—Sar?
—What does Ds videt mean?
—Sar? breaks in upon him again.
—God sees . . . or is watching, Valentine murmurs with a sharp breath.
—Fuller?
—Sar a gentlemahn whom I do not recollect enter demandin me to open the bottles you keep so close with the blue ribbons upon them . . .
—That’s right, Fuller.
—Yes sar. Fuller stands before him, finally able to move his hands, which he takes one in the other, clasped before him, and with a wrenching motion turns his sagging figure away.
—Fuller!
—Sar? Fuller startles, with a flash of gold. Recktall Brown stands looking at him, the full of his lower lip moving as though behind it the tongue is searching for something on the face of the gum. And finally, —Stand up straight, Fuller, Brown said, and turned away.
M. Crémer was finishing a conversation as they approached. —Enfin, there is so little of fine art in the world, one should not question too closely . . . ? As said Coulanges . . . pictures are bullion.
Someone had turned the radio on; but there was still enough noise in the room to keep it unnoticed. Here and there, a few guests departed.
As they came up they were, in fact, again discussing the painting they had been shown privately a little earlier; discussing, that is, not the painting itself, but the face of the central figure, as though in that portion they had found a mutually satisfactory repository for peripheral doubts. —It is done with some taste, certainly, the R.A. mumbled.
—Taste! Crémer exclaimed, smiling at Brown and Basil Valentine to include them in the hind end, at any rate, of this conversation. —Taste is one thing, and the genius to create quite another. Eh? . . . He glanced up, and stopped at the expression on Valentine’s face which, whatever it might have been, was exaggerated by the swollen lip into one of extreme contempt.
And the white-haired man, who was not looking at Basil Valentine, took up agreeably, —Yes, when I was young, you know? I recall considering my work . . . as a sort of mmph . . . disciplined nostalgia for the things I umm . . . might have done. Eh? Yes. Yes . . . mmmph, he mumbled, looking down as Basil Valentine’s expression turned upon him. Then he went on to break what he would later describe as an “awkward silence” with, —That face in there, don’t you know . . . the face on the . . . ummph the figger in the van der Goes, the highlights round about the eyes, don’t you know. Won’t do, won’t do at all.
—Won’t do? Valentine demanded abruptly.
—Eh? Oh dear no, won’t do at all. Zinc white, don’t you know. Zinc white. I think you’ll come upon that when you make an analysis of the pigments, don’t you know.
—Zinc white?
—Oh dear, yes. An umm eighteenth-century color, don’t you know.
Then (after what Crémer would later describe as un silence de mort) the older man bumbled on with, —Odd sort of fellow you had in here earlier . . . eh! Damned odd, eh? Bit of a lunatic, you might say, eh? Prancing about with mmph two suits of clothes on him, eh? I mean, you know? Rather . . . mmph. Ever seen the fellow before?
—Oh yes . . . Basil Valentine came in, his voice very level, and even and cutting. He offered a cigarette from a packet of Virginia. —Mad, of course, as you say. He drinks, you know . . .
—Oh yes, drinks, eh? Ummph . . . shouldn’t be surprised.
—A morbid condition aggravated by drink, I suppose would be more to the point. He has all sorts of delusions about himself, Valentine went on, turning to Recktall Brown. —He’s been quite a problem for some time, hasn’t he.
—He wasn’t drunk just now, when he was in here, Brown answered looking up at each of them.
—He wasn’t eh? Oh dear, I shouldn’t like to run on him drunk then, eh? Ho ho, hmmph . . . Oh dear no. Can’t have that sort of thing.
—And if he comes back? Valentine’s tone rang with a summons.
—If he comes back . . . Recktall Brown commenced, looking down before him.
—One has the police? . . . Crémer said with a shrug. —Après tout, chargé de défendre . . .
—Shouldn’t hesitate a moment . . . mmph, calling them in. Might get about it right now. This sort of thing, don’t you know. Can’t have it, don’t you know.
Basil Valentine murmured something, smiling with the slight distortion his lip compelled, and started to turn away. Recktall Brown swung on him and demanded, —Where are you going?
—If you can spare me for a moment, Basil Valentine rasped, —I thought I might put some ice on this . . . swelling. And he touched the lip with a fingertip and left them.
