The alchemist, for Otto, was likely an unsophisticated man of a certain age assisting in a smelly hallucination over an open fire, tampering with the provenience of absolutes, as Bernard of Trèves and an unnamed Franciscan are pictured seeking the universal dissolvent in the fifteenth century with a mixture of mercury, salt, molten lead, and human excrement. Otto was young enough to find answers before he had even managed to form the questions; nevertheless, if anyone had stopped him just then as he hurried up Madison Avenue, and asked what he was thinking about, Otto (to whom thought was a series of free-swimming images which dove and surfaced occasionally near to one another) would have said, —Alchemy! without hesitation. True, like everyone else, he had never seen a copy of the Chemā, that book in which the fallen angels wrote out the secrets of their arts which they had taught to the women they married. As embarrassed by the mention of Christ as he was charmed by the image of gold, the only thing which kept him from dismissing alchemy as the blundering parent of modern chemistry (for a pair of plastic eyeglasses, or a white shirt made from coal-tar derivatives, were obviously more remarkable, and certainly more useful, than anything Bernhardus Trevisanus turned up) was this very image of gold. Coined or in heavy bars, or exquisite dust, it came into his mind, to be fashioned in that busy workshop in less time than it takes to tell (for it was more an assembly line than a manufactory) into cuff links, cigarette cases, and other mass-produced artifacts of the world he lived in, mementos of this world, in which the things worth being were so easily exchanged for the things worth having. Gone to earth alone, as lonely as they had been in life, were the accidents of Bernard and his Franciscan fellow; and gone to earth Michael Majer, who had seen in gold the image of the sun, spun in the earth by its countless revolutions, then, when the sun might yet be taken for the image of God.
All this may have been in the way of progressive revelation, that doctrine which finds man incapable of receiving Truth all of a lump, but offers it to him only in a series of distorted fragments, any one of which, standing by itself, might be disproven by someone unable to admit that he is, eventually, after the same thing. Thus the good Dominican Albertus Magnus said he had tested gold made by the alchemists, and found it unable to withstand seven exposures to fire; chronicling their incredible history, he did not leave the hardly less extraordinary paths of his own, but contributed a book on the care of child-bearing mothers, no less careful here, than there, to abjure accident (for his concern was not the suffering or possible death of the woman, but keeping the child alive long enough for baptism). But with the age of enlightenment those lonely men were left far behind, to haggle in darkness over the beams which they had caught, and clung to with such suffocating desire.
Anti-histamine, streptomycin, penicillin and 606: few may question but that Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (“better known as Paracelsus”) was right. It was Paracelsus who emerged from the fifteenth century (castrated by a hog, so they said, in his childhood) to proclaim that the object of alchemy was not at all the transmutation of base metals into gold, but the preparation of medicines, thus opening the way for the hospitalized perpetuation of accident which we triumphally prolong enlarge upon, finance, respect, and enjoy today. 3:3′-diamino-4-4′-dihydroxyarsenobenzine dihydrochloride, writes Doctor Ehrlich (after 605 tries), thereby dismissing the notion that syphilis might be a visitation upon that pleasure which, in its perennial variety, had until now afforded the gratification of which only sin is capable. For unlike progressive revelation, the enlightenment of total materialism burst with such vigor that there were hardly enough hands to pick up the pieces. Even Paracelsus was left behind (dead of injuries received in a drunken brawl); and once chemistry had established itself as true and legitimate son and heir, alchemy was turned out like a drunken parent, to stagger away, babbling phantasies to fewer and fewer ears, to less and less impressive derelicts of loneliness, while the child grew up serious, dignified, and eminently pleased with its own limitations, to indulge that parental memory with no doubt but that it had found what the old fool and his cronies were after all the time.
It was with some effort, then, that Otto took his eyes from the gold cube in the Madison Avenue window, a cube capable, at the flick of a thumb, of producing a flame, not, perhaps, the ignis noster of the alchemists, but a flame quite competent to light a cigarette. He looked at his stainless steel wrist watch, and hurried on. He was used to having engagements, which were always matters of fixed hours or half-hours, indicated, as he hurried to meet them, by this watch; thus he glanced at it now, as though it might confirm an engagement which he did not have. He forgot to notice the time, looked again, and almost bumped Esther who was coming out of the doorway. It was mid-afternoon.
