The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  The dog growled at him. He crumpled the paper and hurled it, but it fell slowly, at the dog’s feet. The dog stood up instantly and backed into the other room, which was already getting darker, though not yet as dark as the studio, where he’d sat down gripping the edge of the table, looking feverishly over the books and papers spread before him. He caught at Remigius’ Demonolatria and pushed it aside, raised the cover of the Libro dell’ Arte, and pushed it off to the floor, then found pen and paper, and the ink bottle already opened, and wrote, slow, and with great care and application,

  Emperor

  His lips moved over the letters, as the flute disappeared, the music broke, recovered, rose into collision, fell in clangor, and the dog in the other room commenced trotting in irregular circles, sniffing the air which the heat seemed to have weighed down the more heavily with lavender.

  . . . by the power of the grand ADONAY . . . his lips were moving, over letters, then words,

  . . . to appear instanter, and by ELOIM, by ARIEL, by JEHOVAM, by AQUA, TAGLA, MATHON, OARIOS, ALMOAZIN, ARIOS, MEMBROT, VARIOS, PITHONA, MAJODS, SULPHÆ, GABOTS, SALAMANDRÆ, TABOTS, GINGUA, JANNA, ETITNAMUS, ZARIATNATMIX . . .

  He stopped and listened. Then,

  A. E. A. J. A. T. M. O. A. A. M. V. P. M. S. . . .

  The music stopped, leaving the sounds of the dog’s nails clicking on the wood floor. Then as abruptly that stopped, and the pen hung in his hand over the wet black letters on the paper. A movement caught the corner of his eye; he turned his head quickly, saw the arm of the phonograph raise itself, pause. He looked through the door, unable to see the black poodle. —Dog, he whispered in a hoarse tone. —Dog! Dog! Dog! No sound contested his challenge, no recognition of men imprisoned in the past for spelling the Name of God backwards, no response to God, if not the Name, reversed three times in his whisper.

  He jumped to his feet, slipped against the table, spilling the ink on the papers there, and in three steps was through the door to the other room. The dog lay in the darkened foyer before the front door, facing the door and apparently at rest. —Damn you! he said. —I’ll . . .

  The dog turned to look at him, as he threw his hands out before him. —Damned . . . animal out of hell are you . . . The dog, only partially distinguishable in the darkness, got up, the hair on its shoulders bristling as he took two steps closer, and paused. They both listened to the footsteps on the lower staircase, he with his hands still in the air as though counting the steps, heavy and even, neither casual nor hurried, reaching the hallway below, the foot of the stairs, and up the stairs with no more apparent effort than one step at a time, though too soon knock knock knock

  The rain, silenced by inattention, took up its beating against the glass; then the dog whined and clawed the door, movement which broke the still arrangement where every object seemed tense in suspension. He walked to the door, and as he put his hand to the latch the hand on the other side, as though responding, moved too: knock knock knock. And he drew back as though threatened.

  The dog clawed the door, and when he pulled it open the dog jumped so fast that he had no chance to restrain it. But the visitor who waited in the darkness had apparently expected the attack, for he caught at the red collar and held the black poodle down.

  —Hello. Hello, said that voice in the shadow, a voice at once cheerful and unpleasant. —Some kids in the street saw you bring her in here.

  He opened the door more widely. —Come in, he said, in a tone which seemed to reassure him, for he repeated it. —Come in . . . Who are you?

  The visitor extended his hand as he entered, a stubby hand mounting two diamonds set in gold on one finger. —My name is Recktall Brown.

  He took the hand and said his own name in reply, distantly, as though repeating the name of an unremembered friend in effort to recall him.

  Recktall Brown entered and strode to the middle of the room, looking round it through heavy glasses which diffused the pupils of his eyes into uncentered shapes. —Good thing you brought her in, he said, and waved the diamonds at the dog where it lay on the floor, licking itself. —She hates the rain. Then he turned, a strange ugliness, perhaps only because it looked that a smile would be impossible to it.

  —Would you . . . like a drink?

  —No. Not now. Not now.

  —Yes, but . . . there, yes, sit down.

  Recktall Brown dropped into a heavy armchair facing the open door of the studio. He tapped the diamonds on the arm of the chair while he continued to look around the room, his head back, his face highly colored with the redness of running up flights of stairs; yet he breathed quietly, almost imperceptibly, for his stoutness absorbed any such evidence before it reached the double-breasted surface of his chest. —I know your name. He smiled, a worse thing than the original, turning for a moment to the man who stood watching him as he poured brandy into a glass, and said, —Yes, I . . . I think I know your name, but in what connection . . .

  —A publisher? A collector? A dealer? Recktall Brown sounde I only mildly interested. —People who don’t know me, they say a lot of things about me. He laughed then, but the laughter did not leave his throat. —A lot of things. You’d think I was wicked as hell, even if what I do for them turns out good. I’m a business man.

  —But . . . how did you know my name?

  —What’s your business?