—My, he’s a bit . . . mmph . . . rather touchy tonight. Eh? Mmhp . . . yes. We all are a bit . . . mmp . . . eh? I beg your pardon, miss. Eh?
—Is it true the British Museum has a toupee that George the Third had made for himself out of his mistresses’ . . .
—I daresay . . . mmp! What was that, young woman? Ghood heavens! Ghood heavens! . . . He towered over Miss Stein for a moment and then got by her, though from the disparity in their presences and the haste he made in his escape, he might have stepped over her. —Ghood heavens . . . eh? he addressed Crémer’s pinched back. —The damnedest . . . presumption. Mmmph . . . going upstairs are we, eh? Ummp. There’s a pretty thing. German, I should think. Eh? Polychrome wood, fifteenth century or so. Saint John Baptist, eh? Ummp. Shame he’s lost an arm here. Damn shame. He paused for a moment there on the landing, running a finger over the coarse-grained marrow of the break, and then followed the heels up the stairs before him muttering, —Eh? . . . The armor? good heavens, no one wants to look at armor . . .
Miss Stein returned to her companions to say, —Talk about how polite the English are supposed to be, he wouldn’t even answer me. Just the same, I should think a thing like that would scratch. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?
There was a clanking sound from above, but no one turned to the balcony to see that the headpiece had been lifted from the suit of armor up there. No one, that is, except the sharply bearded sharp-eyed man at the other end of the room who, despite his attentive conversation, had been watching the activity aloft since it had begun.
The bearded young art critic was speaking in French, managing it with such urbanity, indeed, that his little friend (the one cheered on earlier as resembling an oeuf-dur-mayonnaise) told him later, with demure awe, that he had not been able to understand a word of it; no marvel of ignominy, really, for the harassed Lyonnais who was listening could not understand a word of it either, and attempted, at aspirate intervals, to swing things in his own direction with commentaries in a series of grotesque syllables which might, in Lyons, have passed for English by default.
This impressive bout drew the attention of someone who believed himself to be talking to an Egyptologist named Kuvetli, and (perhaps it was the fluttering of the plump hands over there, and the impassive mien before him) became so familiar as to draw a simile upon mimicry among the butterflies, citing, for his thesis, —The female of Papilio cynorta, in the Uganda . . . while over his shoulder the Egyptologist sought a face he could not locate. Basil Valentine had, all this time, been holding a cloth-covered ice cube against his upper lip, raising it now and then to look at the chipped tooth inside, and staring at his image in the mirror of the medicine cabinet.
Someone banged on the door, as someone had been doing at impatient intervals for some time, a guest apparently unable to make the stairs for he had directed them above with some irritation at the second assault, and now he cried out, —All right, damn you. He dropped the cold pack into the sink, saw the swelling gone down somewhat, peeled up the lip for another look at the tooth and then drew it down firmly, catching his own eyes in the glass. And since the intimacies of catoptric communion were by now as strange to him as any others (he was always prepared for, and satisfied with what he saw in the glass, in those numerous but brief encounters when he hunched toward it, washing his hands, his face an established proposition, his mind busied elsewhere
with still mutable concerns), he stood now reflecting his face more absorbed than that most dubious mirror-gazer of our acquaintance; and it took another attack on the door to sunder Basil Valentine from this conspiracy of chin and eyes, the straight nose and high bones which were his face. He turned, adjusting himself behind, under the ventless jacket, and before, at the weighted waist, and came out, without a look in either direction until he’d arrived among people.
He took some brandy immediately, and managed to avoid a conversation on whether the names of soft drinks spelled across the sky were desecrations of the House of God; a man who said, —In dthis kenntre no ouonne toks ovv dthe ouor becose ovv krissmess? . . . and a young woman who said something about King George III which he hoped, vaguely, he had not understood aright, as he looked anxiously over the room.
—Et ce vieux moricaud . . . où se cache-t-il? . . .
—Because Mister Schmuck wants to have one made just like George the Third . . .
Valentine stopped beside a dark man who barely reached his shoulder, and before he’d noted the peaked sharkskin suit or the glazed eyes asked, —Where’s Brown? Have you seen Mister Brown?
—I fear you too are at the wrong party? Perhaps . . .
