William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— Oh. Is it? said Otto, struggling to open a small match box with one hand. She helped him with the light, looking into the room beyond him. Her large eyes were exaggerated in their beauty by the hollows of her thin face, and the image he sought, distended afloat on their surfaces, drowned and was gone.

— Yes. And you?

— Me? Oh. My name's Otto, he said. A face to lose youth for, to occupy age, with the dream of, meet death with.

— But won't you sit down?

He sat.

The room was filled with smoke, dry worn-out smoke retaining in it like a web the insectile cadavers of dry husks of words which had been spoken and should be gone, the breaths exhaled not to be breathed again. But the words went on; and in those brief interruptions between cigarettes the exhalations were rebreathed. — I don't know, he told me he was a negative positivist. — Well he told me he was a positive negativist. — Incidentally have you read Our Contraceptive Society? —My dear fellow, I wrote it, for Christ sake. Adeline had been cornered by Ed Feasley, who was telling her that the trouble with America was that it was a matriarchy and had no fatherland myth. Someone said, — No one here really understands New York. It's a social experience. Max was discussing or-gone boxes as though he had lived in one all of his life. Buster Brown had an arm around Sonny Byron, a young Negro said to be descended from an English poet of whom few in the room had heard. One of the policemen was asleep. The other sat holding his glass, making faces at no one. Anselm was working his way round the wall, so as not to lose his balance, toward the window. The chinless Italian boy was standing all alone, looking at the painting.

Charles was in the bathroom looking through the medicine cabinet. Hannah was divided between intellect and emotion: on the one hand, arguing that D. H. Lawrence was impotent with a youth in eye-shadow who insisted that at heart he was a "raving queen"; on the other, she was trying to protect Stanley from Agnes Deigh, where he sat on the arm of her chair with the white fingertips dug into his knee.

— Sometimes I know just what it must be like, being the left arm of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, said the big Swede, who looked ready to weep.

— Baby, don't touch me, said Herschel, — my head is bracka-phallic, and he began to sing as he sank back toward the floor.

Anselm managed to reach the window, which he opened, and crawled to the fire-escape, making a mess in someone's yard below.

The critic in the green wool shirt was stooped over the poet, saying — These snotty kids who come out of college and think they can write novels.

Mr. Feddle was busy inscribing the fly-leaf of a book.

Someone came in at the door with a manila envelope under his arm, and went over to the policeman who was making faces. — The radio in your patrol car is making a hell of a racket, he said. The policeman buttoned his tunic over the mangy red sweater and went out. Then the boy who had come in said, — It's snowing.

— Chrahst, how unnecessary, said Ed Feasley. He had just told Adeline that the literal translation of the German word for marry, jreien, was to free; for aside from immediate intentions she was being considered as a character in forthcoming fiction. This Harvard boy who had never learned a trade watched her with indulgent curiosity.

— Ye haven't an arm and ye haven't a leg, Hulloo, hulloo. sang Adeline's sometime escort from a far corner, with sudden cheer as though he'd just discovered the song.

Ye haven't an arm and ye haven't a leg, Ye eyeless noseless chickenless egg, Ye'll have to be put in a bowl to beg

(he sang, delighted with such a device), and an unlikely chorus followed:

I'm going down to Dutch Siam's, yes I am.

Then someone said loudly what everyone had been suspecting. — There's no more to drink. The room quieted. Even the eyeless noseless chickenless egg was abandoned, as its chorister struggled to an optimistically vertical position against the bookcase.

— Oh God, said Agnes Deigh. — Give me my bag will you darling? she asked an anonymous trouser seat, pulling at the coat which hung above but did not match. She handed a folded twenty-dollar bill to a boy wearing her racing colors and stood, saying — I've got to go to the can anyhow, where is it?

Hannah had been watching her. She felt in the pockets of the deep-seated denim pants, came up with nothing, and said, — What time is it? to Max, probably the only other sober person in the room.

— Three-fifteen, said Max, for whom time was also a matter of the clock.

She sniffed, as with a personal grievance. — It's disgusting, giving a string of Mozart operas as benefits so they can buy new scenery for The Ring. Mozart pimping for Wagner. And that old bag, she added, — with her Mickey Mouse watch. Then she looked down the room and asked, — Who's that skinny girl on the couch, with that. Otto?

— She writes poems, her name's Esme. I think she's been modeling for some painter. She hasn't got any stomach.

— I've heard about her, Hannah muttered. — On the needle. A schiz.

— Manic depressive, schizoid tendencies, Max elaborated. — Has anybody ever seen her child?

— Child? She's a mother, her? She's too fucking spiritual.

— She says she has one four years old.

— Christ. And look at Herschel, he's simple, but Stanley, this thing he has on the Church, that's why he's stuck on that old bag with the Mickey Mouse watch, he wants to bring her back to the Church he thinks. I wish he'd get off it.

— I wish he didn't smell, said Max. — I've told you before, he's an oral type. But if you want a real obsessive neurosis look at this, he said nodding to where Anselm approached on hands and knees, a beatific expression on his blemished face. — Have you read any of his poetry? I don't see why Bildow takes it.

— Why shouldn't he smell? Anselm demanded from below. — He doesn't wash.

— Screw, will you Anselm? Hannah said, with a step toward Stanley.

— What did Saint Jerome say? "Does your skin roughen without the bath?" — Screw. — "Who is once washed in the blood of Christ need not wash again."

Hannah reached Stanley and took his arm. — Don't you want to leave? Come on, I'll walk you as far as the subway.

— Yes… in a minute, he said looking down at the warm indentations Agnes Deigh had left in the chair.

Hannah muttered something. She was staring at Esme again, and suddenly said to Max, — She looks like she thinks she is a painting. Like an oil you're not supposed to get too close to.

— She's high right now, can't you see it? She's been on for three days.

Hannah snorted, and took Stanley's arm again. — Coming?

He looked down to see someone tugging at his trouser leg. — What kind of an ass-backwards Catholic are you? asked Anselm from the floor.

— Why. why…

— Shut up, Anselm, said Hannah. — For Christ sake, go home and take a nap.

— For Christ sake, you say to me! What do you know about Christ?

— Take a nap.

— Well I can't. Do you know why? Because of Christ. Because when I lie down and feel my hands against my own body, that's all I can think of, that thin body of Christ. I can feel it, with my own hands. Does that interest you?

— Please. said Stanley.

— Not a God-damned bit, said Hannah.

— Well don't try to talk to me about Christ then, said Anselm, and started away. Then he turned his head back to them. — Do you know who went around like this? Do you know that Saint Teresa went around on all fours, with a basket of stones on her back? and a halter? That's the ritu quadrupedis, if you think it's so God damn funny don't you. And do you know what Christ said to her? "If I had not already created Heaven, I would create it for thy sake alone." Don't try to talk to me about Christ, he said, and went toward the other end of the room, quadrupedis. Stanley stood still; and Hannah turned from him angrily.