The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —Gentlemen, I have a religion too, said the voice. —I’m a drunkard. Would you like to join my church?

  —But you, John said, bringing a hand up, and the wrist beside the lilies on the bar did not draw away from his touch, —you need a rest, don’t you. As his arm had come up, the sleeve drew back to expose the face of his wrist watch. —I have to hurry, but I wish . . . to tell the truth, when I saw you out there on the street I thought I recognized you and then I thought No, it can’t be, it’s an old man.

  —Gentlemen . . .

  —I have to hurry now, I have to make that train. Will you be all right?

  —Gentlemen, I have a religion too . . .

  —If you could come up to visit us, you and your wife? We could talk like we did when we were . . . because I’ve wondered about you, I’ve thought about you, I’ve wished you hadn’t changed your mind about . . .

  —Gentlemen . . .

  —Here, don’t forget your eggs. Will you be all right now?

  —Would you like to join my church?

  Down from the surface of earth led the steps of the subway, one creation beneath another: the earth upon water; the water upon rock; the rock on the back of the bull; the bull on the bed of sand; the sand on the fish; the fish upon a still suffocating wind; the wind on a vale of darkness; the darkness on a mist.

  And there beneath the mist? Jahennem, which consists of seven stages, one beneath another.

  —The story about the lady saint, do you remember. You told me about her. So precious little you have told me, Esme said, —so precious little . . . running her fingers down the edge of a drawn shade, her back turned on the basement room. The bare electric bulb in the center of the low ceiling cast her shadow before her on the shade; she moved her hand to follow the outline of that dark shape laid there upon the light. —The lady saint they followed in the convent, for she left behind her a sweet odor clinging to the flags. The odor of sanc-tity. That is what you told me, she said turning to where her profile became almost apparent in the shadow. —What are you doing? What are you doing now?

  Air never came through the room; but now, behind her a fresh new smell penetrated the weight of the others which had filled the air so long, resting there on the heavy smell of boiled stand oil risen from what looked like a pot of honey, to support the scent of lavender which was even now being driven away by something more fresh and pungent. —This color, he murmured.

  —What color? She came across the room quickly to look into the pan where Venice turpentine was being heated with verdigris.

  —The green, the green forming here.

  —It is beautiful green. Beautiful green from a long time ago, before us. And before my mother, but it is not the blue. How quiet it is for now, she went on. —What was her name? She watched him take the pan from the hot coil to the table beside the empty easel, off near another wall where canvases were stacked, some unprepared, and some begun; behind them, two panels of thin aging oak; and then the mirrors. —And everything she touched held the delicious odor of sanctity days after she had touched it. What was her name? Esme sat on a stool in front of the fireplace, her chin in her hand, watching him. He seldom talked to her; she sat now where she had sat silent times she could not number while he studied her in the strong artificial light, not (he once explained) to find what was there, but to find what he could put there, and take away: for at first, wanting to hide her face, fearing close scrutiny, she had behaved as though someone from outside might discover something in her she did not know about herself, so unprepared was she to conceal or defend it. But the paintings done of her not to be of her at all, she found; and sat now, watching his lips move silently, and hers moved silently. Not to be of her at all, —but my bones and my shadows those of someone so long since dead, dead if she ever lived at all. Esme abandoned this exhibit of herself entirely, permitting what she showed to be indeed a counterfeit creature: the things she wore were nothing Esme would ever have worn: here half in profile, the blue cloth of velvet broken over her shoulder and across her breasts, and her hair drawn straightly down, she was safe away, her uninhabited face left in austere perfection, for him to search with clinical coldness, —but not to discover me here; rather academic disinterest, technical intensity, —not the eyes of a lover.

  —Saint Catherine de Ricci, he said aloud, speaking the words of the pattern his lips had rehearsed. —A Dominicaness. She was a stig-matist, he added in a murmur.

  —A stig-ma-tist? Saint Catherine de Ricci, a stig-matist.

  Littered about the room were details of paintings, magnified reproductions of details from Bouts, van der Weyden, van der Goes; and some photographs of such high magnification that few experts could have told whose work they represented, details of brushwork.

  —You did not tell me where those old flowers came from. You cannot paint them. They are almost dead. But I like the vase you brought. It is a very lovely vase.

  —You . . . you may have it, he said quickly. —Yes, when I’m done with it, you may have it if you like. He stood beside the end-table whose top served as a palette.

  —And the flowers too. Yes, and the flowers, too?

  —Then they will be dead.

  —Yes, they will. Where did you find them? How?

  —A man sold them. A man in a hurry to be given a dollar. A policeman’s coming, he says to me. A cop’s coming.

  —Is it against the law, then, to sell lilies? She waited. She looked up from them to him. He had only murmured, answering, busy over the table. She looked back down at them. —They are the flower of pur-i-ty, she said.

  He stopped and looked up. —Lilies in India, he said clearly. —Great heart-shaped leaves on a fourteen-foot stem, and a dozen white flowers stained with purple . . . He broke off, and returned to what he was doing.

  —Why did you go to In-dia?

  —No. No, I didn’t.

  —And the lilies there?

  —I remember them, he said, not looking up.

