William Gaddis - The Recognitions

— But. why? There's no law, is there, against.

— Not a question of law, my dear fellow, Valentine said returning to the table. — Publicity. Publicity.

— But, a thing like this, a… painting like this.

— A painting like this or a tube of toothpaste or a laxative which induces spastic colitis. You can't sell any of them without publicity. The people! Valentine turned away again, and commenced to walk up and down. He was talking more rapidly, in precisions of irritation as though he did not dare stop, for fear of an argument being rejected before he reached its point, or hesitate, and waste a precious instant before Brown's return. Even the Latin came with native sharpness from his tongue when he said, — You recall the maxim, Vulgus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur? Yes, if they want to be deceived, let them be deceived. Have you looked at his hands? he demanded, stopping abruptly at the edge of the table. — At Brown's hands, when he sits with them folded in his lap? And those diamonds? Like a great soft toad, ". ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head"?

— But, all this.

— Yes, think of the tradition you have behind you, Valentine went on, turning his back. — Lucius Mummius, and that famous story in which he charges the men carrying his plunder from Corinth back to Rome, that any of the art treasures lost or broken would have to be replaced at the expense of the man responsible. No more idea of art than the people who surround us today, not a particle of appreciation, but they brought it back to Rome by the ton. Private collecting started, a thing the Greeks never dreamt of. It started in Rome, and forgery with it. The same poseurs, the same idiots who would buy a vase if they had to pay enough for it, the same people who come to Brown, in gray waistcoats, perhaps, instead of togas, the same people in Rome, the same people, the same hands.

— But you, then you, if you feel this way.

— Because the people, the people, they're bringing us to the point Rome reached when a court could award a painting to the man who owned the board, not the artist who had painted on it. Valentine stood with his knees against the edge of the low table. — Yes, when the Roman Republic collapsed, art collecting collapsed, art forging disappeared. And then what. Instead of art they had religion, and all the talent went into holy relics. Half the people collected them, the other half manufactured them. A forest of relics of the True Cross? Miraculous multiplication. Then the Renaissance, and they dropped the knucklebones of the saints and came back to art. His eyes, which were hard and blue now, settled on the radiant figure in the center of the table of the Seven Deadly Sins. — Intricate, cunning forgeries like this, he added, sweeping a hand with a glitter of gold over the whole table as he turned his back. — The people! he said, watching Recktall Brown approach. — Of course I loathe him. — But it's not. This table, it's not a forgery.

— What's the matter? Brown demanded, coming up to them.

— This Bosch, it's not a forgery.

— Who the hell said it was? Look, Valentine.

— Listen.

— Have you got him all upset like this? — Listen, this Bosch painting, it's not a forgery.

Basil Valentine sank back in his chair and clasped a knee between his hands. — It's not? he said quietly, with the beginning of a smile on his lips, and shrugged. — Not even a copy?

— You're God damn right it's not.

— It's not. It can't be.

— Why not? Valentine asked them. His eyes had recovered their light watery blue, agreeable indifference. — The story I heard, you know, he went on after a pause, — was that the original came from the di Brescia collection, one of the finest in Europe, most of them Flemish primitives in fact. The old man, the Conte di Brescia, found himself running out of money. He loved the pictures, and none of his family would have dared suggest he sell a single one, even if they'd known the state of their finances. Of course they were simply waiting for him to die so they could sell them all. Meanwhile they went right on living in the manner which centuries of wealth had taught them, watched the pictures go out to be cleaned and come back, none the wiser. When the old grandee died, they fell over themselves to sell the pictures, and found that every one of them was a copy. They hadn't been sent out to be cleaned, the old man had sent them out to be copied and sold, and the copies were brought back.

— That's right, sold, Brown said, — they sold the originals you just said, and I got this one. I got it ten or fifteen years ago.

— Where?

— Where? Never mind. Right here in America. I picked it up for just about nothing.

— The collection of copies was dispersed too, you know, Valentine said. — Soon after the scandal, in the late 'twenties. And this.

— But wait, listen.

— Don't get yourself upset, my boy, Brown said letting himself down in his chair; and Valentine looked across the table with the faint smile still on his lips.

— Listen, this is the original, it is.

— Don't get yourself so excited, God damn it my boy…

— How are you so certain? Valentine asked calmly.

— Because, listen. What happened was, I heard, I heard this somewhere, abroad, yes somewhere abroad I heard that what happened was, a boy, a boy whose father owned the original, he'd bought it himself, he bought it from the Conte di. Brescia, and the boy. the boy copied it and stole the original and left his copy in its place, and sold the original, he sold it in secret for. for just about nothing.

— How very interesting, Basil Valentine said quietly. The smile was gone from his lips, and he watched the quivering figure across the table from him without moving, without expression on his face.

— All right, that's enough of that. Didn't the two of you get started on this new thing he's going to work on while I wasn't here?

— Of course, Valentine said, his tone returned to its agreeable level, with an ingratiating edge to it as he turned to Brown and went on, — We decided to write a novel about you, since you don't exist.

Recktall Brown did look startled at that. But he recovered immediately to take off his glasses and turn his sharp eyes on Basil Valentine. — We're going to get down to business right now, he said.

— Brown doesn't exist, you must admit, Valentine went on. — He's a figment of a Welsh rarebit taken before retiring. A projection of my unconscious. Though a rather abiding one, I must confess.

— By God, Brown said, — if you don't settle down and be serious.

— But my dear man, I am being serious. I am the only person in this room who exists. You are both projections of my unconscious, and so I shall write a novel about you both. But I don't know what I can do with you, he said, turning to the other chair.

— With me? He almost smiled at Basil Valentine. — Why not?

— Because, my dear fellow, no one knows what you're thinking. And that is why people read novels, to identify projections of their own unconscious. The hero has to be fearfully real, to convince them of their own reality, which they rather doubt. A novel without a hero would be distracting in the extreme. They have to know what you think, or good heavens, how can they know that you're going through some wild conflict, which is after all the duty of a hero.

— I think about my work.

— But my dear fellow…

— God damn it Valentine, Brown broke in, — I'm as real as hell, and in just a minute.

— All right, to work, to work. Wait, there's something I've meant to ask. Your own paintings, you have done work yourself, certainly. Are there any of them lying about anywhere?

— Why no, I… the only ones I had were destroyed in a fire.