William Gaddis - The Recognitions

Basil Valentine sat, watching him.

— A steady hand! he said, and drank down the brandy. — Do you think that's all it is, a steady hand? He opened the rumpled reproduction. — This. these. the art historians and the critics talking about every object and. everything having its own form and density and… its own character in Flemish paintings, but is that all there is to it? Do you know why everything does? Because they found God everywhere. There was nothing God did not watch over, nothing, and so this. and so in the painting every detail reflects. God's concern with the most insignificant objects in life, with everything, because God did not relax for an instant then, and neither could the painter then. Do you get the perspective in this? he demanded, thrusting the rumpled reproduction before them. — There isn't any. There isn't any single perspective, like the camera eye, the one we all look through now and call it realism, there… I take five or six or ten. the Flemish painter took twenty perspectives if he wished, and even in a small painting you can't include it all in your single vision, your one miserable pair of eyes, like you can a photograph, like you can painting when it… when it degenerates, and becomes conscious of being looked at.

Recktall Brown stood up, and came toward him.

— Like everything today is conscious of being looked at, looked at by something else but not by God, and that's the only way anything can have its own form and its own character, and. and shape and smell, being looked at by God.

Recktall Brown stood beside him, the heavy naked hand on his shoulder.

— And so when you're working, it's your own work, Basil Valentine said. — And when you attach the signature?

— Leave him alone, God damn it Valentine, he…

— Yes, when I attach the signature, he said dropping his head again, — that changes everything, when I attach the signature and. lose it.

— Then corruption enters, is that it, my dear fellow? Basil Valentine stood up smiling. He lit a cigarette. — That's the only thing they can prosecute you for in court, you know, if you're caught. Forging the signature. The law doesn't care a damn for the painting. God isn't watching them. He put a hand on the other shoulder, the hand with the gold seal ring, and his eyes met those of Recktall Brown. The liquid blue of them seemed to freeze and penetrate the uncentered pools behind the thick lenses, and to submerge there as Recktall Brown said, — Let go of him.

They stood that way for a number of seconds, any one of which might have contained the instant that one would pull him from the Other; until he stepped back himself and said, — I know. I know.

Then Basil Valentine shrugged, and sauntered the few steps back to his chair. — You are mightily concerned with your own originality, aren't you, he said, standing behind the chair, turned toward them.

— Originality! No, I'm not, I…

— Come now, my dear fellow, you are. But you really ought to forget it, or give in to it and enjoy it. Everyone else does today. Brown is busy with suits of plagiarism all the time, aren't you Brown? You see? He takes it as a matter of course. He's surrounded by untalented people, as we all are. Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people, and protect themselves from talented people…

— Valentine, this is the last time.

— Most original people are forced to devote all their time to plagiarizing. Their only difficulty is that if they have a spark of wit or wisdom themselves, they're given no credit. The curse of cleverness. Now wait, Brown. Stop. Stop there where you are and relax for a moment. We still have some business to straighten out. He needs to talk or he'll come to pieces, isn't that what you told me before he got here? Well let him talk, he's said some very interesting things. But don't let him talk to himself, that's all he's been doing, that's all he does when he talks to you and you don't listen, he knows you don't. Let him talk, then, but listen to him. He may not say anything clever, but that's just as well. Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest. He paused. — Come, my dear fellow. If you don't say anything I shan't be able to use you in this novel, the one in which Brown figures so monumentally since everyone thinks he's honest because he doesn't know how to be clever.

Recktall Brown had started toward him; but as Basil Valentine's voice rose, Brown stopped beside the pitcher of martini cocktails and watched him carefully. A vein stood out on Valentine's temple, and he raised his hand to ascertain it there with his fingertips, an impulsive gesture as though he had once done it to suppress. He touched the place, and continued his hand round to the back of his head where he smoothed the over-long ends of his hair. — Yes, he will figure monumentally, Valentine went on. — That portrait there, he said, flinging a hand toward it, — do you know why he keeps it? To humanize him, as evidence of youth always does, no matter how monstrous.

Basil Valentine watched them. When neither of them spoke he straightened up and walked across the room, watching his feet, to the low pulpit, where he turned and sat against it, drumming his long fingers against the oak leaves carved there.

— "Another blue day," eh? he said, looking beyond Brown, at the fever-stricken eyes fixed upon him. — "Another blue day," he repeated. And then, — Brown tells me you have another self. Oh, don't be upset, it's not uncommon you know, not at all uncommon. Why, even Brown has one. That's why he drinks to excess occasionally, trying to slip up on it and grab it. Mark me, he's going to get too close one day, and it's going to turn around and break his neck for him. He picked up the whisky bottle. — Have you heard Brown talk about the portraits he sells? Nineteenth-century portraits of blond men with strong chins that he sells for ten times their price, he tells me, to precarious Jews who want nice ancestors, he said, pouring the whisky into a glass. He sat against the pulpit again, drew a foot up, and it swayed slightly, with the sound of bottles ringing together like the sound of bells in the distance. — To the same purpose, you know. And they believe it, when the portraits have hung about long enough, common ancestor to their vulgar selves that everyone else knows, and this other. more beautiful self who. can do more than they can, he finished, swirling the whisky in the bottom of the tumbler.

In the middle of the Aubusson carpet, the dog licked itself. That was the only sound. Then Basil Valentine put the glass of whisky down and left it there. — Where do you keep him, Brown? he demanded, looking at them, around the walls, up to the balcony.

Recktall Brown turned back to his chair. He looked up at the man whom his bulk no longer separated from Basil Valentine. — Sit down, my boy, he said, and then abruptly to Valentine, — Where are you going?

— I'm simply going in to wash my hands, if no one objects.

Recktall Brown took out a cigar. He unwrapped it, trimmed the end with his penknife, thrust it among uneven teeth, and lit it. He shook the match out in the air, and tossed it toward the ashtray. It fell to the carpet, and lay smoking on a rose. — When most, people ask where the washroom is, they really mean they want to go to the toilet. He just goes in there to wash his hands. Sit down, my boy. We'll be done in a few minutes. Recktall Brown filled the air before him with smoke. — What's the matter? he asked, as the smoke rose, and the figure before him remained unmoved and unchanged.

— Oh, I… I don't know, he said, looking down at Brown and seeming to recover. — I suppose I was surprised, when you let him go on like that.

— Never interrupt people when they're telling you more than they know they are, no matter how mad they make you.