William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— It isn't that simple.

The smoke from a cigarette mingled with that of his cigar, and he asked, — Why not? and smiled patiently.

— People react. That's all they do now, react, they've reacted until it's the only thing they can do, and it's. finally there's no room for anyone to do anything but react.

— And here you are sitting here with all the pieces. Can't you react and still be smart?

— All right then, here I am with all the pieces and they all fit, everything fits perfectly and what is there to do with them, when you do get them together? You just said yourself, art today.

— Today? Maybe you put the pieces together wrong.

— What do you mean?

As the smoke rose before him, it became apparent what was wrong. It was the ears. They were hardly ear-shape at all, their convolutions nearly lost in heavy pieces of flesh hung to the sides of the head, each a weight in itself. — You look forty years old and you talk like you're born yesterday, Recktall Brown said. He stared through his glasses, and the voice he heard was more distant, hardly addressed to him in its first words, — In a sense an artist is always born yesterday.

— Come on now, my boy.

— Damn it, am I the only one who feels this way? Have I made this all up alone? If you can do something other people can't do, they think you ought to want to do it just because they can't.

Recktall Brown gestured with his cigar, and an ash fell from it like a gray bird-dropping. — So you're going to stay right here, drawing pictures of bridges, and patching up…

— Those bridges, those damned bridges.

— What's wrong with them. — Who are they all, driving over those bridges as though they grew there. They don't. they don't.

— They don't give you the credit.

— No, it isn't that simple.

— I'm afraid it is, my boy.

— Damn it, it isn't, it isn't. It's a question of… it's being surrounded by people who don't have any sense of… no sense that what they're doing means anything. Don't you understand that? That there's any sense of necessity about their work, that it has to be done, that it's theirs. And if they feel that way how can they see anything necessary in anyone else's? And it… every work of art is a work of perfect necessity.

— Where'd you read that?

— I didn't read it. That's what it… has to be, that's all. And if everyone else's life, everyone else's work around you can be interchanged and nobody can stop and say, This is mine, this is what I must do, this is my work. then how can they see it in mine, this sense of inevitableness, that this is the way it must be. In the middle of all this how can I feel that. damn it, when you paint you don't just paint, you don't just put lines down where you want to, you have to know, you have to know that every line you put down couldn't go any other place, couldn't be any different. But in the midst of all this. rootlessness, how can you. damn it, do you talk to people? Do you listen to them?

— I talk business to people. Recktall Brown drew heavily on his cigar, watched the cigarette stamped out, the brandy finished.

— But. you're talking to me. You're listening to me.

— We're talking business, Recktall Brown said calmly.

— But…

— People work for money, my boy.

— But I…

— Money gives significance to anything.

— Yes. People believe that, don't they. People believe that.

Recktall Brown watched patiently, like someone waiting for a child to solve a simple problem to which there was only one answer. The cigarette, lit across from him, knit them together in the different textures of their smoke.

— You know. Saint Paul tells us to redeem time.

— Does he? Recktall Brown's tone was gentle, encouraging.

— A work of art redeems time.

— And buying it redeems money, Recktall Brown said.

— Yes, yes, owning it…

— And that's why you sit around here patching up the past. Recktall Brown leaned forward, resting his elbows on his broad knees.

— That's why old art gets the prices, he said; —Everybody agrees on it, everybody agrees it's a masterpiece. They copy them right and left. You've probably done copies, yourself.

— Not since I studied. And who wants them? Who wants copies.

Recktall Brown watched him get up suddenly, and walk over to the window, there the rain streaked the glass into visibility. — Nobody wants copies. He ground out his cigar in an ashtray. — The ones who can pay want originals. They can pay for originals. They expect to pay. He paused, and then raised his tone. — As long as an artist's alive, he can paint more pictures. When they're dead, they're through. Take the old Dutch painters. Not even the best ones. Some small-time painter, not a great one, but known. Exclusive, like. like.

— The Master of the Magdalene Legend, came from across the room, blurred against the window.

— No chance of him not selling. Suppose some of his pictures, some of his unknown pictures, turned up here and there. They might turn up a little restored, like the kind of work you do. Look at that canvas in there, what is it? He did not look at the canvas inside the door of the studio where he motioned, but at the perspiring face that turned toward it.

— Nothing. A canvas I prepared two or three years ago. I never.

— Well just suppose, Recktall Brown went on, not allowing him to interrupt, — suppose you did some restoring on it. If you worked there for a while you might find an undiscovered picture there by Master what-ever-he-was. It might be worth ten thousand. It might be worth fifty. He got to his feet, and walked quietly toward the back turned on him. — Can you tell me you've never thought of this before?

— Of course I have. They were suddenly face to face. — It would be a lot of work.

— Work! Do you mind work? Recktall Brown reached out his two heavy hands, and took the arms before him. — Is there any objection you've made all this time, over all the work you have done, and can't do, that this doesn't satisfy?

— None, except…

— Except what?

— None.

Recktall Brown let go of him, and took another cigar out of his pocket. His mouth seemed sized to hold it, as he unwrapped it, trimmed the end, and thrust it there. — The critics will be very happy about your decision.

— The critics…

— The critics! There's nothing they want more than to discover old masters. The critics you can buy can help you. The ones you can't are a lot of poor bastards who could never do anything themselves and spend their whole life getting back at the ones who can, unless he's an old master who's been dead five hundred years. They're like a bunch of old maids playing stoop-tag in an asparagrus patch. His laughter poured in heavy smoke from his mouth and nostrils. Then he took off his glasses, looking into the perspiring face before him, and a strange thing happened. His eyes, which had all this time seemed to swim without focus behind the heavy lenses, shrank to sharp points of black, and like weapons suddenly unsheathed they penetrated instantly wherever he turned them.

When Esther came in alone she paused in the entrance to the living room, not listening to the music but sniffing the air. Then she jumped, startled. — I didn't see you, I didn't see you standing there. She sniffed again. — That funny smell, she said. The smell of the dog, weighted with cigar smoke, had penetrated everywhere. — Has someone been here? She turned on a light. — What's the matter, who was it? She stopped in the middle of taking off her wet hat. — Recktall Brown? she repeated. — Yes, I've heard something about him. What was it. Something awful. She coughed, and got her hat off. — I'm glad I can't remember what it was. As she crossed the room she said, — What is that music?