The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —You won’t drink with me, hunh? You won’t drink with me . . . ?

  —Hey Pollyotch . . .

  —Like I say, it’s just like in Brooklyn, irregardless . . .

  The juke-box came to life, and played The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise.

  Fruit stores were busy. Taxi drivers were busy. Trains were crowded, in both directions. Accident wards were inundated. Psychoanalysts received quivering visits from old clients. Newspaper reporters dug up and wrote at compassionate length of gas-filled rooms, Christmas tree fires and blood shed under mistletoe, puppydogs hung in stockings and cats hung in telephone wires, in what were called human interest stories.

  —Do I know him? We was like we was married together for four months, said a girl on Third Avenue. —I’m going to give him a presint this year, just for spite.

  It rained; then it snowed, and the snow stayed on the paved ground for long enough to become evenly blackened with soot and smoke-fall, evenly but for islands of yellow left by uptown dogs. Then it rained again, and the whole creation was transformed into cold slop, which made walking adventuresome. Then it froze; and every corner presented opportunity for entertainment, the vastly amusing spectacle of well-dressed people suspended in the indecorous positions which precede skull fractures.

  —Who made the first one? Will somebody tell me that? said The Boss at an office party in a suite at the Astor Hotel. His stiff dickey stood out like a jib as he flew before the winds of First Cause. —You may not have thought I’m a very religious guy, but I’ll just ask that one question. Who made the first one? Then he dropped his glass on the carpet.

  In a large private house on East Seventy-fourth Street, the girls entertained their gentlemen friends at a champagne breakfast. The gentlemen were away from home on business: at home, their aging children opened gifts bought by efficient secretaries, asked embarrassing questions, and were confounded to receive answers which common sense had told them all the time; they stared at their gifts, and awkwardly accepted this liberation from infancy, made privy to the reciprocal deceits which as children they had been taught to call lies. Miles away here, Daddy smiled munificently as the girl in the new housecoat (“Who gave you that?”) said, —And even with my own name on it and all. Are they real di-mins?

  Hundreds of thousands of doors closed upon as many single young women in single rooms: there, furnished with the single bed, the lamp, the chair, bookcase full of encouragement, radio, telephone, life stepped tacitly and took her where she never saw the sun. Who would send flowers? Not him! And relatives again? A handkerchief from a cold-nosed aunt. She telephoned her mother in Grand Rapids, and was surprised to note that Mother seemed to have been weeping even before she answered the telephone. The radio, unattended, played The Origin of Design. And she still had her hair to put up. Flub-a-dub-dub, she washed her girdle in the basin, singing alto accompaniment to the Christmas carols on another station. Every hour on the hour consciousness blanked, while the disembodied voice spoke with respectful disinterest of train wrecks, casualties in a far-off war, the doings of a president, an actress, a murderer; and then suddenly warm, human, confidential (if disembodied still) of under-arm odor. Hark the herald angels sing! she sang (alto) accompanying the body-odor song which followed very much the same tune. Flub-a-dub-dub went the girdle in the basin while she sang, not too loudly, fearful of missing something, of missing the telephone’s ring. —Glory to the new-born King! she sang, waiting for the lipstick man.

  As it has been, and apparently ever shall be, gods, superseded, become the devils in the system which supplants their reign, and stay on to make trouble for their successors, available, as they are, to a few for whom magic has not despaired, and been superseded by religion.

  Holy things and holy places, out of mind under the cauterizing brilliance of the summer sun, reared up now as the winter sun struck from the south, casting shadows coldly up the avenues where the people followed and went in, wearing winter hearts on their sleeves for the plucking. Slightly offended by Bach and Palestrina, short memories reached back, struggling toward Origen, that most extraordinary Father of the Church, whose third-century enthusiasm led him to castrate himself so that he might repeat the hoc est corpus meum, Dominus, without the distracting interference of the rearing shadow of the flesh. They looked; but he was nowhere about, so well had he done his work, and the churches were so crowded that many were forced to suffer the Birth in cocktail lounges, and bars. So well had Origen succeeded, sowing his field without a seed, that the conspiracy, conceived in light, born, bred in darkness, and harassed to maturity in dubious death and rapturous martyrdom, continued. Miserere nobis, said the mitered lips. Vae victis, the statistical heart.

  Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

  —Hey Barney, let’s have another here. First today.

  —Hey Pollyotch, the woman called. —Hey Sanny Claus.

  —Why don’t you drop dead?

  —Don’t give me none of your hocus pocus.

  —Yeh . . .

  —And who are you going to be miserable with New Year’s Eve? asked Mrs. Bildow on the telephone. Esther, at the other end of the line, accepted this kind invitation for herself and her husband.

  Mrs. Bildow laid the instrument back in its cradle and looked out the window of the sidewalk-level apartment. She could see four legs. —Don, she called. —Do you think she’s all right with him? What’s his name, Anselm? Outside, the four legs retreated, out of her sight.

  It was a dark afternoon. To the north, the sky was almost black. Anselm rounded the corner with the little girl by the hand. He stopped there, met by a friend. —Hey Anselm, I’ve got one you’d like, old man.

  —One what?

  —Is it all right to kiss a nun?

  —What do you mean, for Christ’s sake?

  —Sure it’s all right, as long as you don’t get into the habit.

  —Ha, hahahaha . . . Anselm turned his thin face down to the little girl. She looked up. He had a bad case of acne. —Hahahahaha . . .

  —I knew you’d like that.

  Anselm nodded, and looked serious again, as he had rounding the corner. He looked wistful.

  —What’s the matter with you, anyway?

  —Afternoons like this, Anselm commenced, looking to the dark sky between the buildings to the north, —afternoons like this, he repeated, —I think about girls.

  —Happy New Year, if you’ll pardon the expression.

  —Goodbye Esther, tell your husband . . .

  —Good night, I . . .

  —Happy New Year, if you’re sure you can’t come? . . .

  —No, Esther’s voice came back on the smoke with theirs, —we’ve decided to go to a little Spanish place Wyatt knows about, just the two of us, good night and thanks, happy New Year.

  —Good night . . .

  —And happy New Year, I . . .

  Then the smoke in the room stopped moving, the door closed on the draft, and the room hung with silence; until Esther came back in, moving the smoke around her, and speaking, —Well, that’s over. She stood unsteadily.

  —If you wanted to go to their party, Esther . . .

  —Party? . . . It’s always so frightening we thought we’d just hide at home this year, that’s what she said. If you call that a party.

  —I wouldn’t have minded staying here, if you’d wanted to . . .

  —Go alone?

  —Well, I . . . there’s some work I wanted to finish.

  —Work, she repeated dully.

  —The woman called about that picture in there, it’s all done, it just needs a coat of varnish.

  —You were varnishing it when we came in.


  —Yes, I did a little . . . as a matter of fact it’s done, he admitted.

  Esther sat slowly against the edge of a table. The brightness of her eyes fluctuated, glimmering to dull, as she fixed them on him and away. Finally she said, —It was like you were trying to . . . escape. He started a motion with his hand, but did not make a sound nor look up from the chair he sat in. —I didn’t think you’d mind, they’re not . . . they’re a nice couple, and the boy with them . . .

  —Who was he?

  —I’ve never met him, his name’s Otto something. He just showed up, he said he’d been at a party uptown, at some playwright’s house, he left when it got too noisy and some woman kept calling him Pagliacci . . . you liked him, didn’t you.

  —Yes, he was . . . he’s quite young, isn’t he.

  —You might have offered brandy to someone else, besides just him. And yourself, she added. Her idle hand reached the new typewriter on the table, a Christmas gift (she had given him an electric razor), and her finger made a speculative stab at a key she would never use: she looked at the paper, where she had imprinted ã. —Poor Don, you might have been a little nicer . . .

