The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  Basil Valentine had stepped back. His finger remained at his lip, and he pressed it; suddenly aware of acute pain there, he pressed harder, and blood reached his tongue.

  —Brown!

  That end of the room silenced. Several people stepped away from the foot of the stairs, and the figure standing there, looking among them. Some of them looked up, to the shuffling sound of metal on metal. He saw them looking there, and turned himself; but there was nothing to see but the bend of the stairs, and the polychromed wood figure exposing the coarse-grained scar of the arm amputated in benediction.

  Out in the room, voices continued. Flames moved unhurriedly up over a black wild cherry log in the fireplace. Muffled caterwauling came from the radio.

  —Brown!

  The panoplied figure reached the landing in one fall, taking a long time, so it seemed afterward to those who saw it happen; and making a good deal less of noise than they might have expected, hitting head-on at the turn, attacked by shadows leaping to meet it, withdrawing as it dropped away from the wall and hung, for a moment when the whole room silenced and all the eyes were brought into one equation, the quick eyes stilled, and the still eyes of the wart hog, the face in the youthful portrait, the blind eyes of Valerian stretched on his rack and the all-seeing eyes of the pale underclothed figure in the middle of the low table, those and the eyes in the tapestry, turned in the other direction, alerted.

  —There, of course. I disagree with Dante, came on a voice from the far end, restoring the unconscious balance, rescuing what was alive from what was not; and enough voices to deliver one another from the isolation of separate identity took up and spread in a slow wave toward the broken weight poised on the edge of the landing, whose clinging shadows leaped away as it moved, and repeated their concerted attacks as it fell from one step to another, stifling it in their last embrace at the bottom.

  —Good heavens! . . . they’ve knocked the thing down the stairs, d’you see? Heavier than one might have thought, eh? The white-haired gentleman approached. —Good heavens, I . . . daresay . . . there’s someone in it.

  Behind him, Basil Valentine crossed himself quickly with the third finger of his right hand; then touched the bend of his forefinger to his lips as he approached.

  Clattering down the stairs in his grotesque shoes, which looked like they’d been built especially for participation in some sport, possibly one on snow, or in marshland, or some such sodden surface, that grimpen, perhaps, where is no secure foothold, came M. Crémer, to plant those remarkably equipped feet among the Aubusson roses, and hold forth the broad-bowed thick-lensed glasses which his host had left behind. He was talking at a great rate, and in his own tongue, so no one stopped him, and no one paid him any attention.

  Behind him, a tall unexaggerated man stood on the step holding a damp double-breasted suit coat; and there were others, crowding between this one and the polychrome amputee, as wide-open eyed, and as silent, a reticent concord which might have been mistaken for reverence but for the immoderate curiosity which had shone in the eyes of Saint John Baptist ever since he had first been put out in the weather some centuries before.

  Then the tall woman reached up to catch a naked earlobe, and cry, —Oh! . . . I’ve lost my baby’s breath . . . a line which did attract some attention.

  Resounding in the regions beyond the staircase, the crash had straightened Fuller up on his kitchen stool forthwith. It was a minute before he could get out, for the dog wanted to get out too. It commenced to trot up and down the room, nervously sensing something amiss with that intuition which Fuller knew all too well, and seeing it active now, became the more alarmed. As the dog scratched at the door leading to the hall and the great room, Fuller slipped out another, up the kitchen stairs to the second-floor halls, round to the balcony and out slowly to the front stairs, where he paused at the newel and looked back, abruptly aware of a vacancy. Then his eye caught the cigar, half-smoked and gone out but not before it had burned a long scar on the rosewood chest. He picked it up, licked his thumb and rubbed the burnt place but it did no good: and at that moment, from the corner of his eye he realized what was missing at the end of the balcony, and carrying the half-smoked cigar he got to the stairs and almost fell in his hurry to get down them.

  —Les pieds, voyez vous, les pieds de cette armure, il a trébuché vous savez . . . M. Crémer harangued his audience, so effectively that it grew moment by moment, as he waved the broad-bowed glasses in the air, and pointed with his other hand to the foot-pieces of the armor, —Et sans les lunettes alors . . . Les pieds? les pieds, voyez vous? des Boches, pas vrai? Voyez vous quelle gaucherie allemande . . .

  —Good heavens, said the R.A. somewhere in the shadows there under the balcony, —all well and good he tripped over his feet because they were German, don’t you know, but how did he get into the damned thing to begin with? eh? eh? he demanded of no one.

  Of all the figures gathered there beneath him, Fuller knew only two, meeting now over the headpiece where Basil Valentine knelt on one side to put forth a hand and withdraw it as quick, for the throat was covered with blood running from a corner of the mouth, though that was all of the face that could be seen, the throat, and the heavy chin, and a sagging corner of the small mouth. What had happened was, that in the fall one of the hooks which held the beaver in place had come undone; perhaps it was not fastened properly at the outset, or possibly it had not been fastened at all. And so the beaver of the helmet was knocked askew, and the visor above jammed even more tightly closed, as the figure still kneeling there when Valentine withdrew found out, trying desperately all of a sudden to get the thing open.