  —I know, like I remember Baby and I were baked in a pie. And sometimes I try to write a poem and I cannot; and so I write down something I remember. It is the same feeling. I wrote down the poem about Baby and I were baked in a pie and some silly boy thought it was my po-em! Then she said, —I dreamt about you. She paused. —I dreamt you came to visit me. But when you knocked on the door, I opened the door and there was no one there. No one was there.

  He was grinding something in a mortar. He did not stop.

  —But I dreamt about you again. That was a terrible dream and I will tell you about it now because the mirrors are put away. Do not put them up again.

  —Why not? He glanced up, because even across the room her shudder came, and the braying pestle stopped.

  —Because they have terrible memories. There you were, as you are when you paint. With a long piece of rough brown cloth draped round your shoulders like you were, holding a stick that was the long handle of a spade, and unshaved too on your face, leaping from one mirror to another which held you whenever you stopped to fix it in the paint, flesh drawn over the hard bones, fixing only something lost and curious to be found again, staring out four times from the paint, reflecting itself in age and emptiness, so curious to be rescued each time you stopped. That big mirror was almost behind you, you kept looking over your shoulder like you do, pursuing yourself there, and then it caught you, you were caught in the mirror. And I could not help you out. Could that happen? Could that happen? I could not help you out.

  He put down the mortar, and the pestle into it, and raised his hand to his eye, and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand.

  —Could that happen? she whispered.

  The easel, erect between them, was empty. He looked beyond it to her and said, —Why have you put that . . . that blue thing on you now?

  —So you may work, she said. —So that I am the lady in the picture.

  —But I . . . I’m not working now, not on that. No, isn’t it finished? Isn’t it finished? he said suddenly, loudly
. He went to the wall, and moved two books on the floor with his foot, to turn the large surface of the painting out. —Yes, yes. Yes it is, I thought it was. Good God, I thought it was. He brought it out and leaned it on the floor against the easel. —Now I . . . I have to work on it now. But it’s finished. He looked up to her. —I . . . I didn’t notice that you’d . . . that you thought you were going to sit tonight. Yes, yes, that’s why 1 was surprised when you came. When you came I thought, maybe it wasn’t finished.

  —Then I am not to be the lady in the painting any more? The blue cloth slipped from her shoulder, taking the strap of her slip with it. She drew it back slowly. —And then I must . . . dress like they are now.

  —You . . . you . . . what you like, he said turning away, to look for a knife on the table.

  —To play you the lute, she said, getting down all of a sudden, —like you said they did for him. In the convent where he came, they tried to soothe and comfort him, playing the lute, she said gently, standing near to him. He looked up. —You told me, she said, gently, as though defending herself against the eyes he turned upon her.

  —And did it help, their damned lute? And did it help?

  —You told me, it did not, she said. She took three steps past him. —You don’t need me then?

  —I don’t need you.

  —Shall I go away?

  He did not answer.

  —Shall I go away?

  Then he said, —Is there someone there, waiting?

  —If there is no one there, and there is no one here?

  He said nothing; but stood before the painting with a sketch of it in one hand, a sketch on which large blemishes were indicated.

  She picked a book up from the floor. —I could read to you, she said. His lips parted, but he did not speak. He tapped his thumb on the knife blade. She sat on the edge of the low bed, running her fingertips over the print on the page. Then she commenced, —In den alten Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat, lebte ein König, dessen Töchter waren alle schön, aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber, die doch so vieles gesehen hat, sich verwunderte, so oft sie ihr ins Gesicht schien. She looked up, smiling.

  —But you read it beautifully. I . . . I didn’t know you could.

  —Nor did I, she said.

  —Where did you learn it, to read German?

  —Just now, she answered.

  —You don’t understand it?

  —Not the words, she answered. —It is very beautiful.

  —I learned in this book, he said, taking it from her, and he stared at the cover. —Die Brüder Grimm . . . He handed it back. —Shall I tell you what they mean, the words?

  She smiled to him, in answer.

  —“In olden times, when wishes still availed, there lived a king, whose daughters all were fair, but the youngest was so fair . . .”

  Her lips followed his voice from the page, —aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber . . .

  —“That the sun itself . . .” He stood over her, looking down at her shoulder, and he stopped. —Wait, he said. —Have you . . . have you got . . . you don’t have to go now?

  —No, she said looking up, her eyes widely open. —I’m here.

  —Will you sit up there for a minute? He gestured to the far stool, and went to the wall where he pulled one canvas after another aside.

  She sat, her head half turned; and her face emptied of the curiosity and life of an instant before. If anything of life was left, it was a vague look of yearning, but that without expectation. All that moved in the room were his eyes, and his arm, touching with a pencil at the monochrome on the soiled surface of the gesso, pausing, rubbing the lines away with his thumb.

  Suddenly she turned. —What’s that?

  —Be quiet. What?

  —That. You were working on a piece of wood, and here is a piece of canvas.

  —Linen, he said. —Be quiet. Turn your head back. Where it was. Where it was, damn it.

  —When?

