William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— I just got hold of…

— How touching it is, when their secrets turn out to be the most pathetic commonplaces, Valentine finished from the middle of the room.

— I just got hold of a Memling. An original.

— Eh? How? Where?

— An original Memling, right from Germany. A guy I know in the army there, this thing has been marked down as lost on the reparations claims.

— You're certain it's genuine?

— Their Pinakothek over there has a stack of papers on it.

— Papers? You know how much papers mean.

— Don't worry, the papers on this are all right.

— Papers are always all right, when they're modern affidavits. Where is it now? If the experts.

— The experts! Brown said, and laughed again. He did not move, nor did his unpupiled eyes betray any surprise when Valentine moved from behind him with such sudden irritation that it might have been an assault, though he went no further than to pick up his drink from the table and finish it.

— You don't have to tell me, of course, Valentine said. — It's probably sate in your little private gallery behind that panel, he added, glancing beyond the refectory tables to the far end of the room as he crossed again to the bar.

— It's safe.

— This remarkable room, Valentine murmured, pouring whisky and looking round. — It's a pity, your taste, when you show any, seems to incline to German. He was looking at the polychrome figure of Saint John Baptist in a niche on the stairway, proportioned to stand on a pier of some German cathedral at considerable height, so that the head was unnaturally large and the eyes widened in what, at such closeness, amounted to a leer. The right arm, once extended in gesture of benediction, was broken off, leaving only the close-grained scar of the elbow's wooden marrow.

Recktall Brown shifted his weight, raised his glass, and his eyes to the balcony. — That suit of armor up there, it's Italian, it's not a fake either. That's my favorite thing here. Italian fifteenth century.

— I've looked at it. Pity it isn't all there.

— What do you mean, it's all there.

— But not all Italian. The footpieces. German. Clumsy German bear-paw as can be.

— It's my favorite thing here, Brown repeated, and put down an empty glass. Then he sat tapping his foot silently on the carpeted floor, and the fingers of one hand on the leather arm of the chair. He filled the air before him with smoke, a shapeless cloud of gray exhaled, through which the untasted smoke rising from the end of his cigar cut a clear blue line.

— You shouldn't inhale those things, Basil Valentine said, returning to his chair. — Throat cancer. And Brown laughed again, a single guttural sound which barely reached the surface. A weight seemed to slide back and forth between these two men; and though Basil Valentine will say, sooner or later, — We are, I suppose, basically in agreement., affirming the fact that most argument is no more than agreement reached at different moments, it was these instants of reversal, when the weight was ready to return, that the one who rose to cast it off did so tensely, as though afraid that when it had fallen to him, it had slid for the last time. They talked now iii tones which recognized those of the other, and treated with accordingly, desultory tones and cursory remarks which might come close upon but never touch the eventuality which both appeared to await.

— And what news of the publishing empire?

— If you mean that book about art you wrote, I've already sent out advance copies. Brown threw the half-finished cigar into the fireplace. The dog, on the floor beside his chair, started, at the sudden motion of his arm; and Valentine, as though drawn to it, put a hand forth to the open magazine as Brown, settling back, arrested the shiny pages with splayed fingers. — That's a nice reproduction, he said.

— No reproduction is nice. Valentine sat back, and folded his empty hands closely, one seeking the other before him. — Attempts to spread out two square feet of canvas to cover twenty acres of stupidity.

— All these God-damned little details, Brown muttered.

— Much more apparent in the Bouts he did, of course. Exquisite control of brilliant colors, the ascetic restraint in the hands and the feet. Valentine extended his legs, and crossed his ankles.

— They looked like every hair was painted on separately.

— It was, of course.

— This part is nice. Recktall Brown made a curve over the picture with the flat of his thumb. — The expression of her face.

— That.

— You…

— Please, your. thumb is rather like a spatula, isn't it. But here, Valentine went on quickly, before Brown could answer in a way that a shudder of his shoulders suggested, — the flesh tones in this are incredible, even in reproduction. This ashen whiteness, and the other large masses of color, a marvelously subdued canvas. This is the sort of thing he painted late in his life. When his mind was beginning to go.

— Who?

— Who do you think I mean, your protege?

— I like this face. He ran his thumb over that portion. The diamonds glittered; and Basil Valentine raised a hand toward it, but restrained the hand and returned it empty to the other. Brown repeated the motion with his thumb.

— It's insured?

— For fire and theft.

— For fraud?

That brought Recktall Brown's face up. — Fraud? he repeated. — Fraud? Then he laughed. — They could never prove a thing. Nobody could. After these experts went over it with their magnifying glasses. — I know, I watched them. I even helped them along, you know, Valentine smiled. — Examining a. fragment the size of a pinhead with polarized light under a microscope, to determine whether it's isotropic or anisotropic, boring through the layers of paint.

— There's no way anybody could prove a God-damned thing wrong here. There's no proof anywhere. But the insurance, the only thing they won't insure against is if something happens to it all by itself. In the paint.

— Inherent vice.

— What?

— They hardly need worry about something this. old? The care that goes into these, still. the three-legged man of Velasquez? Never mind. As paint ages, it becomes translucent, and work which has been altered occasionally shows through. But of course no one will insure against inherent vice. A lot of our moderns make sudden changes dictated by the total uncertainty of what they're doing, which they call inspiration, and paint over them. The paint breaks up quite soon, of course.

Brown was looking down at the well-manicured fingertips which rested on the corner of the magazine as Valentine, his feet uncrossed and drawn together, twisted to look again at the reproduction. — What did you call it?

— Inherent vice, said Basil Valentine, looking up. His eyes were seized instantly by those which offered no centers to evade. — No one insures against inherent vice, he repeated evenly. Collectors Quarterly was abruptly shoved toward him. Recktall Brown sat back; one hand was closed like a fist round an unlit cigar.

— Sorry, Valentine said to him offering, with a gesture, to return the magazine, — if you're not finished?.

Recktall Brown looked at him, and asked suddenly, — That ring, what is it? Where'd you get it?

— This? My dear fellow, you've seen it a thousand times. A seal ring. It might be the seal of a very old family.

— Very old family! Brown muttered, looking away.

— With a motto, Valentine persisted, — like the one you're looking at now. Dominus providebit? He glanced at the chimney piece. — Yes., sat back and lit a cigarette. He blew its light smoke out over the table, and extended his left hand on the arm of the chair. Golden hairs glistened faintly on the flesh there. — Gold rings were the peculiar ornament of Roman knights, you know. It was the way they distinguished themselves from the plebs.