—Otto!
—Are you just going out?
—Yes, but I’ll be back in an hour or so. Do you want to wait?
—Is he up there?
—He’s asleep. He didn’t come in till about dawn.
—Is . . . I mean is everything all right?
—Yes, it is. I guess it is. Here, take the key and go on up, you can slip in without waking him. I have to run.
Otto had got in and closed the door quietly behind him before he heard anything; even then, he could hardly distinguish words. He stood uncomfortably looking round, toward the half opened door of the studio and away from it. —Like the eyes in the petals of the flower Saint Lucy holds in that Ferrara painting . . . he heard, quite clearly, and looked at his watch. He looked up again at the half-open door. —Like the swollen owl . . . watching Saint Jerome . . .
Otto turned to leave but had hardly taken a step when the door to the studio banged behind him. —This damned hole in the wall, he heard, and turned.
—Oh, I just . . . I mean I just . . .
—I didn’t hear you come in.
—I’m sorry, I mean . . . I just sort of came in.
—I’m . . . I was just on my way out. For a walk, going for a walk.
—It . . . well I mean I was just out, and I mean it looks like it’s going to rain.
—Yes. Well you . . . you stay and read, if you like. There are some . . . books here, he said, gesturing. —Here. You read French, don’t you?
—Why . . . why yes, Otto said, —of course, I . . .
—Here. Take this. Keep it. Read it. He picked up, as though from nowhere, a small book whose spine was doubly split, the thin leather facing, torn around the edges from the cardboard, of olive green almost entirely covered with gold stamping of scrolls and fleurs-de-lis.
—Adolphe, Otto read, on the cover. —I don’t think I . . .
—It’s a novel, he said, —it’s a good novel. You read it.
—Well thank you, I . . .
—I’ll . . . get on with my walk now.
—Do you mind it I come along? Otto asked.
He had not looked surprised when he saw Otto; but he did now. He stood, his hands at his sides, opening and closing on nothing.
—I . . . I mean I wouldn’t want to . . . well, you know, I . . . Otto put Adolphe into his jacket pocket as he spoke. —I . . .
—Well, let’s get on then.
As they walked toward the park, Otto said, —You look tired.
—Tired?
Otto turned to look at him, as though this response invited him to do so, or permitted it, since he had, for two blocks, been looking from the corner of his eye, awaiting some change in the face beside him, though even now, as the single syllable left its lips, it relapsed into the expression of intent vacancy which it had not lost, even in the interruption of surprise, a peremptory confusion which had seemed, for that instant, to empty it even further.
—Yes, Otto said, —I know. I mean when I stay cooped up like that working, I mean staying inside working on this play, it gets . . . I mean I get . . . I mean it doesn’t seem to sound right after awhile.
—Yes, yes. I imagine it might not.
Though the tone of this response was an absent one, Otto was encouraged to go on,
looking away, just then, from something he would never forget, a detail, he would tell himself, of no significance or consequence whatever; still Otto would remember him unsurprised, his lower lip drawn, exposing his lower teeth, as he spoke and finished speaking. —I mean, trying to get everything to fit where it belongs, there’s so much that . . . well you know what I mean, I mean you’ve talked to me about these things before, but . . . well, you’ve really taught me a great deal.
—Have I?
—Yes but, well I mean to know as much as you do, it must be . . . I mean you can really do anything you want to by now, I mean, you don’t feel all sort of hedged in by the parts you don’t know about, like I do. Otto finished speaking, and looked anxiously for response; there was none but a sound which indicated that he needn’t try to repeat what he had said. They walked on in silence, but any silence was a difficult state for Otto, most especially in the company of another person it seemed an unnatural presence which must be assailed and broken into pieces, or at least shaken until it rattled. Finally he said, —I’ve been wondering, I mean are you on a vacation now? Or are you just sort of taking time off.
—From what?
—Well I mean from your job, the drafting . . .
—Oh that. That. I’m through with that.
—Really? That’s wonderful. I mean, it is, isn’t it? From what Esther’s said, now you’ll be able to . . . do what you want to do.
