — As a painting, it isn't very good as a painting, is it?… she standing behind him could see no further than the portrait, held by the likeness as happened so often but seldom so clearly, finding resemblances to herself everywhere as though she set out from the start seeking identity with misfortune, recognition in disaster.

He had backed away from her, holding the knife, as though he were guarding something, or hiding it, and when she looked behind him on the wall she saw the black lines on the cracked soiled surface of the unfinished portrait. — That, she said, — that's what you were working on?

— That. He made a stab pointing behind her with the knife, and she moved to sink wearily against the door frame.

— A way to start the day, she said, looking at him. — I wish you'd stop waving that knife. Start the day? I feel like you've been in here all night, like you're always in here, and whoever it is that sleeps with me and talks to me in the dark is somebody else.

— I woke up, he said putting the knife down, — I wanted to work.

— But this… if you wanted to work on that, you can tell me, you don't have to pretend, this secrecy.

— Aunt May, when she made things, even her baking, she kept the blinds closed in the butler's pantry when she frosted a cake, nobody ever saw anything of hers until it was done.

— Aunt May! I don't care about Aunt May, but you… I wish you would finish that thing, she went on, looking at the lines over his shoulder, — and get rid of her.

— Rid of her? he repeated. From somewhere he'd picked up an

— Finish it. Then there might be room for me.

— You? to paint you?

— Yes, if you…

— But you're here, he brought out, cracking the egg over a cup, and he caught the yolk in his palm. -You're so much here. Esther

. I'm sorry, he said with a step toward her, the egg yolk rolling from one palm to the other, threatening to escape. — I'm sorry, he said seeing the expression he'd brought to her face. — I'm tired.

— Even this; she said lowering her eyes, and bringing them round to the damaged likeness on the easel, — if you'd finish this.

— There's no hurry, he said quickly, — they've gone abroad, the people who own it, they may not be back for some time.

— If they were gone ten years you'd take ten years. You could do work like this in half the time you take, a tenth of the time, even if you won't paint yourself you could settle down to restoring work and make something of it. It's no wonder you don't sleep, that you're nervous and have bad dreams when you're not doing what you want to do.

He stood bent over a cup, where he held the egg yolk suspended between the squared fingertips of one hand, and a pin in the other, about to puncture it, and he looked up at her. — But I am, Esther.

— If you could finish something original, she said. — You look like an old man. Why are you laughing?

— fust then, he said straightening up, and the egg yolk still hanging from his fingers, — I felt like him, just for that instant as though I were old Herr Koppel, I've told you, the man I studied with in Munich. As though this were that studio he had over the slaughterhouse, where we worked, he'd stand with an egg yolk like this and talk, "That romantic disease, originality, all around we see originality of incompetent idiots, they could draw nothing, paint nothing, just so the mess they make is original. Even two hundred years ago who wanted to be original, to be original was to admit that you could not do a thing the right way, so you could only do it your own way. When you paint you do not try to be original, only you think about your work, how to make it better, so you copy masters, only masters, for with each copy of a copy the form degenerates. you do not invent shapes, you know them, atiswendig wissen Sie, by heart. " The egg yolk fell, most of it went into the cup. — Damn it, he said, looking at it, — but it doesn't matter, these stale eggs. "Country eggs you must have, with stale city eggs you cannot make good tempera. "

— I might have had it for breakfast.

— But, was it the last one? I didn't. I'm sorry, Esther, I… here. He poured the white from one stained cup into what yolk there was in the other. — Here, it just isn't. it's clean, there just isn't as much yolk.

— Aren't you going to your office? You'd better shave if you are, she said and left him offering the cup in the direction of the damaged likeness on the easel.

Her coffee was cold. She poured it into the sink, and went down to get the mail. She read one letter on the stairs, and called out before she'd closed the door behind her, — Wyatt, something awful's happened. Where are you? Then she almost screamed, seeing him standing in the door of the studio with blood all over one side of his face and his neck. — What happened?

— What is it? he asked. — What awful thing.

— What's happened to you? she cried running up to him.

— What? He stood there with a straight razor opened in his hand.

— What are you doing?

— Shaving.

— Did you do that. shaving? What are you doing in there, shaving.

— Oh, he said running his fingertips over his chin, and looking at the blood on them. — It's a mess, I'm sorry, Esther. The mirror, I was using this mirror in here, you have the one in the bathroom covered.