  —Nicer? I talked to him, I tried to talk to him.

  —I heard you, I heard you saying . . .

  —Did you hear him? . . . An extensive leisure is necessary for any society to evolve an at all extensive religious ritual . . . did you hear all that? . . . You will find that the rationalists took over Plato’s state qua state, which of course left no room for the artist, as a creative figure he is always a disturbing element which threatens the status quo . . . good God, Esther. Did you hear us discussing quiddity? and Schopenhauer’s Transcendental Speculations on Apparent Design in the Fate of the Individual? and right into the Greek skeptics . . .

  —And I heard you with this. Her voice rose, she held up a small stiff-covered magazine, —And I couldn’t believe it, I thought you must be drunk or . . . I don’t know what, I’ve never heard you that way, that . . . being rude. You’re grinning now as if you still thought it was funny, pretending you didn’t know he was an editor of this, that he wrote the piece in here on Juan Gris . . .

  —Esther, please . . .

  —And ran this whole symposium on religion they had. Wyatt, it just wasn’t like you.

  —What wasn’t? People like that . . .

  —All that about mummies, you know very well what I mean, when you said that ideas in these pages are not only dead but embalmed with care, respecting the sanctity of the corpse, I heard all of it. Some daring person appears in one issue to make the first incision, you said, and then runs off to escape stoning for his offense against the dead, and then the embalmers take over. The staff of embalmers, a very difficult clique to join, do you think he didn’t know you meant him when you said that? Like good priests dictating canons for happy living they disdain for themselves. You were actually referring to his piece on Juan Gris, weren’t you, when you said the corpse was drained, the vital organs preserved in alabaster vases, the brain drawn out through the nostrils with an iron hook, I heard all of it . . . the emptied cavities stuffed with spices, the whole thing soaked in brine, coated with gum, wrapped up and put in a box shaped like a man. Esther brandished the hard roll of paper, and then dropped it on the table, looking for a cigarette. —Why you picked on him . . .

  —I don’t know, Esther, there was something about that translucent quality of his, that round chin and thin hair and those plastic-rimmed eyeglasses, that brown suit . . .

  —He can’t help what he looks like.

  —Hasn’t he got a mirror? And that yellow necktie with palmtrees on it. There’s just something about soft-handed complacent fools like that pontificating on . . .

  —He’s not complacent, Don suffers a good deal.

  —I suppose he’s given you every heart-rending detail.

  —He talks to me. He talks to me more than . . . She stopped to sniff, and lit her cigarette.

  —More than what?

  —Never mind. Do you know what it looked like?

  —What what looked like.

  —It looked like all of a sudden you were trying to impress that boy Otto.

  —Impress him?

  —You were being . . . really, you were being just too clever and . . . coquettish.

  —Esther, good God! Esther. He got to his feet.

  —Do you think he’s homosexual too? she asked calmly.

  —Otto? How in heaven’s name . . . what do you mean, too?

  —Nothing, she said, looking down.

  —Too? Listen . . . good God. His hands dropped to his sides.

  —Well why you should be so nice to a conceited pretentious boy, and try to make a fool out of a nice person like Don when he wants to talk to you about things that interest you, and his wife . . .

  —Well damn it, there it is, his wife. That woman! do you know her? Did you hear her? . . . As Don says in his piece in the religious symposium, he has a religion too though maybe you wouldn’t suspect it because he’s so philosophical . . .

  —All right, let’s forget about it.

  —Forget about it? forget about her? peering out through her granulated eyelids . . . Esther tells us you’re so original, you must tell me more about your work, you must know all the tricks . . . The tricks!

  —Well she tries, Wyatt, you mustn’t be unkind, and she tries to paint herself.

  —She can paint herself red and hang on the wall and whistle, I don’t care, but not here. . . Esther tells us . . . Esther says . . . good God! what have you told them?

  —What’s the matter? I’ve never seen you like this, Wyatt, she said sinking into a chair.

