The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —For what purpose, Fuller?

  —For wise counsel upon the problem I been rackin my understands some time now, sar. If a mahn try to lead the good Christian life, and he find his path vexed by what he consider evil, sar, . . . can he righteously and justly have a recourse to the bahd method to combat the adversary?

  Fuller waited eagerly. He even added —Sar? in encouragement. But his answer was simply, —Fuller, that is one of the oldest questions in the world.

  —Yes sar. So it seem to me very old when I contemplate it. So the answer got to be very old too, no question but have his answer, for if you have got no answer you have got no question.

  —Fuller, this is dialectics you’re getting into.

  —Yes sar, Fuller answered and withdrew a step. —These problems continue to vex me, sar, he went on. —Like the mermaids, sar.

  —Fuller, Fuller . . . keep your mermaids, if they please you.

  —Yes sar. But it remain complex, sar, for if they mermaid womans they got to be mermaid mahns too. For the first time the face which Fuller was, by now, staring directly at, turned to him with a smile.

  —I suppose you’re right, God knows, Fuller.

  —Yes sar. God keep Himself very well informed upon these subjecks.

  —Fuller . . . ?

  —Sar?

  —You . . . you’ve never seen a picture of God, have you Fuller?

  —No sar. If some artist paint His picture it become quite a hindrance to the faith, sar.

  —Yes, yes, Michelangelo tried it.

  —What appearance he give to Him, sar?

  —An old man.

  —Seem like the foreign people find a comfort makin these pictures . . . Fuller took a quick step back, and almost fell over the table, when the figure suddenly rose from the heavy chair. —I don’t mean to disturb you, sar, comin forward with my vexations when you sittin quiet and peaceable enjoyin you . . . refreshment. Fuller took a step toward him, in the middle of the room.

  —No, Fuller, it isn’t . . . damn it, if these were just your problems we could lock you up and forget you.

  —Yes sar, Fuller said, taking the step back. —That eventuality I preparin myself for daily.

  —No, no, I didn’t mean . . . I simply meant that . . . we all have the problems you ask about.

  —Yes sar, Fuller said, looking relieved. —It seem an impractical measure, to lock up the whole world.

  —Yes, but . . . you lock it out. You can lock it out.

  —Can you, sar? Fuller looked up at the face suddenly turned upon him. —Seem like such a measure serve no good purpose, sar. Then the mahn lose everything he suppose to keep, and keep everything he suppose to lose. Fuller stood still, a conscious stolidity, as though to offset the movement before him, the shoes stepping heedlessly upon the roses. —It seem a very general inclination to contemplate God as an old mahn until the mahn become old himself, he said to the moving figure.

  —I suppose it does, was all the answer Fuller got; nevertheless he went on, —Seem like the foreign people find a comfort makin these pictures.

  —And you find them unnecessary, do you?

  —If it give them comfort and sustain them . . .

  —No, but for you. For you.

  —No sar, it make itself an obstacle for me.

  —And you just believe God is there.

  Fuller answered, —We don’t see him, sar, but we got to believe he there. And Fuller made wild anxious motions with his white hands in the space between them, like someone waving farewell to a friend on a departing ship, a friend constantly obscured by the waving arms and figures of other people. —So the preacher say . . .

  —The preacher?

  —Sar?

  They were both silent. Fuller’s hands fumbled in the white gloves, at his sides, as though in caricature of the hands he was watching, opening and closing on nothing. —The preacher, sar, the Reverend Gilbert Sullivan, thahss the preacher whose meetin I attend upon occasion. Finally he become a hindrance too.

  —Reverend Gilbert Sullivan?

  —Yes sar. The Reverend Gilbert Sullivan a very highly trained preacher, but it seem like when he acquirin his high trainin he lose somewhere along the way the first thing he require to be a preacher to us. Fuller had pulled the white hands together behind him, and stood with his eyes lowered, as though finished. But then he looked up anxiously to add, —Not that I presume to make the judgment upon him . . .