Basil Valentine moved quickly. He touched another elbow, —Have you seen Brown? Mister Brown? . . .
—Men den himmelske rustning . . . hey?
Then Valentine stopped short, staring more than half the length of the room at a stout fluttering figure, plucking the point of a black beard with one hand, disposing the other in riotous gestures on the air, and for all his apparent weight, moving with admirable agility upon his toes. —Good God! Good God no!
—Say, old man, where you been hiding, eh? . . . Missing all the fun, what?
—What?
—Jolly old rascal, isn’t he! sweating up there like a . . . mmp. Just came down for a bit more of this cognac, eh? Good heavens yes, have to keep up, don’t you know.
—Brown’s . . . up there?
Some of the guests were leaving, with over-shoulder looks of last-minute anticipation, —We’d hate to miss anything . . . Some had left. Some appeared rooted; and even those that continued to move did so with a buoyant vagueness, sustained on the flood of heat filling that vast room like a natural element. Thus Basil Valentine’s eyes, like those in the tapestry vacant, remained attached to the capering figure with the black beard beyond simply because it moved with such mimetic extravagance: a spell which he might break in an instant, as he well knew, by summoning his gaze to the right, near the Christmas tree, where a conversation on Cheops’ prophecies, or the improbability of a Fourth Dynasty mummy (—There were none, properly speaking, until the Eighteenth . . .) was most certainly taking place. So much for his unbroken gaze; for now, in like manner, he was aware of sounds from the balcony above, scraping sounds, and the slight shocks of metal against metal, an affliction momentarily worse to whose relief the habit of intervention threatened to betray him, but he stood firm, giving the R.A.’s voice the same glazed attention his eyes gave the cavorting beard beyond, waiting, glamorized, for the shock which would break the spell. Even then, lapsing voices allowed the radio to penetrate with what sounded like dissonant caterwauling, (The music was Ravel, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.)
—Is he up there, you say. Good heavens yes, with all his . . . mmmp. You’d think he wanted to climb into the thing, like that Don mmpht the Spanish fellow don’t you know. Nice enough thing of its kind, I spose, but I mmp . . . never been very partial to armor meself. And good heavens, eh? Hardly the sort of thing to be seen running about in these days, eh? atom bombs and all that sort of thing popping off everywhere, eh? Not much protection, I shouldn’t wonder, mmpht . . . like being roasted alive in a . . . I don’t know what, eh? I say, hev you gut any more of thet Virginia about you? Smoking my brand, don’t you know.
Basil Valentine’s hand alerted, and he took out the packet of cigarettes as he continued to stare down the room.
—Lot of odd ducks kicking about this evening, eh? Oh yes, yes, thnks vry much.
—The armor? Basil Valentine said in a low tone, listening.
—Eh? Oh yes, rather a nice suit of its kind, I daresay, Italian, round about the fifteenth century looked like to me. Odd little fellows, the Italians, eh? I mean to say, small stature, don’t you know, nothing Saxon about them at all, small-boned little fellows, fine Italian hand and all that sort of thing. Some of the more . . . mmmp less decorous guests up there egging him on. A regular carnival, don’t you know. Good heavens, I daresay they’d hev a devil of a time getting him into it, eh? He’s hardly a mmpt Renaissance figger, eh? The R.A. paused to light his cigarette, and then as though bound from having accepted it to the donor, who showed no inclination to move, he continued. —Not quite the . . . son métier, as that obnoxious little Frenchman says, eh? But then the French, eh? Good heavens. The French, don’t you know. Can’t do a thing with them. I mean to say, there’s nothing I’d want to do with them, except mmmp . . . never mind, eh? Hardly go about doing that sort of thing. Good heavens, no. Not these days. He paused again, and made a clucking sound with his lips before he raised his glass there. From above came a dull thumping sound, the heels of hands on metal, forcing it down, pounding among strictures of laughter, and Basil Valentine raised his fingertips to the vein in his temple.