  —Well what have you told them? About me, that I need psychoanalysis?

  —I’ve had to talk to someone.

  —Well . . . you . . . listen, he stood before her with his hands quivering in the air. —Damn it, if you think I need a psychoanalyst . . .

  —Please don’t swear at me.

  —Listen, did you see her . . . reading my hands? . . . My, they’re strong aren’t they, but you must give me the left one too, I hope it does something to justify this. . . Did you see her, dragging her grubby little fingers over my palm? . . . There, the left one is so much better, but I’ve never seen such a complete dichotomy, she said, . . . that’s one of Don’s words, it means two things that describe each other like black and not black, and your right hand is so rough . . . Even when I got away from her she went on, did you hear her? . . . Your left hand is so gentle, so soft, it understands, and your right hand is so rough, that means your judgment is much better than your will, why do you try to follow your will as though it ran your life? Your left hand does, but you work against yourself, don’t you, so stubborn, not happy, not happy, your left hand has love, what a lonely person you are, good God!

  —Wyatt . . .

  —And then, . . . is it possible? can a man be jealous of himself? Damn it, listen Esther, did you see what she tried to do? she almost kissed me goodbye? Why, she’s insane. But she goes out on the street and nobody’s surprised to see her, she talks and nobody’s surprised to hear her. It’s suffocating. Right this minute, she’s talking. They’re down there right this minute and that woman with the granulated eyelids is talking. You look up and there she is, people . . . the instant you look at them they begin to talk, automatically, they take it for granted you understand them, that you recognize them, that they have something to say to you, and you have to wait, you have to pretend to listen, pretend you don’t know what’s coming next while they go right on talking with no idea what they’re talking about, they don’t even know but they go right on, trying to explain who they are because they take it for granted you want to know, not that they have the damnedest idea as far as that goes, they just want to know what kind of a receptacle you’ll be for their confidences. How do they know I’m the same person that . . . Who are they, to presume such intimacy, to . . . go right on talking. And they really believe that they’re ta
lking to me!

  —Darling you shouldn’t have let her upset you so, Esther said to him.

  —Upset me! Did you hear her talking about her analysis with her husband? Her lay analysis? . . . Don’s being analyzed, but we can’t afford it for both of us, so he analyzes me. My paintings help, they’re really pure symbols in the process of individuation Don says . . . Lay analysis! and she titters, one of those . . . little minds where naughtiness breeds intimacy, when she said to you, I’ve been trying to make your husband come out of his shell but he just won’t come, . . . and she titters. She was sitting there . . .

  —That’s enough, Wyatt, really.

  —No listen, she was sitting there watching the two of you, you and Don, sitting here with her knees hanging apart and Otto staring up her garter straps, He should have an affair now, she said. Don, he needs one now.

  —Wyatt, please . . .

  —He knew Esther before she was married, she said to me. . . Don knew Esther before she was married.

  —Where are you going? Esther asked when he turned away. He did not answer but walked toward the studio door. —Wyatt, she said, getting up to follow, —please . . .

  —It’s all right, he said, going on through the doorway, and the bright light came on overhead.

  A few minutes later Esther appeared in the door, her make-up freshened, her hair pushed up to where she thought it belonged. A drying lamp had been turned on the portrait, and she looked at it. He had done an excellent job and she, fresh from her mirror, stared at the flesh of the face on the easel as clear as her own. —I’ll miss it, she said. —I’ll be glad to see it gone but . . . but I’ll miss it. Something moved. She turned, but it was not he. In the mirror (“to correct bad drawing . . .”) she caught his reflection, and realized he was behind the table. —I’m sorry, these things happen, but now, you’re not upset are you? now?

  —No, no, it’s just that . . . the rest of us . . . He drank down some brandy, and sat staring at some papers on the table before him. —I don’t know, there are things we have to do, so we do them together. We have to eat, so we eat together. We have to sleep and we sleep together but . . . all that? does it bring us any closer together?