  —But what requirement, Fuller? What requirement?

  —Why sar, requirin the Reverend Gilbert Sullivan to believe he the mahn for whom Jesus Christ died.

  —And you . . . you can believe that, Fuller? With no trouble, just that simply, you can believe it?

  —Oh no, sar. It remain a challenge to believe, always. Not so simple to accept, like the mermaids.

  —The mermaids . . . the mermaids . . .

  —Yes, sar.

  —And you can . . . accept the mermaids, without much difficulty?

  —Yes, sar, though they remain the complication of the mermaid mahns.

  —Yes, there does. There does.

  —But the mermaid womans . . .

  —Yes, the women . . . you can believe in the women . . .

  —Oh yes sar, Fuller said, and then after a pause, —Woman bring you into the world, you got to stick with her.

  —Wasn’t it woman brought evil into the world, then?

  —Sar?

  —Yes. When she picked the fruit from the forbidden tree; and gave it to the man to eat?

  —So the evil already there provided, and quite naturally she discover it.

  —Yes, yes, and she gave it to the man . . .

  —She share it with him, sar, said Fuller. —Thaht the reason why we love her.

  The black poodle, which had been biting its nails, raised its head, then got up and went toward the hall doorway. Fuller looked at the back turned toward him, silent. Then he straightened his lapels, and followed the dog.

  —Effluvium? Brown muttered, under his breath.

  Sweet Norah Winebisquit bedewed with sleep

  Swept down through sooted flues of chimney-sweep.

  And where? she cried, can be this sceptered rod

  That men call Recktall Brown, and I call god.

  Straight through a frosted glass-partitioned door

  They led her, and she doubted now no more.

  (The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she)

  Might no more question wherewithal of he:

  Dreadful he sat, bastioned in golden oak,

  The humanizing of some dirty joke

  The gods tell one another ere they stand

  To attend the last obscenity, called man.

  His wide sleeve covered the rest of this work on the clear mahogany surface where, their right hands extended but not touching, the thin yellow hand shifting nervously, his own couching the weight of the diamonds, Recktall Brown faced a wild-eyed youth with one arm in a sling, who said —I hope you do find it, I mean find a copy, I need it, if you don’t need it, I mean if you don’t think you can use it? . . . There was hope in that last.

  Brown raised his eyes from the poem, still muttering, the pools behind the lenses disturbed as he brought his attention up. —What are you asking me about a copy of it for? What makes you think you sent it to us? Ask the secretary.

  —But I sent copies to . . . I know I sent one here, your secretary . . . and your secretary isn’t here today, she . . .

  —We get things from agents, and send them back to agents. Ask your agent. Then Brown appeared to notice that the reddened eyes of this young man, who looked enough in keeping with that stereotype of disheveled insanity suddenly assembled so often associated with genius, eyes strained open to abnormal width, were fixed on the scrawled page protruding from under his sleeve. He pulled some papers toward him, partially covering it, to return to the day’s business correspondence. But the voice went on, the words coming out brokenly, —Yes sir, but, since I’m here . . . A ne
w intensity brought Brown’s eyes up again. —There’s one thing, something I want to know, if I could ask you what you thought, because some people have said, or I mean they’ve intimated, that they think I’ve . . . well that it really isn’t mine, that I’d used some other . . . that I’d . . . plagiarized it.

  —Plagiarized? Recktall Brown sat back. With a quick look over his desk, locating a manuscript, he pushed it forward with one hand and took off his glasses with the other. He fixed the figure across from him with his sharp eyes, and laughed. —Take a look at this, he said, as the quivering yellow fingers received it. —This is lifted. The whole God-damned novel is lifted. One of our readers spotted it the first thing. A lawyer went over it, and it’s safe. A couple of things changed around, it’s safe and it’s good, and it will sell.

  Wild Gousse Chase, Otto read on the title page.

  —So you picked up a few things here and there for yours, what the hell? What hasn’t been written before? You take something good, change it around a little and it’s still good.