Attentive only to pools of water, the curbs, and shining bits of ice, they walked on. Before they reached the block they had set out from, Otto had looked at his watch a half-dozen times, and drawn only one response which he turned over in his mind, not to try to understand it immediately, face to face, for itself, nor the source from which it came, but fitting it to the lips of Gordon, through whom, though he did not know it, nor plan it so, he would one day overtake himself. As he walked he pictured Gordon in one after another setting, saying to one after another of the characters who were distinguished only by sex, —And if I cannot teach anyone how to become better, then what have I learned?
—It’s just as though that dog’s following us, Otto said looking back. He snapped his fingers. The black poodle bounded away. —But I mean, you don’t see dogs like that running around loose in the streets. Otto looked up. It was the first time his companion had shown any interest in anything but the ground before them. —I mean, somebody must have lost it.
—Yes, she is odd. Running around us in circles, getting a little closer each time.
—Looking for its master probably, and all it sees is two strangers, Otto said. —But with all that fine trimming, that fancy coiffure and red collar, look at it, just another dog, crouching on its belly.
—Here. Come here.
—I’ve heard they’re terrifically bright, though. The dog was off again. But when they got up the steps, they looked round to see the black poodle halfway up behind them.
Esther was putting her hat on when they came in. —What . . . wherever . . . she said, as the dog ran past her, entering as though it knew the house better, had more right there than she did.
—I thought you’d be just coming back, Otto said to her.
—I did, but the Bildows just called and asked us down for drinks. Do you want to come?
—Why yes, I mean if I . . .
—Well he wouldn’t come, certainly, she said good-humoredly. —He’s never forgiven her for trying to kiss him New Year’s Eve. They both turned to include him on this, but he had stepped inside the door of the studio where he was fumbling with the phonograph;
—Esther, I . . .
—He . . .
—I’ll just be a minute, she said going toward the bedroom.
Otto stood, examining his fingernails. Then he looked at his watch, and music burst upon him. —What is it? he asked, approaching the door of the studio.
—This? Something of Handel’s, an oratorio Judas Maccabaeus.
—Oh. It’s . . . it’s splendid isn’t it, Otto went on, unable to show his appreciation by listening. —Lo the conqueror comes, sang the bass.
—It always seems too bad when they have to translate these things. I mean, it must sound much more impressive in the original.
—The original?
—I mean . . . in German, he said, as Esther entered, emptying the unexamined jumble of one purse into another. She dropped a lipstick. Her skirt pulled tightly against the long line of her thigh as she stooped to pick it up. The day had begun to darken. The poodle watched them both without interest.
—Please don’t let the dog mess up the house.
—Goodbye, I . . .
—Goodbye.
On the first landing of the staircase, Esther fumbled in her purse and got out a piece of paper. —Can you read it? She handed it over. —It’s their address, I never remember it.
—What’s this?
—No. The other side. God knows what that is, something of his.
—The equation of xn plus yn has no nontrivial solution in integers for n greater than 2.
—The other side. She pulled the outside door open herself.
—He is so . . . strange by now, Esther, Otto said catching up with her. —You can hardly . . . I mean all this time we were walking I couldn’t reach him at all.
—I hardly know him at all now. It is strange. She looked up at Otto as they walked. —Do you know, there’s something alike about you both.
—Yes, but . . . with his ability . . .
—With his ability and your ambition, she said taking Otto’s arm, and looking away too soon to see the expression she brought to his face, —I’d have quite a remarkable man.
The poodle, lying on the floor with its forelegs extended, watched him drink down a glass of brandy. —The original! Good God, how can anyone clinging to such foolishness keep any hope in his head? He walked over to the window and stood before it, his back turned upon the room. Outside it had begun to rain. The room was warm, water clattered against the glass. As these minutes went by, the place took on the aspect of any quiet room on a winter’s raining afternoon, the room cut away from everything else which the sun and opened windows allow, and here even the music an extensive furnishing which served rather to order the silence than to break it, building upon the impression that the room shall not be returned as part of the world until it has enclosed an assignation. —A boy, brittle as a preconception, I suppose I ought to thank him, I ought to thank him for getting me out of that damned feeling that . . .
