William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— That's wonderful, I…

— Do either of you want to come to a party? Herschel asked. — That's where we were on our way to.

— Whose party? Maude asked.

— I don't know, baby. It's a party for a painting. Somebody did a painting so they're giving a party so everybody can see it. Don't you understand?

— Where is it?

— I've got the address here. Somebody wrote it down for me. He took out a rumpled slip of paper with Memorandum across the top in bold face, and then in gothic characters, United States Senate. —Sullivan Street.

— I couldn't stand a Village party tonight. Could you Arny? They're always so quite ha…

— Hideous, Herschel supplied.

— I wasn't going to say that, silly. I was going to say harrowing. I couldn't stand one tonight, that special Village quality of inhuman ghastliness and dirt. And tomorrow morning, Arny please don't have another drink. No really, Herschel, it sounds too hideous.

— You're right o£ course, baby. Now you've made me feel awful about going myself. But everybody who goes feels the same way. Do you want to come down and see the painting? he asked Otto, who had just lit an angry black-tobacco cigarette with her help, beside Adeline's chair. — Oh, I am sorry. Adeline, this is Otto. Do you want to come down with us? The painting's called L'Ame d'un Chantier.

— Herschel, how silly. Really? Really. What's a Lorn?

— I haven't a notion who's giving it, said Herschel. — It doesn't matter, you always see the same people.

— It means soul, said Otto. — The soul of a…

— And chantier is a singer, said Maude. — The soul of a singer.

— You coming baby? said Herschel, with his coat and Adeline's.

— Have you seen Esther recently? Otto asked, faltering slightly. — I mean, do you think we might…

— Not for months, said Herschel.

— Well, I used to know some people down there, I…

— Don't be afraid. Everybody has a Village past. The ones who stay down there just don't know it's past.

— No, that isn't what I meant, I…

— Arny, please. No more. You remember what you did Saturday night. Maude turned to them. — Arny sat up drinking late Saturday night here all alone, and when I got up Sunday I found he'd undressed and put all his clothes carefully into the refrigerator.

Up four flights of stairs, Herschel instructed Adeline. — They all talk about painting. Now remember, no matter what anyone says, you just comment on the solids in Uccello. You can say you don't like them, or say they're divine. Can you remember that? The

solids in Oo chel lo, can you say that? They arrived at a room full of people who spent their lives in rooms.

Adeline directly sought the bathroom; Herschel lay against the doorjamb getting his breath; and Otto (thinking only of what it looked like to see Otto entering a room) entered. He was dressed comfortably for the temperature. It was not a large room. The established guests were too engrossed in talking, or waiting for opportunity to talk, to attend the new ones. Some of them glanced up, as residents of a railway coach glance up at a new passenger struggling down the aisle after a seat; but all maintained a composure which reflected the impertinence of the new arrivals for arriving at all. Everyone, that is, but the two policemen, who were disposed like clocks which must be stood at odd angles to tell the time.

On the gray chipped mantel lay a spray of flowers, which someone had gaily lifted from the door of a bereaved Italian family downstairs. Above it hung the painting. No one was looking at it. The unframed canvas was tan. Across the middle a few bright spots of red lead had been spattered. The spots in the lower left-hand corner were rust, above them long streaks of green paint, and to the upper right a large smudge of what appeared to be black grease. It looked as though the back of an honest workman's shirt had been mounted for exhibition, that the sleeves, collar, and tails might be found among the rubble in the fireplace.

A young man in tortoise-shell glasses, who clutched in his hand some papers entitled Toilet Training and Democracy, was saying, — But you've got to understand New York. New York is a social experience. Someone else said, — Don't tell me how sincere he is. He dabbles in Rome the way some people dabble in The Joy of Cooking. A bearded man was saying to a girl, — Since I've been married, I've never looked at another woman. Do you find me attractive? Someone cried out, — Queer! Even the cockroaches in his house are queer.

— Really, said Herschel, when he had his breath, — how artsy can we get.

— Yes, said Otto, who had stopped looking at the painting. — Who is that? A sun-tanned woman in a white dress had been exposed momentarily by an opening in the curtain of trouser seats round her, and as quickly hidden again. Her voice, however, carried on. — Darling, I was there for six weeks, and we didn't have dinner at home the whole time, except four or five times and those were dinner parties.

— Don't you know her? It's Agnes Deigh, she just got back from Puerto Rico. Thank God, she's plastered too.

— No I don't know her, I…

— Know her brother? You don't? He's the cutest. well! Of course I 've never really met him, she won't let me, for some girlish reason of her own. But I've seen his picture, in a soldier suit, the cutest. Nothing like her husband Harry, he's just the most. he's a writer too you know. "Publish and be damned," the Duke of Wellington said, remember? Harry's in Hollywood, spelled backward. Do you know what I mean? "Trade ye no mere moneyed art," spelled backward. Oh never mind. After all, it's just the impurities in gems that give them their exquisite luster isn't it. And their value! I mean Shelley did drink laudanum by the gallon, didn't he. And of course Swinburne! Dear! I feel so naked among all these people. It's like a masquerade isn't it. Look! do you see her? the girl on the couch? looking just too like la noyée de la Seine, that touching death mask they made from the face of some nameless child who life was just too much for. I mean real life you know. And wasn't it just so french to preserve her beauty when she was dead in a mask we could all enjoy, instead of squandering money to keep her alive and let her get. just all the things that women get. There, do you see her? just too noyée for words, why I'd run right out and drown myself tomorrow if I could be that beautiful, wouldn't you? I feel so naked, don't you? among all these frightfully masked people. Remember? de Maupassant, Guy de Maupassant of course, writing to that Russian girl, "I mask myself among masked people." Remember? They'd never met, you know. They never did meet, did they. Of course he was just as mad as a hatter, and her name was Marie Bashkirtseff. She painted. She died too, you know, before she could gain three hundred pounds in all the most obvious places and turn into a woman. She was Russian. And there goes that awful boy who told me about Thomas a Becket. No, or was it a Kempis? plagiarizing the Imitation of Christ, imagine! See him? him, with the rather bad skin, he's cute isn't he. But imagine pla giarizing the imi- ta tion of Christ. Why, Handel plagiarized the most delightful things, didn't he. But then that was music, wasn't it. And he was finally stricken blind by the hand of you-know-Who for being so cavalier with other people's work. Wasn't he. But what about you. And so brown. Like a tootsie roll. For all the world.

— Me? I… Otto had taken a step back, looking about the room with restrained anticipation in his eyes, and presentiment of greeting in his features as though he were searching for an old friend whom he had expected to see here. He was looking for a mirror.