  —I’m a draftsman.

  —And an artist? Recktall Brown was looking beyond him to the studio, and back at him as he approached and sat on the couch.

  —I . . . do some restoring.

  —I know.

  —You know? He sat forward on the couch, holding the glass between his knees, and looked at his visitor and away again, as though there were some difficulty which he could not make out.

  —You did some work for me.

  —For you?

  —A Dutch picture, a picture of a landscape, an old one.

  —Flemish. Yes, I remember it. That painting could hang in any museum . . .

  —It does. The hand which carried the diamonds was folded over the other before him. —You couldn’t tell it had been touched. Even an expert couldn’t tell, without all the chemical tests and X-rays, an expert told me that himself.

  —Well, I tried, of course . . .

  —Tried! You did a damn good job on it. He looked around the room with an air of detached curiosity, and finally asked what the funny smell was. Because the glasses obliterated any point in his glance, it was difficult to tell where he was looking, but he seemed aware that he was being watched with an expression of anxiety almost mistrust, not of him, but an eagerness to explain anything which might be misunderstood. His questioning was peremptory

  —Lavender. I use it as a medium sometimes. The smell seems to stay.

  —A medium?

  —To mix colors in, to paint with.

  —You do a lot of work here, don’t you.

  —Well, I . . . I’ve been doing some of my work at home. This drafting, bridge plans.

  —No. The painting, the painting, Recktall Brown said impatiently.

  —Oh, this restoring, this . . . patching up the past I do.

  —You don’t paint? You don’t paint pictures yourself?

  —I . . . No.

  —Why not?

  —I just . . . don’t paint.

  Recktall Brown watched him wipe his perspiring forehead, and drink part of the brandy quickly. —All this work, all these books, you go to all this trouble just to patch up other people’s work? How come you’ve never painted anything yourself?

  —Well I have, I have.

  —What happened, you couldn’t sell them?

  —Well no, but . . .

  —Why not?

  —Well people . . . the critics . . . I was young then, I was still young.

  —What are you now, about forty?

  —Forty? Me, forty?

  —Why not, you look forty. He took a cigar from his pocket, and continued his gaze at the man across from him. —So they didn’t
like your pictures. What happened, the critics laugh you out of town?

  —Well they . . .

  —And you got bitter because nobody gave your genius any credit.

  —No, I . . .

  —And you couldn’t make any money on them, so you quit?

  —No, it . . .

  —And you decided the only thing you could do was patch up other people’s pictures.

  —No, damn it, I . . .

  —Don’t get mad, I’m just asking you. He had unwrapped the cigar, and he raised it to his ear, rolling it between fingers as thick as itself. —Don’t you want me to ask you?

  —Why yes, yes. And I’m not angry, but, damn it . . .

  —Why, do you want to tell me you can do more than patch up old pictures? There was no sound of dryness as he rolled the cigar, lowered it to trim the end off with a gold penknife, and thrust it among uneven teeth.

  —Of course I can.

  —But you won’t, because they won’t all stand up and cheer and pay you a big price.

  —It isn’t that, it isn’t those things. They don’t matter . . .

  —Don’t matter? Don’t tell me they don’t matter, my boy. That’s what anybody wants, Recktall Brown said, lighting the cigar. —Everybody to stand up and cheer. There’s nothing so damn strange about that.

  —But it all . . . it isn’t that simple now.

  —Now?

  —In painting, in art today . . .

  —Art today? The uneven teeth showed in a grin through the smoke. —Art today is spelled with an f. You know that. Anybody knows it, he added patiently and waited, offering an oppressive silence which forced an answer.

  —It’s as though . . . there’s no direction to act in now.

  —That’s crazy. You read too much. There’s plenty to do, if anybody’s got what you’ve got.

  —It isn’t that simple.

  The smoke from a cigarette mingled with that of his cigar, and he asked, —Why not? and smiled patiently.

  —People react. That’s all they do now, react, they’ve reacted until it’s the only thing they can do, and it’s . . . finally there’s no room for anyone to do anything but react.

  —And here you are sitting here with all the pieces. Can’t you react and still be smart?

  —All right then, here I am with all the pieces and they all fit, everything fits perfectly and what is there to do with them, when you do get them together? You just said yourself, art today . . .

  —Today? Maybe you put the pieces together wrong.

  —What do you mean?

  As the smoke rose before him, it became apparent what was wrong. It was the ears. They were hardly ear-shape at all, their convolutions nearly lost in heavy pieces of flesh hung to the sides of the head, each a weight in itself. —You look forty years old and you talk like you’re born yesterday, Recktall Brown said. He stared through his glasses, and the voice he heard was more distant, hardly addressed to him in its first words, —In a sense an artist is always born yesterday.

  —Come on now, my boy . . .

  —Damn it, am I the only one who feels this way? Have I made this all up alone? If you can do something other people can’t do, they think you ought to want to do it just because they can’t.