  Otto was staring at Max’s name on the title page of Wild Gousse Chase.

  —You just take the words and string them around a little different, Brown went on, raising his glasses again.

  —But . . . but words, Otto murmured helplessly. He looked up. —Words, they have to have a meaning.

  —Let me give you some advice, boy, Brown said, standing. —Don’t you worry about that. It’s right when the idea’s missing, the word pops up. You can do anything with the same words. You just follow the books, don’t try to get a lot of smart ideas of your own. Brown pressed a button under his finger. There was belligerence and triumph in his voice; but it was belligerent solicitude as he finished, —It’s all right there, you just take it out and write it down as though Jesus Christ himself dictated it.

  —But this play, the retreating figure kept on, —it can’t be lost, I’m sure a copy came here, she . . . it isn’t plagiarized, I didn’t steal it, I wrote it myself . . .

  But Recktall Brown was seated again; and, when a secretary appeared, already returned to muttering over the rest of the open scrawl which his sleeve, drawn to him, had uncovered.

  Heaven’s crown, brown-bought, fell lightly on his brow,

  Lay heavy on her perspicacious Now.

  (Still on the dreadful teeth of time she trod,

  And marveled at the maleness of god.)

  Sweet Norah Winebisquit, bedewed with sleep,

  Awoke this decorated painted heap

  Of present woman: could she doubt her sin?

  Sought furiously for the flame within,

  Presented in a naked leaping cry

  The burning plunder of the present I.

  Pride drew her garments up, and swathed her face

  In lineaments incapable of disgrace.

  Slipped then away, her face bedewed with do,

  Beyond the glass, and knowing all, she knew

  That the immortals have their ashcans too.

  —Yes sir?

  —What is this thing? Where the hell did it come from? Brown demanded, waving the paper in the air. He held it out to her.

  —I don’t knew, sir. It was in your mail this morning, I thought it might be something . . . literary.

  —And him, how the hell did he get in here?

  —I’m sorry, sir. Miss Mims is away this week, and . . . She cleared her throat. —Mister Valentine to see you, sir, she said, retreating.

  —Friends? Otto heard as he came out. The tall man in gray pinstripe gave him barely a glance, from a face entirely empty whose eyes affirmed, clearly and immediately, that they did not know each other. —Of course, choose your friends with as much care as you choose your clothes, the man continued, speaking to someone no more than Otto’s age. —Infinite care at the outset . . .

  In the outside hall, the pencil scribbling Chse frnds lk clthes suddenly stopped: he had just seen Gordon, and he had no place to put him.

  Down below, Otto came out upon the street muttering imprecations of a general, pointless nature, until the wind hit him, and provided an object for his curses as it blew him along, mussing his hair from behind.

  —Did I hear you giving some future Menander advice? Basil Valentine asked, entering. —And did I hear the word, plagiary?

  Brown finished trimming a cigar before he answered, —You heard it. You can hear it again.

  —Again? Valentine had not sat down. He commenced to idle up and down the room. —How do you mean?

  —I mean I just saw an advance review of your art book, some half-ass critic takes it apart.

  Valentine paused, lighting a cigarette. He held the match before him, looking at the flame. Then he blew it out. —How do you mean, takes it apart?

  —He takes your own words out of it, and quotes them to . . .

  —Yes, to condemn me. I see what you mean, Valentine said coldly. —He does sound rather . . . half-assed, as you so graphically describe him.

  —Not only that . . .

  —My dear Brown, nothing amuses me more than that, exactly that, Valentine interrupted. —Why do you suppose I put them there? To give your . . . half-assed reviewer opportunity to expose his own total lack of resources, in what he considers an exemplary demonstration of his own cleverness. Can you imagine the satisfaction that gives someone who has never done anything himself? Our great half-assed priesthood, so to speak, he finished with asperity, turning on Brown, or rather the cloud of cigar smoke that rose between them.