The dog stretched its forelegs, and digging its nails into the floor pulled itself toward him, inclining its head slightly to one side as it listened. He turned, and they stared at each other, the man and the dog: and the dog saw a man whose appearance held nothing in the least remarkable, though dressed to confirm the fact that he looked some years older than he was. The dog raised its forequarters and sat, without taking its eyes from him, to watch him go over and turn the phonograph down until it was almost inaudible. He stood beside it for a moment, and then picked up a book. When he opened it, a slip of paper fell out, which he caught between his fingers. As he sat down to read, the dog’s eyes caught his again, each eyed the other obliquely, he as though to discountenance the dog’s presence, the black poodle to suggest that the book was a distraction unworthy of notice.
“The first discovery” (it was an account of the oracle at Delphos) “is said to have been occasioned by some goats which were feeding on Mount Parnassus near a deep and large cavern, with a narrow entrance. These goats having been observed by the goatherd, Coretas, to frisk and skip after a strange manner, and to utter unusual sounds immediately upon their approach to the mouth of the cavern, he had the curiosity to view it, and found himself seized with the like fit of madness, skipping, dancing, and foretelling things to come . . .”
—Damn you! he cried out as the dog barked. —If I have to share this room with you, he commenced, lowering his tone, though the black animal did not seem at all upset by his curse. —Damn you, he repeated, confi
rming it more quietly, and threw down the book, —skipping, dancing, and foretelling things to come . . . He got up and poured himself another glass of brandy. The dog watched him look around the room. The music was still going on, and he suddenly crossed to stop it, so suddenly that the dog reared as though ready to jump behind him. He stood beside the silent phonograph, looking at the slip of paper between his fingers. —I A O, I A E, he read, copied in a delicate Italian semi-gothic hand he’d once worked on. Before him, on the wall and in sight of the other room where the dog sat poised, watching him, hung the soiled beginning of Camilla on gesso. He stood looking at it; then something moved. He swung about. It was the dog’s reflection in the mirror. But the dog sat still in the door. —Damn it, he said directly to its face, —what is it you have, or don’t have, that you sit there completely self-contained, that you can sit and know . . . and know exactly where your feet are? Yes, that’s what makes cats incredible, because you know they’re aware every instant of where their feet are, and they know how much they have to share with other cats, they don’t try to . . . pretend . . . He came out muttering, and drank down this third glass looking out the window at the rain. The black poodle had followed and was quite close upon him, sitting looking up at the back of his head. He did not realize it, and when he turned, he dropped his glass and it broke on the floor between them. The dog did not move. —What are you doing in here? he burst out. —What do you want here? What are you . . . what do you want of me? He swayed a little, wiped his cheek with his hand, and found he was perspiring freely. Then he suddenly wiped his cheek again. The dog watched him drop his hand slowly, met his eyes, and did not move.
—Move! he demanded. —Get out of my way, get out! The dog sat with the broken glass at its feet, looking up at him. The rain beat on the glass behind him. Then instead of pushing the dog aside he turned and went round the couch. He had started for the brandy bottle, there on the table where the dog blocked his way; but he stopped again at the door of the studio, and went through a pile of records on the floor. The dog came over and stood sniffing at the doorway. He put a record on the turntable, and stood with a fingernail in the groove as it turned. Then the dog startled for the first time, when he put the needle on the record and turned up the volume. The music was Arabic. The dog put its head on one side, then the other, watching him. —There are shapes, he murmured, raising his right hand to move it on the air as though shaping the line of the flute from the dissonance. The dog had laid its ears back, its mouth was closed, no longer panting, no longer exposing teeth. —There are shapes, and . . . exquisite strength . . . They both watched his hand move slowly between them. —Change a line without touching it . . . there’s delicacy. The dog turned slightly to look up at his face, at his perspiring forehead, as though seeking there evidence or betrayal of the signs he made in the air between them. —Not a word. Not an instant of adultery. “You can really do anything you want to by now!” The dog bared its teeth at his harsh laughter, and watched his hand drop, all the way to snatch up the slip of paper he’d dropped a few minutes before. —I A O, I A E, in the name of the father and of our Lord Jesus Christ and holy spirit, iriterli estather, nochthai brasax salolam . . . yes, very good for cows in Egypt . . . opsakion aklana thalila i a o, i a e . . .
The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) Page 20