William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Don't you know that I love him? she cried. — Do you think that there's anything more. exquisitely private than. that, for me?

Otto found her head in his lap, and looking down upon it, stroked her hair. — Esther, he whispered, — Esther.

— To have him say, she commenced again, sitting up as suddenly, — if something, if I… if we talk about having children, and to have him look surprised, and then to… once, once he said, A daughter, a daughter? he said, a daughter! and he said… I don't remember, and then it disappeared, then what we're talking about just disappears, it… He studied to be a priest. Did you know that? To be a minister, did he ever tell you that? He, and then that's what I say, I say that, and I ask him why aren't you then? Why aren't you a priest, if you are one! because, because I want him to… I want him to…

— Esther. Otto reached out to hold her, but she drew back.

— And then as though it was the most real thing in the world he says, Because I should rebe… I should believe in my redemption that way, because I should have to believe that I am the man for whom Christ died.

Otto took out a cigarette. He lit it, and taking it from his lips quickly said, — I'm sorry. Unprofaned, the word Christ embarrassed him.

She took it from his outstretched fingers. — You shouldn't apologize, she said. — You could at least pretend that you lit it for me.

He smiled, and leaned toward her. But his smile made hers suddenly the less real, less a smile as its life drained from behind it while the smile remained fixed on her lips; then her lips opened again and it disappeared. Esther stood up, away from him, smoking, and he took out another cigarette. — For a woman, she said, — do you think it's easy for a woman? She was turned toward the half-open door of the studio. — Reality! He talks about reality, despair. Doesn't he think I despair? Women get desperate, but they don't understand despair. Despair as a place to start from, he said to me. And that. And that. She turned on Otto, who looked uncomfortable and as quickly brought his cigarette to his lips. Hers hung forgotten in her hand, running the smoke up her wrist. — Just being a woman, do you know what a woman goes through? You don't, but do you? Can you imagine? Just trying to keep things going, just… A man can do as he pleases. O yes, a man! But a woman can't even walk into a bar alone, she can't just get up and leave things, buy a boat ticket and sail to Paris if she wants to, she can't.

— Why not? Otto asked, standing.

— Because they can't, because society. and besides, physically, do you think it's easy then, being a woman?

— No no, no I don't. Otto stepped back as though threatened with it.

— And do you know the worst thing? she went on. — Do you know the hardest thing of all? The waiting. A woman is always waiting. She's. always waiting.

He took a step toward her, where Esther had started toward the door of the studio. — Do you remember once, when you first knew us? she asked, — when you'd been out with. him, and seen a painting, a portrait of a lady, you said it was quite beautiful, a woman looking just beyond you, her hands folded across in front of her shutting you out, she was holding up a ring.

— Yes, yes I remember it, he said, relieved at the calm in her voice. —A. um, Lorenzo di Credi, though he said as a painting.

— Do you want to see this picture of his mother? she demanded.

— I remember he said, that picture reminded him of his mother, on account of the hands or something.

— Do you want to see it? she challenged. — Yes, she must have been a very beautiful woman.

— Really? I mean, is there a picture of her?

Esther stood with a hand on the knob of the door, but moved no further. — He has one he started, fifteen years ago. It's just hanging in there, she added dully.

— Well. Otto stepped back. — No don't bother, it isn't important.

— Isn't important! He can't paint me, because of her we can't travel, to Spain because she's there. She turned to the dark doorway. — At night, night after night he works in there. Works? she repeated. — He's in there, night after night. That music, night after night. She stared in. — And to hear him, Damn you! damn you! Oh, talking to himself he said. Yes. He's in there now.

Otto came up behind her and took her shoulders. — Esther, he said, holding her. Then she coughed, his cigarette so close to her face. — 1 work at night too, he said, trying to recover her reasonably.

— It's this crazy Calvinistic secrecy, sin.

— Esther it isn't the secrecy, the darkness everywhere, so much as the lateness. I mean I get used to myself at night, it takes that long sometimes. The first thing in the morning I feel sort of undefined, but by midnight you've done all the things you have to do, I mean all the things like meeting people and, you know, and paying bills, and by night those things are done because by then there's nothing you can do about them if they aren't done, so there you are alone and you have the things that matter, after the whole day you can sort of take everything that's happened and go over it alone. I mean I'm never really sure who I am until night, he added.

— Alone! She moved, enough that he loosed his grasp.

— That sort of funny smell, he said, standing uncertainly, then he took a step inside, as though he had left her of his own will, saw a piece of paper on the floor and picked it up, as though it were that he was after all the time. — And I mean things like this, he said holding it up, — these sort of magical diagrams and characters and things he makes.

— That, she said looking at it, — it's just a study in perspective.

— Yes, but, when you look in there, don't you think of things like.

— It's nothing, it's just a study in perspective. The little x is the vanishing point.

— Yes but, I mean today we were talking about alchemy, and the mysteries that, about the redemption of matter, and that it wasn't just making gold, trying to make real gold, but that matter. Matter, he said matter was a luxury, was our great luxury, and that matter, I mean redemption.

She swung him round. — Redemption!

— Esther. She had her arms round his neck. He held her, at the waist, so quickly that he withdrew his thumb which had touched her breast and stood with hands paralyzed, not daring to return it. — That sort of funny smell, he murmured after a moment.

— Lavender, she said to him. Then she asked, — And you too, you want to be alone?

He looked at her face which was very close, perhaps too close to appreciate the slight raising of his eyebrow, and the complementary urbanity of his faint smile. — It's rather difficult to shed our human nature, he said. She broke away from him, and stood in the center of the room looking at him. — Esther, what's the matter?

— That too, you got that from him too! Didn't you?

— Well, I… sort of, I mean.

— What. Go on.

— Well we were talking about a philosopher, Otto said helplessly, — Pyrrho, about Pyrrho of Elis, who said that one state was as good as another, and one day his students found him treed by a dog and they taunted him, and he said that, It's difficult to shed our human nature.

She let him finish, and then said, — You don't have to repeat all these things to impress me, Otto, I've heard them all, from him.

— But.

— About Flemish painting, and stringency of suffering, that God cares as much about a moment as he does for an hour, I've heard it all from him. She paused, looking Otto over, and then said, — Do you know what he asked me once? when we first met you?

— What? Otto asked, coming toward her.

— He asked me if I thought you could be homosexual.