William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Adeline, the blonde supplied.

— Adeline.

— How do you do, I'm sure, said Adeline.

— Baby is your name really Adeline? I had a nurse named Adeline, a black one, big West Indian black Adeline. One day under the apple tree I bit her right square.

— Herschel!. your head is brachycephalic, Maude said from where she'd gone to pour drinks, whisky with water (she'd heard soda was bad for the stomach lining). — It's the coming shape in heads.

— Aren't you kind, baby. No one's ever told me that before.

— Maude.

— Arny, it's true. Head shapes are very important. Arny thinks I'm silly, reading books about heads, that book there. Do you see the picture it's open to? That's a good domestic. That's why I want to look at the babies first, we don't want one that will be a domestic. On the next page there's one kind of sticking out in the back, that's the Intellectual. And the kind of big square one is a Leader of Men. We're going to have a baby, she said pausing on her way to the kitchen for more water. Adeline stopped her drink halfway to her lips and looked at the other woman's figure curiously. — Tomorrow morning. Adeline looked downright insulted.

— Oh God, baby, again? Herschel sank back in his chair.

— No, this time we're really going to get there, aren't we Arny?

Tomorrow morning at nine. Oh, did you want a drink? I didn't know you wanted one, Arny.

— I shouldn't tell this, baby, but if you're shopping for a bargain.

Maude cried out from the kitchen. — Oh… a cockroach. I hate New York, no matter where you live, you have them. The people downstairs have them, they chase them up here and then I chase them back down, up and down the drain.

— Why don't you use D.D.T.?

— It's no good, it just makes them hysterical, Maude said, coming in with water. — They run around screaming.

— Cockroaches?

— Well you can't really hear them, but you can tell that's what they're doing, that's what you do when you're hysterical.

— Baby.

— Yes, tomorrow morning at nine. Have you finished that already, Arny?

— If you're not in a wild rush, Herschel said slyly, — I know someone who might help you. Someone who's going to have one. I mean really have one. Not just yet, though.

— A woman? But how does that help.?

— Because she doesn't want it, baby. Someone told me she was looking for a doctor, someone who must be nameless, and he asked me. Can you imagine me knowing such a thing?

— A doctor? I know so many doctors, what kind? Back doctors, bone doctors.

— No, a doctor to take care of it for her, one with an in -strument.

— Oh!

— Maude, you're spilling your drink.

— You know Esther, baby. well I'm not to tell but.

— I saw her on the street, Maude said. — She has such bad luck.

— She told you about it?

— About Rose?

— Oh no, everybody knows about Rose, that they've sent her sister Rose back from the tee-hee farm and Esther has to take her in. But this is something you mustn't tell, baby. This is for your tomblike little ears. She has a turkey in the oven.

— She has what?

— She's preg, baby.

— But. her husband?

— Her husband! No one ever sees him. I've never met him. I'm sure if he had ever said anything amusing I would have met him somewhere, but I understand that he lives underground. Or underwater. Some really absurd part of town. No one's ever been there.

— He used to paint, didn't he? used to paint things? — Oh who didn't, so did I, said Herschel, — the naughtiest. — No one's seen him since that boy Otto… do you remember, Otto?

— Otto? Nobody's named Otto any more, he must be an impostor. — Herschel, you've met him, silly. He used to show up everywhere with Esther before she and her husband… I mean after she and her husband.

— Oh I do remember him, Otto. He talked all the time. He was rather cute. Yes, I remember Otto, for almost a year he and Esther made half of a very pretty couple. You mustn't repeat this, but I was told that Otto and Esther's husband. — Herschel, don't.

— Baby I'm not responsible for all the queer things that go on. It was all explained as a father complex or a mother complex or something vulgar. Why, no one has secrets any more. — But Esther's husband, what.

— You mustn't tell, but he's mixed up with an international counterfeit ring, he makes gold down there, out of fingernail parings…

— Herschel, silly… Adeline looked very interested.

— But baby everyone knows it. And there's a skinny little girl he keeps there. well, there are simply terrifying stories about her. It's known she takes dope. Known simply everywhere.

At that, Maude took out a small round Battersea enamel box, with the words We Live in Hope on the cover, and took out a pill. — Arny, not another drink, tomorrow morning. — Don't you want another? — No, I have a little headache.

— Don't be put out if I ask you this, Herschel commenced, — after all we all had the same analyst.

— I wish Arny had finished, I almost finished mine, Maude said. — He reminded me of Daddy. He introduced us, did you know that? — You and Arny?

— Yes, he thought we could help each other, so he thought we should get married. I guess that's why we never finished. Analysis I mean. Arny you've almost finished that bottle of whisky. You know what happened Saturday.

— But. you can tell me, why don't you just go ahead and have a baby?

— It's easier. it's easier this way isn't it Arny, and besides how can you have a baby these days in a… a place like this, how can you. Maude looked suddenly about to cry. When the doorbell rang she ran to answer it, but stopped for a moment before she opened the door.

Outside stood a tan, summer-clothed, rather embarrassed young man. — Otto! she said. — Why Otto, how funny! It's Otto, she said into the room, and — How brown you are, following him in.

I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, that was the Academic Festival by Brahms. Our next number, by the French composer Clair… I mean Claude, Debussy, Alla-press, midi, dun-fon…

Otto raised an eyebrow, brandished his sling, and tripped over the pair of shoes by the table.

Arny got up and offered him a drink. Herschel got up and said, — Baby what are you doing in an outfit like that? You'll freeze to death. And Adeline looked at the golden mustache, and the arm-in-a-sling, and said nothing at all.

— I am, but I haven't any others. They're all following me, somewhere between here and banana land.

— Who's following you, baby?

— No, I mean my clothes. I've been on a banana pl…

— Oh yes, you were on a banana plantation, said Maude. — Esther told me. It sounded so… so quite hideous I'd tried to forget it.

— I didn't know people ran off to banana plantations any more. No, don't go to a banana plantation, baby. It's old hat.

— Herschel, silly. He's just come back.

— All the more reason. What are you wearing that thing for? Herschel pointed at the sling.

— My hand, I…

— Did something happen to it?

— There was a revolution. Why, they're regular occupational.

— I couldn't understand why you wanted to go down there in the first place.

— It wasn't so bad. In spite of the revolution I got a play written.

— Did you, asked Maude. — About bananas? Arny, please don't drink any more. Tomorrow morning at nine, we've got to be there this time. She turned to Otto who was busy raising an eyebrow at Adeline. — We're going to have a baby, she said.

— Really? That's wonderful, I…

— Tomorrow morning, we're going up and adopt one.