  Recktall Brown gestured with his cigar, and an ash fell from it like a gray bird-dropping. —So you’re going to stay right here, drawing pictures of bridges, and patching up . . .

  —Those bridges, those damned bridges.

  —What’s wrong with them.

  —Who are they all, driving over those bridges as though they grew there. They don’t . . . they don’t . . .

  —They don’t give you the credit.

  —No, it isn’t that simple.

  —I’m afraid it is, my boy.

  —Damn it, it isn’t, it isn’t. It’s a question of . . . it’s being surrounded by people who don’t have any sense of . . . no sense that what they’re doing means anything. Don’t you understand that? That there’s any sense of necessity about their work, that it has to be done, that it’s theirs. And if they feel that way how can they see anything necessary in anyone else’s? And it . . . every work of art is a work of perfect necessity.

  —Where’d you read that?

  —I didn’t read it. That’s what it . . . has to be, that’s all. And if everyone else’s life, everyone else’s work around you can be interchanged and nobody can stop and say, This is mine, this is what I must do, this is my work . . . then how can they see it in mine, this sense of inevitableness, that this is the way it must be. In the middle of all this how can I feel that . . . damn it, when you paint you don’t just paint, you don’t just put lines down where you want to, you have to know, you have to know that every line you put down couldn’t go any other place, couldn’t be any different . . . But in the midst of all this . . . rootlessness, how can you . . . damn it, do you talk to people? Do you listen to them?

  —I talk business to people. Recktall Brown drew heavily on his cigar, watched the cigarette stamped out, the brandy finished.

  —But . . . you’re talking to me. You’re listening to me.

  —We’re talking business, Recktall Brown said calmly.

  —But . . .

  —People work for money, my boy.

  —But I . . .

  —Money gives significance to anything.

  —Yes. People believe that, don’t they. People believe that.

  Recktall Brown watched patiently, like someone waiting for a child to solve a simple problem to which there was only one answer. The cigarette, lit across from him, knit them together in the different textures of their smoke.

  —You know . . . Saint Paul tells us to redeem time.

  —Does he? Recktall Brown’s tone was gentle, encouraging.

  —A work of art redeems time.

  —And buying it redeems money, Recktall Brown said.

  —Yes, yes, owning it . . .

  —And that’s why you sit around here patching up the past. Recktall Brown leaned forward, resting his elbows on his broad knees. —That’s why old art gets the prices, he said. —Everybody agrees on it, everybody agrees it’s a masterpiece. They copy them right and left. You’ve probably done copies, yourself.

  —Not since I studied. And who wants them? Who wants copies.

  Recktall Brown watched him get up suddenly, and walk over to the window, there the rain streaked the glass into visibility. —Nobody wants copies. He ground out his cigar in an ashtray. —The ones who can pay want originals. They can pay for originals. They expect to pay. He paused, and then raised his tone. —As long as an artist’s alive, he can paint more pictures. When they’re dead, they’re through. Take the old Dutch painters. Not even the best ones. Some small-time painter, not a great one, but known. Exclusive, like . . . like . . .

  —The Master of the Magdalene Legend, came from across the room, blurred against the window.

  —No chance of him not selling. Suppose some of his pictures, some of his unknown pictures, turned up here and there. They might turn up a little restored, like the kind of work you do. Look at that canvas in there, what is it? He did not look at the canvas inside the door of the studio where he motioned, but at the perspiring face that turned toward it.

  —Nothing. A canvas I prepared two or three years ago. I never . . .

  —Well just suppose, Recktall Brown went on, not allowing him to interrupt, —suppose you did some restoring on it. If you worked there for a while you might find an undiscovered picture there by Master what-ever-he-was. It might be worth ten thousand. It might be worth fifty. He got to his feet, and walked quietly toward the back turned on him. —Can you tell me you’ve never thought of this before?

  —Of course I have. They were suddenly face to face. —It would be a lot of work.

  —Work! Do you mind work? Recktall Brown reached out his two heavy hands, and took the arms before him. —Is there any objection you’ve made all this time, over all the work you have done, and can’t do, t
hat this doesn’t satisfy?

  —None, except . . .

  —Except what?

  —None.

  Recktall Brown let go of him, and took another cigar out of his pocket. His mouth seemed sized to hold it, as he unwrapped it, trimmed the end, and thrust it there. —The critics will be very happy about your decision.

  —The critics . . .

  —The critics! There’s nothing they want more than to discover old masters. The critics you can buy can help you. The ones you can’t are a lot of poor bastards who could never do anything themselves and spend their whole life getting back at the ones who can, unless he’s an old master who’s been dead five hundred years. They’re like a bunch of old maids playing stoop-tag in an asparagrus patch. His laughter poured in heavy smoke from his mouth and nostrils. Then he took off his glasses, looking into the perspiring face before him, and a strange thing happened. His eyes, which had all this time seemed to swim without focus behind the heavy lenses, shrank to sharp points of black, and like weapons suddenly unsheathed they penetrated instantly wherever he turned them.