William Gaddis - The Recognitions

He got up and rummaged in his clothes, and came out with a fragment of clay pottery; some other things dropped but he didn't look down after them. — That's from Leptis Magna, it's not pretty is it, you can still see the thumbprints on it, from molding the edge here. What do you keep a thing like that for, from Leptis, and Arabs crouching making tea over sheep-dung fires on the marble floor, the temple of Hera, and the lilies sprung from her milk, and the Roman's ruins run right down into the sea.

Ludy stooped to pick up what had dropped, some crumpled one- peseta notes, and a raggedly cut out picture on canvas stiff with the cracked paint, a sharply detailed figure of an old man drawn out, being flayed by detached hands. — This, he said, holding up the likeness, — it's the old man, the porter here, is it? The face. .

— Old men, he's like all the. . old men, Stephen said, starting to reach for it, then he waved it away. — He told me. . look at their difference in ages, he's sixty and more, and she's still a child, and they're still in love. It's. . that, now do you understand? It's here he can be closest to her now, while he's waiting. But for me? That's when he said no, and sent me on again. He's here, a penitent?. . but it's different, for she comes to him here, and. . all this time he's carrying on this love affair, being loved. But for me, that's why he sent me on, to find what. . what he has here.

— But. . after what he did. .

— After what he did, and he learned only through her suffering, Stephen brought out more loudly, — Now… If she comes to him carrying lilies that turn to fire? And the fire, what do you think it is? If that was the only way he could learn? So now do you see why he sends me on? If somewhere I've. . done the same thing? And something's come out of it, something. . like… he has. While I've been crowding the work alone. To end there, or almost end running up to the doors there, to pound on the doors of the church, do you see why he sent me on? Look back, if once you're started in living, you're born into sin, then? And how do you atone? By locking yourself up in remorse for what you might have done? Or by living it through. By locking yourself up in remorse with what you know you have done? Or by going back and living it through. By locking yourself up with your work, until it becomes a gessoed surface, all prepared, clean and smooth as ivory? Or by living it through. By drawing lines in your mind? Or by living it through. If it was sin from the start, and possible all the time, to know it's possible and avoid it? Or by living it through. I used to wonder, how Christ could really have been tempted, if He was sinless, and rejected the first, and the second, and the third temptation, how was He tempted?. . how did He know what it was, the way we do, to be tempted? No, He was Christ. But for us, with it there from the start, and possible all the time, to go on knowing it's possible and pretend to avoid it? Or… or to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through.

He took a few steps down the hill, and stood looking over the valley, where smoke was rising from the drift of roofs of the town, and further on the mountainsides.

He looked fragile enough there, blocking the path before the figure in Irish thorn-proof, which loomed larger for being slightly uphill. Still Ludy saw no way to get round him, but stood unsteadily awkward waiting, trapped once more, seeking some detail of sight or sound, threatened again with the torment of loss tolling his senses one by one, while somewhere unseen the bell against the ruminating jaw jogged the silence. — You can't go on this way, he broke out at the back turned to him, — this wandering. . and he amended, — I mean, I travel a good deal myself, but. .

— Listen! there's a moment, traveling. .

— But I…

— Offered shelter, there they were, all the family at dinner. .

— Usually working on something. .

— But she didn't wear her breasts around to be chewed by strangers, when she said…

— Without. . reproach. .

— her daughter. .

— What? Ludy came down upon him, — You said, you have a daughter somewhere?. .

At that he came round so quickly in the path that Ludy startled off it and the instant his foot went into the deep grass a commotion burst there. Another step back, Ludy stumbled and fell, and the bird which had fluttered up was caught in Stephen's hand above him, where it beat its wings frantically.

— A daughter, yes.

— I've cut myself, Ludy said from the ground.

— Yes, Stephen laughed suddenly over him, holding the bird, looking down, where a streak formed on Ludy's hand.

— But I'm bleeding. . don't, why are you laughing?

— Yes, who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. .? Stephen stood there looking down, and he covered the bird in his hand with the hand mounting the diamonds. — But you can't quiet it, you can't comfort it, it would die of fright.

— It frightened me, so close. .

— See, how it's made. .

— No, no… from far off, flying, yes, they're beautiful. . Ludy struggled up on his elbows. — But no, not this close, like that, they make my blood run cold. . He looked at the faint streak on his hand and repeated, — I'm bleeding. .

Stephen burst into laughter again, more loudly, standing there with the bird. — Yes, yes, who would have thought, the old man. . he laughed more loudly, at the slight and so faintly colored streak, — to have had so much blood in him!. .

— But what is it… no, Ludy shuddered on the ground and unable to rise while the bird was held over him there.

— A daughter, yes! and born out of, not love but borne out of love, when it happened, the bearing, the present reshaped the past. And the suitor? Oh Christ! not slaying the suitors, no never, but to supersede where they failed, lie down where they left. Where they lost their best moments, and went on, to confess them in repetition somewhere else without living them through where they happened, trying to reshape the future without daring to reshape the past. Oh the lives! that are lost in confession. . — I'm bleeding…

— To run back looking for every one of them? every one of them, no, it's too easy, Penelope spinning a web somewhere, and tearing it out at night, and waiting? or to marry someone else's mistake, to atone for one of your own somewhere else, dull and dead the day it begins'. You'd see, listen, listen, listen here if the prospect of sin, draws us on but the sin is only boring and dead the moment it happens, it's only the living it through that redeems it.

— Where are you going?

— I've an early start, I've come this far. Hear the bells! the old man, ringing me on.

— But the bird. .?

— There are stories, I could tell you about Saint Dominic plucking alive the sparrow that interrupted his preaching. .

— Just take it away, just, and let me get up, I'm bleeding.

— I told you, there was, a moment in travel when love and necessity become the same thing. And now, if the gods themselves cannot recall their gifts, we must live them through, and redeem them.

Stephen had knelt slowly beside the older man down on his back in the path who had retreated as best he could, shifting his weight away elbow to elbow, still prone with the bird's brittle torment so close, bursting out, — But why are you doing this to me?

— Doing? what. You asked me, where am 1 going?

— But I'm bleeding.

— Listen, whoever started a journey, without the return in the front of his mind? The bird fluttered there in the austere hand almost closed on it. Stephen watched it with calm, as he spoke only instants of intensity in his voice showed hardening lines stand out on the hand, which the man on the ground watched, the hand's shape broken only by the darting beaked head of the bird while from above Stephen watched its soft fluttering mantle, and his hand only a shape to contain it. — If it leads back into the wind blowing in off the desert, there's Biskra. Or Nalut, and the crescent moon hung in the sky there, it's all mine, I remember. When something you hadn't planned happens, where you hadn't planned it to happen. . from north the Atlas stands up out of the earth, at sundown all of it looks like the world after the Deluge, then the dark-