  —Not only that, Brown went on with belligerent satisfaction as Valentine paced the floor away from his desk. —He says you plagiarized just about the whole thing, that you lifted . . .

  —Plagiarized! Valentine turned, and controlled his voice with a thin smile. —You make me feel like Vergil, when someone saw him carrying a copy of Ennius, and implied . . .

  —He says you lifted . . .

  —I’m simply plucking the pearls from Ennius’ dunghill, was Vergil’s answer.

  —If you think you can lift whole parts out of somebody else’s . . .

  —And now what? Valentine brought out quickly. —Making me out another . . . Chrysippus? Seven hundred five volumes, he went on, recovering the forced dilatory calm of his voice as he spoke. —But the work of others pleased him so, that one of his books contained a play of Euripides almost entire. The . . . drudgery of such a career would be appalling, he added in a mutter and turned away. Brown watched his nervous tread, and noticed a gesture familiar elsewhere: Valentine’s hands, opening and closing on nothing at his sides. At the far end of the office, Valentine stopped, looking over the array of books and magazines on the table there. The slow-rising clouds from Recktall Brown’s cigar seemed to accentuate the silence between them, and finally Valentine turned holding up a small stiff-covered magazine. —A symposium on religion! he read from the cover. —A rather old issue. I gather you’ve bought it?

  —Where’d you hear that?

  —The only possible reason you could have a copy lying around. You must be buying the whole thing.

  —It’s no secret, Brown said. —I picked it up for nothing.

  —It’s about time you breathed some life into it, I suppose, Valentine said, dropping the thing on a chair by his coat. —It’s become quite a dismal affair, a frightened little group who spend all their time criticizing each other’s attempts in terms of cosmic proportions, and then defend each other against the outside world. Even the fiction, the stories they write are about each other, they don’t know anyone else. A sort of diary of dead souls.

  —A bunch of second-hand Jews . . . Brown began, if only to interrupt.

  —I doubt the windows of their editorial offices have been opened in decades, Valentine went on, in a monotone whose only purpose was to establish its authority to continue. —If there are any. What future do you plan for these . . . critics?

  —Critics! Brown muttered. —They call themselves critics just because they never learned how to make a living. It’s got a lousy circ
ulation of about five thousand, but it’s got a reputation. Intellectual. I’m going to bring it around to where even a half-wit can feel intellectual reading it. The circulation will be twenty times what it is now.

  Valentine laughed quietly, walking away again; and only when his back was turned did Brown, shifting in his chair, show impatience. He seemed prepared to let Valentine go on, wasting time until whatever had brought him here, and strained his nervous presence now, broke forth.

  —Like that incredible book you published, what was it? Valentine went on, looking over the array on the table. —“Soul-searching” the reviewers called it. By some poor fellow who joined a notorious political group, behaved treasonably? And after satisfying that peculiar accumulation of guilt which he called his conscience by betraying everyone in sight, joined a respectable remnant of the Protestant church and settled down to pour out his . . .

  —It’s already sold half a million, Brown said patiently. —That’s what people want now, soul-searching.

  —Soul-searching! Valentine repeated. —People like that haven’t a soul to search. You might say they’re searching for one. The only ones they seem to find are in some maudlin confessional with the great glob of people they really consider far less intelligent than themselves, they call that humility. Stupid people in whom they pretend to find some beautiful quality these people know nothing about. That’s called charity. No, he said and shrugged impatiently, turning with his hands clasped behind him. —These people who hop about from one faith to another have no more to confess than that they have no faith in themselves.

  Brown watched him carefully through the thick lenses, ambling slowly with head lowered, a slim hand raised to the strong profile of his chin, to stop again at the table and flick open the cover of a book there. —In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madam, he read. —Really . . . “Selected and edited, with an introduction by . . .” yourself? All the world loves . . .

  —There’s no plagiary in that, Brown said. —Everybody who wrote something’s got his name on it.

  —You couldn’t have sold a single copy if it weren’t. But here, Esme? who the devil . . . ?

  —Who?