William Gaddis: The Recognitions

For a commotion had arisen, at daybreak, in the heart of the Pilot Project, where Doctor Fell rushed to the bungalow of his assistant.

— I knew it! I knew it! And I warned you, didn't I? Warn you not to trust that. . that tattooed… I won't say it, but didn't I? Warn you? And now he's gone, he's stolen all your money and gone. He did follow us here, he followed you here, just to steal your money. Yes, didn't I warn you? Thousands of dollars, wasn't it, didn't I warn you? What are you smiling about? Are you all right? Gordon? Gordon! Are you all right? Now you'll have to start all over again. I knew it. He knew you had trouble in the dark, didn't he, that tattooed. . idiot, he knew it didn't he, that's how he took advantage of you, and now he's gone and stolen all your money. What are you going to do? There's nothing you can do. What are you going to do now? You'll have to start all over again. Gordon!. . what is it? what are you smiling. . Gordon! stop it, you can't tear off your bandages like that, you can't. . you poor. , Sit down! stop laughing! stop. . tearing off your bandages, stop. . think! You can. . you must. . start all over again.

There was a soft wind from the south, and the bells ringing a morning Angelus sounded all the way up the coast from Bridgetown.

It was near noon in Rome, where peace had come, if nowhere else the night before, to the rooftops of the Vatican, with the death of the black tomcat belonging to the Cardinal librarian and archivist, and the gray mouser owned by a Monsignor Gentleman-in-waiting to the Pope. Newspapers reported that they had struggled for preeminence for some time, and their bodies were found "still locked in mortal combat" in the Belvedere Courtyard seventy feet below.

Rounding a corner into the Via Umiltà, Stanley looked a good deal more frail than he had in some years. He even glanced up nervously himself whenever he saw a reflection, for the haircut, his last concession to Mrs. Deigh, seemed to take pounds, and a year or two, from his appearance. Nonetheless, a new quality of intensity showed in his face; and if it was the despair and conquest which had raged through him in the events of the past few days, or simply the haircut, he himself might not have said immediately. But possibly the very possessed way in which he now spoke of his work, especially that part to be played so soon at Fenestrula, betrayed the depths made real to him for the first time by the experiences which had suddenly brought him into his new estate, experiences which had raised the childish masks of anxiety from the face of the resident dread, exposing conflicts he did not yet understand, posing questions he could not answer now, and he sensed, might never. The two tragedies had occurred so close that they might have been coupled; so they were, in him, and here was the unforeseen conflict in the demands of his new manhood, in that he had suffered directly from neither.

Ashamed at having run out of the place in the Via Flaminia that night, after all she had done for him, the weight of the letter to Fenestrula she'd procured for him heavy in his pocket with his show of ingratitude, he'd pulled himself together and gone back, though this time it was the woman who wept through his broken apologies. First thing, he'd got his hair cut, to please her.

It was that same day he learned of the first tragedy. With it, all of his anxieties returned redoubled, his uncertainties flared in every direction, his fears for every moment of the past and future worked upon each other, and his guilt reared through him more oppressively than it had ever. In one of the first moments of distraction, whether to confirm the one certain prospect he had left, or to confirm the apprehension he suddenly felt for even that, he opened the letter to Fenestrula himself, and found there nothing but a grocery list. At that point he tried to force himself to think of nothing, to try to understand and solve nothing, until he could find Father Martin, as he was fortunate enough to do, and he confessed everything which his evasion of just such an encounter had intensified in every detail of the past few weeks. The priest was obviously busy, and it was quickly apparent that his work concerned more than mere shepherding of Pilgrims from one shrine to another, that the questions which concerned him embraced broader problems than the confessional. Still an hour passed, possibly two, as Father Martin listened, his face losing its joviality, recovering it for a moment, returning to its lines of medieval sternness, while Stanley told him of every detail he knew since he had boarded the Conte di Brescia. Every detail, even to the broken crucifix, the beads rolling on the floor, the fat woman, Stanley's teeth chattered sometimes while he talked, and in the midst of narrative he might break off for some urgent incoherence like, — Sorcery, maléfice, is it from maleficiendo, is that from male de fide sentiendo, I mean does that mean is ill doing from ill thinking on matters of faith?. . And now this last tragedy; and his work, and Fenestrula.

Father Martin listened to him, and talked to him, with an extraordinary gentleness and sternness at once, with a calmness which was never complacent, a strength of understanding (though he never said he understood), an interest which was not patent curiosity to excuse pat answers (for he gave none), and a patient sympathy with the figures Stanley spoke of, a quality which showed itself the deepest aspect of his nature, the most hard earned and rarely realized reality of maturity, which was compassion. He was an extraordinary man, as the later event might attest. The longer Stanley went on, the more frequently he returned to his work, and its importance to him. Father Martin did not come all out in encouragement, though finally he said, — We live in a world where first-hand experience is daily more difficult to reach, and if you reach it through your work, perhaps you are not fortunate the way most people would be fortunate. But there are things I shall not try to tell you. You will learn them for yourself if you go on, and I may help you there. He arranged things for Fenestrula immediately, and Stanley left with that assurance to steady the bewilderment of his heart at everything else, a bewilderment exactly doubled, as Fenestrula became the only possible position left, when Father Martin was shot and killed in broad daylight, later in the day.

Even now, as he entered the Via Umiltà, a song danced through his bowed head and he could not shake it out. Every word brought with it the shades of anxiety in the sea washing up to him again, the shuddering decks, and even now, walking, he sought the tooth in his pocket and remembered it was gone: in an instant, the end of his tongue found the healing hole on his jaw, and someone leaped from a lime-green convertible at the curb and caught his arm.

— God damn it, I'm glad I found you. It was the man in the green silk necktie, though today, the silk was yellow. There were pictures of nuts and bolts on it. — I've got to find that girl, that kind of skinny girl you were looking for that night, I've got to find her. Where is she?

— She's dead, Stanley said clearly, and the two of them stood there for a moment looking at each other as though someone else had said it.

— Wait, she can't. . What did you say?

— She died. Stanley spoke more faintly, and he looked down from the man's face to the nuts and bolts.

— She. . she can't do that. I've got to find her, she won this contest for the B.V.M., just like I told her she would, she can't. . just. . skip out, she. . she have an accident?

— An accident? Stanley repeated. The strain of calm in his voice, instead of breaking, had driven it down to a dumbness. He stared.

— This is serious, now listen, she…

— She was going to marry me.