William Gaddis - The Recognitions

Brown emerged from the cigar smoke and sat down unsteadily. — You look like hell, he said to him.

Basil Valentine watched him closely. He was staring down at the table, and his lips barely moved, shaping Soberbia, Ira, Lujuria, Pereza. —That's because I'm. I've been working like hell, he said looking at Basil Valentine, a quick anxious look cast up like his words which were separate immediate sounds. When neither of them spoke he said, — You keep it too hot in here, and looked up at Brown as though to provoke him to explain everything which this observation did not include. Brown grinned. — For the art? he demanded.

— It's just too hot. This dead steam heat. He looked down again.

— Now that you finally got here, Brown said, — we can get started.

— Yes, I was late. I was asleep.

— Sleeping now? Brown demanded.

— Yes, I… I work at night, you know that, and I… You can't imagine how hungry I get for the night to come sometimes, he said suddenly, looking up at them both. — Sometimes it seems like it… won't come at all, so I try to sleep. Waiting for it. When I was in school, a schoolboy, he went on rapidly, — we had this written on our report cards, "Here hath been dawning another blue day. Think! Wilt thou let it slip useless away?" Do you understand? That's. it's quite upsetting, that "another blue day". Do you understand? he said, looking at Valentine. Then he looked down at the magazine opened in Valentine's lap. — That… I didn't know… I hadn't seen that reproduction.

— Sit down, my boy, relax, we.

— I… excuse me just a minute. He left them sitting there, and hurried toward the door where Basil Valentine had gone a few minutes before.

— You know, Valentine murmured, holding the color reproduction up before him, — it's not at all difficult to understand now, why he never comes to these showings.

— What do you mean?

— Look at this. He's stepped right out of the canvas.

— O.K., just don't get him started on it. You see what I mean about this, this "another blue day" stuff? You have to be careful, or he'll end up like this van. van. Recktall Brown motioned at the opened pages with the diamond-laden hand.

— It's all right, my dear fellow. You may say van Gogh. Van Gogh went mad too. Quite, quite mad. Valentine leaned forward and laid the magazine on the table.

They both glanced up when he returned, by way of the pulpit across the room where he stopped to get a bottle of brandy and a glass. These he placed on the table beside the book he had brought in, and picked up the Collectors Quarterly. He read the caption half aloud, —". that most characteristic expression of the genius of Flemish art, which seems to enliven us with increased powers of eyesight, in this recently discovered painting, The Descent from the Cross, by the late fifteenth-century master Hugo van der Goes. " That's. well you can't really say "most characteristic," whoever.

— Valentine here wants to…

— But "increased powers of eyesight," I've seen that somewhere. Yes, it gives that sense of projecting illumination, instead of receiving it from outside, do you. don't you read it that way?

— Yes. I wrote it, said Basil Valentine, looking him in the eyes.

— You wrote it? he repeated.

— I meant it, too. I congratulate you.

— Then you know it's mine? That this is mine? He flattened his hand against the page on the table.

— My dear fellow, "If the public believes that a picture is by Raphael, and will pay the price of a Raphael," Valentine said, offering a cigarette, — "then it is a Raphael."

The cigarette was accepted heedlessly. — Yes, I… but the reproductions, they don't… I haven't seen this one, but they're a bad thing all round, they. here, you can see, this space right here, it loses almost all its value, because the blue, it doesn't quite… it isn't.

— Not bad, for a reproduction, Valentine said, watching him pour brandy into his glass. — But I've looked at the thing itself, and it is magnificent. It is, almost perfect. Perfect van der Goes.

— Yes, but I… it isn't that simple, you know. I mean, the thing itself, van der Goes, he repeated, his hand covering the sky behind the Cross, — this is… mine.

— Yours? Basil Valentine said, smiling, and watching him as he sat down. — You work at night, then, do you?

— Yes, I usually do now.

— This element of secrecy, it becomes rather pervasive, does it?

— No. No, don't start that. That's what they used to say, so don't say that. It isn't so simple. He drank off some of the brandy. — It's the same sense. yes, this sense of a blue day in summer, do you understand? It's too much, such a day, it's too fully illuminated. It's defeating that way, it doesn't allow you to project this illumination yourself, this. selective illumination that's necessary to paint. like this, he added, indicating the picture.

— Seeing you now, you know, it's answered one of the questions I've had on my mind for some time. The first thing I saw, it was a small Dierick Bouts, I wondered then if you used a model when you worked.

— Well I…

— But now, it's quite obvious isn't it, Valentine went on, nodding at the picture between them. — Mirrors?

— Yes, yes of course, mirrors. He laughed, a constricted sound, and lit a cigarette.

— You have one, you know, Basil Valentine said, watching him levelly as he started, looked at the cigarette in his hand, and crushed it out for the one he had just accepted. — You're very tired, aren't you.

— Yes. Yes, I am, I… I've been tired for a long time.

— Don't you sleep?

— I do, sometimes. During the day sometimes.

— Well, my dear fellow, Valentine said, sitting up straight and smiling, — I don't either. I think Brown here is probably the only one of us who does enjoy the sleep of the just.

— Do you dream? he asked abruptly.

— Dream? Good heavens no, not in years. And you?

— I? Why no. No, no. No, I haven't had a dream in… some time.

— You haven't explained all this to me yet, you know, Basil Valentine said, raising his eyes from the picture, which he pushed forward with his right hand, and a glitter of gold at his cuff. — The Virgin.

— The Virgin? he repeated, staring across the table.

— Yes, here for instance. She really dominates this whole composition.

— Yes, she does. She does.

Valentine waited, watching him. — Exquisite repose in her face, he murmured, finally. — Do you find that with mirrors too?

— I… she… he stammered, picking up his glass.

Recktall Brown stood up, with great alacrity considering his stature and the heavy immobile presence he had presented, deep in the armchair, an instant before. He was a little unsteady on his feet, but his eyes swimming behind the glasses seemed to jell, and his voice rose sternly when he spoke. He had, all this time, been looking from one to the other of the two men before him, gauging their effect upon one another. — I'll answer that, and then we'll get down to business, he said. — This model he uses is a kid I got for him, she came up trying to sell us a book of crazy poems once. This repose she gets, she just isn't all there. He raised a naked hand. — Sit down, my boy, and be quiet. We've wasted half the God damn afternoon as it is, waiting for you. He turned to Basil Valentine, raising the left hand, with the diamonds, and the cigar which dropped its ash on Gula, gluttony, before him. — Valentine here has an idea for the next thing you're going to do, but first I want to know when you're going to finish the one you're fooling around with down there now.

— Fooling around? Fooling around?

— All right, my boy, God damn it, working on. Look, I've bought a farm up in Vermont. The family that built the place came over from England in the seventeenth century, they had plenty of money, they made bricks. They brought over everything they owned. There were about a dozen lousy paintings there when I bought the place, none of them worth more than twenty bucks, Valentine says, and some frames I want you to look at, little oak ones with red and green velvet in them around the inside, maybe you can squeeze something in. I'm going to stock this place and sell it at auction in two weeks, and this last thing of yours can be discovered there if you finish it in time. He paused. — What do you say?