—Why good heavens, you’d hardly get the mmph what-do-you-call-ems down over his shoulders, the pauldrons I mean to say, eh? Made for some skinny little Italian . . . mmpht horse-soldier, don’t you know. All bones, those little fellows, bones and sinews, you might say, eh? I daresay that’s why it’s such a delicate piece of craftsmanship, don’t you know . . . all of a piece, as Dryden puts it somewhere. Good heavens yes . . . but not this suit, not this suit. A shame, too, lovely thing like that, to be mmmh . . . it’s not my field, of course, so I’ve no right to interfere with my comments, eh? But good heavens, the feet, don’t you know, a bit incongruous, having German feet wouldn’t you say? I mean to say, that rather sort of delicate Italian line all the way down, and it ends up in a pair of German feet. Bear-paw type, don’t you know, great wide clumsy German sort of things. Not that I’m carrying any ax to grind with the Germans, good heavens no. Much healthier heving a neighbor you can break out and hev a bit of a war with now and then, eh? Settle your differences right out in the open, eh? Instead of putting up with the mmpht absurd posturing of the French year after year, eh? What’s the matter? . . .
Basil Valentine had startled suddenly, as the cigarette between his fingers burned down to meet the skin. He looked round at his interlocutor, as though fully aware of him there for the first time.
—Eh? You all right? I was just about to say . . . what the devil do you spose they’re doing up there? . . . The sounds of metal on metal had become more noticeable, an irregular and subdued clatter; still Basil Valentine did not move to go. —Eh? You don’t think that . . . good heavens no, why they couldn’t even get the mmph what-do-you-call-ems over his calves, over his ankles, don’t you know . . . the greaves I mean to say. Not my field, not my field at all. Though I did write a paper once, some occasion, what the devil was it . . . when I was studying, I suppose, eh? Some time ago, don’t you know, though one doesn’t just stop being a scholar, eh? like putting off Eton collars, eh? Good heavens no. Now that paper, what the devil was it . . . mmmpht. Oh yes yes yes . . . I was younger of course, it may sound a bit naive now, don’t you know, but it was a rather original bit of thinking, I was told so at the time, at any rate, rather fresh approach, don’t you know . . . but damn me if I can remember what it was . . .
And now, though very few faces turned to one side or the other, or up, to show they had noticed it, came the distraction of an even and metallic tread from above, and Basil Valentine turned his head slowly left, though he did not raise his face.
—Pfooo, the R.A. went over his glass, —yes, yes, here it is. The devil, wearing false calves, do you recall? Mephistopheles, don’t you know, in mfff
t that ponderous thing by Goethe. Good heavens yes, wearing false calves, don’t you know, to cover his cloven feet and his mphhht calves, yes. Well my thesis, don’t you see, was that these things weren’t simply a disguise, to fool people and all that sort of thing, but that some sort of mffft . . . aesthetic need you might say, some sort of nostalgia for beauty, don’t you see, he being a fallen angel and all that sort of thing, rather . . . unpleasantly different in his mphhht appearance from mphhht . . . The white-haired gentleman stopped, looking at Basil Valentine square for the first time and, apparently for the first time, realizing that Valentine was not listening to a word he said. —Mphhht . . . a long time ago all that, eh? There, that’s rather a nasty place you’ve got on your lip, eh? Going up like a balloon, eh? Good heavens . . .
Then, as Basil Valentine raised his hand to touch the broken swelling, his arm was pulled down.
—Ghood heavens! Ghood heavens! Ghood heavens! . . . D’you see? Here’s your lunatic come back again. Eh? Do you see him there by the foot of the stairs? . . . looks like he’s ready to . . . good heaven knows what . . . go up in flames, eh? Won’t do, won’t do at all . . . can’t hev this sort of thing, invading a private gathering, eh? A man’s home is his mphht what-d’you-call-it, don’t you know, eh? Popping in here from nowhere in that sort of a get-up, good heavens no, no reason at all to run around in two suits of clothing, none that I recall at this moment at any rate, don’t you mpphhht . . . I say, my dear fellow do be a bit more careful, you’re spilling your drink all over me . . .
The member of the Royal Academy stepped back, brushing cognac from his sleeve, and spilling what was in his own glass as he did so; and his immediate vicinity quieted somewhat, there under the balcony and round the foot of the stairs, as he stopped speaking. Then a number of people stopped talking, others to talk more loudly, some to turn their attention, and some their backs, on this diverting visitor who stood looking feverishly round, holding up a handful of charred wood, whispering, —Where is he? . . . where is he? . . .
The Recognitions Page 91