  —There. Yes, yes, he said in a hoarse whisper. She was silent, beyond the outlines which she fitted perfectly enough to have cast them there in a quick reflection done without intent, without knowing. Some time passed. With each motion of his hand the form under it assumed a reality to exclude them both, to empty their words of content if they spoke, or, breathing, their breath of that transitory detail of living measured to one end; but left them, his motions only affirmations of this presence which projected her there in a form it imposed, in lines it dictated and colors it assumed, and the accidents of flesh which it disdained.

  —Draw the cloth up, he said. —There, draw it up there. Just that part.

  She turned, as quickly as a thing is dropped, and broken. His eyes were fixed part closed as though looking into a strong light. —A part every day, she cried, laughing, for his arm had stopped moving. —That’s the way you wash when you have no tub, you wash a part every day, Monday is for the feet, Tuesday is knees day, Wednesday is thighs day . . . She stopped speaking, and hid her face away from him in embarrassment. He had not been looking at her arm or shoulder, or the line of the bone around her eye, not just a part but at her.

  —Thursday? he asked, smiling, from the stool where he sat.

  She got up, shedding the length of blue cloth to the dirty floor between them. She came and stood over him. She stood with a hand on his shoulder, gripping him there, bending over him, and her small breast spilled toward him, breaking its shape easily.

  —It’s my picture! You’re making a picture of me!

  —Do you think so? he asked quietly.

  —Why does it look so old? A picture of me that looks so old.

  —It’s a study. The next picture, the next . . . painting I’m going to do, this . . . little . . .

  —You . . .

  —I . . .

  She had both arms around his shoulders; and the breath denied by the form before them came the more quickly. He straightened up and stood, straightened her to her feet and turned away from her. —That’s all, he said. —We’ll stop for today, very much the way he always said it. He took the soiled thing down from the easel. —I have to work on this, he said, approaching the large finished painting which stood on the floor almost between them. —Can you help me lift it up.

  She stood staring at him, as though to stop his motions with the seizure of her eyes.

  —Esme?

  She lifted the other end of the thing, and they raised it. He picked up the knife again.

  Kinder- und Hausmärchen lay at her feet, one of half a dozen books in the place. —How beautiful she is, no longer me, Esme said, looking at the prolonged figure in the painting, —for she is dead.

  Over the emphatic drawing and the underpainting, translucent colors were fixed in intimate detail upon the established forms, colors added separately, unmixed on the palette, layer upon layer, constructed from within as necessity disposed these faces emptied in this perfect moment of the transient violence of life.

  Round the closed eyes of the Virgin, where she looked now, the highlights were not opaque colors on the surface, but from the light underpainting tinted with ultramarine.

  —Dead before death was defamed, she said, —as it is by those who die around us now, dying absurdly, for no reason, in embarrassment that the secret, the dirty secret kept so long, is being exposed, and they cannot help it, cannot hide it longer, nor pretend as they have spent their life in doing, that it does not exist. Yes, the blue, the beautiful blue of Her mantle there. How abashed they are to leave us, making up excuses and apologies with every last breath, so ashamed are we to die alone. How shocking it will be to see the day come again, out where they are, where the law does not permit him to sell lilies.

  She moved away, to pull on a dress, and a coat, and treading on the length of blue cloth she approached him again from behind, where he stood in the strong light with the knife, and raised it to the face laid with closed eyes near the top of the composition.

  —Before deat
h was dishonored, she said, watching his hand move, —as you are dishonoring it now.

  He continued to work. For some minutes there was no sound but the scratching of his blade. Then he turned round, raising his eyebrows in a mild surprise at the empty room, drawing his nostrils at the delicate scent which had returned and remained (for the brief pungence of the Venice turpentine had penetrated and was gone), as affirmative of recognition as the sight of blood, as the blood gushing on every Friday from the stigmata of Francesca de Serrone, blood with the odor of violets.

  On the door, locked and bolted, she pinned a sign: Do Not Disturb Me I Am Working Esme. What worse thing could have happened, than had happened that morning. She had hidden the needle, the good silver (No. 22) needle with the glass syringe, in the black metal box on the wall over the sink. Who would think of looking there? Who, but a man in uniform. He entered carrying a flashlight, to walk past her and open the black box there on the wall over the sink without hesitating. He turned his light into the box, wrote something on a pad, then took the needle out and handed it to her. —You shouldn’t put things in here, ma’am. It’s liable to interfere with the meter. He saluted her hand-to-cap and went away.

  She sat with a piece of white paper before her, the penholder’s end in her mouth like a child told to write a letter home, being watched writing it, the letter to be read by her familiar jailer before it is mailed home. Over the paper she followed the course of an ant, pursuing its frantic flight with the scrupulously cruel point of the pen, leaving behind a trail of black crossing and recrossing until the ant escaped to the rust-colored arm of her chair.

  How were they all so certain? calling her “Esme”: they knew she was Esme when she did not know, who she was or who Esme, if both were the same, every moment, when they were there, or when she was alone, both she. But she could not deny that they were right, for who would be making that denial? and if who could not be no one, it must be Esme. She thought now of undressing; and the thought was too much to bear, to undress alone, and stand there naked alone; with nothing, even shadows in this bare room, to cover her.