  Fuller stared at Basil Valentine, down on one knee, the hand he’d pulled back from the unbroken throat resting now on the taces, those plates meant to afford a loose protection round the thighs where they clung now full and rigidly distended. The breastplate and the backplate had not been drawn together, though they were as tight as they could be, their gaps bulging with mounds of white shirting and a split side of the blue vest from which somehow the penknife had escaped, and lay there on the floor at Valentine’s foot. And one of the greaves had come half off too, and the broad foot-piece with it, exposing a small foot splayed in a silk sock, where the wrinkled white line of the clock on the black silk ridiculed the thickness of the ankle it covered, and it was there that Basil Valentine thrust two fingertips, waited a moment, shifted them and thrust them harder, behind the tendon there, waited again and withdrew them to figure a cross quickly at his chest as he stood away, taking a step back which Fuller repeated on the landing above; though both of them now were watching the figure still kneeling at the head, and both of them were in retreat, Fuller clutching the half-smoked cigar, up the stairs, down the hall, and Valentine stepping backward, slowly at first, when he started to speak. Waving the charred fragments before him, he took a step over the head and stood above it.

  —Wait! Wait! he cried. —Wait!

  The sound of this voice again, and the sight of him, worked on them immediately. The pool around him emptied, and no sooner did it flood from the rest of the room than it emptied again, the fraud of what had seethed for so long there as undersea discovered as the stopper of the tank was pulled and they poured out in a continuous stream, while he stood over the broken hulk shouting them on, —Wait! Listen! Wait!

  Basil Valentine still clung in the shadows, watching him.

  —Like me to stick around for a bit, old man? Anything I can mphht do d’you spose, eh? Before the mmmp who-do-you-call-’ems come, eh? The R.A. stood at his elbow.

  M. Crémer, on the other hand, was suddenly in a great hurry, but found time to say, —Il faut que je parte, je viens de me rappeler d’une . . . heh heh assignation vous savez, mais le Memlinc, voyez vous, le Memlinc, je veux l’acheter vous savez . . .

  —Blasted little . . . mphht. Good heavens, eh? Probably willing to go as high as two and six at that . . .

  —A n’importe quel prix, vous savez . . . Crémer cast back
, being swept away now.

  —Good heavens! the R.A. said, still at Valentine’s elbow, —begins to sound like he might go to three shillings. I say, if there’s nothing more I can do here but confuse things, don’t you know, I mphht get on my way I spose . . . You seem to be in pretty close touch with this . . . mphht our host laid out here, eh? Ring me up tomorrow, let me know what hospital they stick him in, eh? There’s a good fellow. Like to send along some flowers, don’t you know. And that mppht van der Goes canvas in there . . . mphht like to mpht come to some terms, eh? Yes, well ghood night, eh? Ghood night . . . goo night, goo night, goo night . . .

  A number of people, in fact, suddenly recalled other engagements and hurried off to fill them. Though the tall woman, as she described it to her husband next morning, simply led him off “as meek as Moses”; the bearded young art reviewer paddled away on a crest of enchantment, already repeating the story to people who had not been here to enjoy it, squeezing the hot little hand folded deep in his own; and the sharkskinned Argentine, his black hair high in a dorsal fin cutting the spray around him, fled murmuring —I was not warned about this sort of thing in New York . . . turning his glassy eyes for a last look at the bold spectacle on the floor, thankful, at least, that he was not, like M. Crémer, being hindered from leaving by the figure looming over it.

  —Attention? eh? qu’est-ce que tu veux, alors! va donc . . . laisse moi passer . . .

  —Yes, yes, yes . . . Crémer, yes. Yes, damn you. De l’argent, vous savez, damn you, il faut toujours en avoir sur soi . . .

  —Eh bien, tu es fou, eh?

  —Now listen, listen . . . the tone changed abruptly, —you’ve got to listen to me . . .

  As the grip relaxed, Crémer wrenched away, brushing his neatly creased sleeve as he made for the door. There was some confusion at the large closet there, turned for this evening into a cloakroom; but M. Crémer emerged in short order wearing a voluminous camel’s hair coat, enough sizes too big for him so that he considered it a perfect fit, and a Hollywood label inside, as he discovered a block or so away.

  While here and there, inside the great room, eyes vaguely approaching the door were still caught by the eyes of the youthful portrait hung there, and turned away with such unconscious abruptness that they usually fled back to the broken thing on the floor for confirmation, and as quick there to avoid the half-face found refuge in the gauntleted hand flung out, its delicate lines palm up and open, and looked back to the portrait for denial.

  The squat procession passed by, the third-in-line murmuring with the subdued reverence of a tourist speaking of something quite other than the hideous sarcophagus which he pretends to his guide he’s come three thousand miles to see, —Tchikovsky you can almost take straight, but what can you do with Bach? . . . the second-in-line considering lighting, camera-angles, and the over-all general effect of the heavy figure in perfect grace despite its distension hurled down among roses, serving not contradiction but complement for the lighter one mounting over it, grown out of it and rising continuously in the tension of growth . . . distinct close-up possibilities there, the thin empty hand in a shape of its own ascending in wild emergency and the eyes the same . . . while their leader himself confirmed, —We oughda get ouda here . . . bad publicidy . . . And they advanced, suddenly remarkable for the fact that they all appeared a good half-head shorter than everyone else, except for the last of them, who, with a forehead, might have stood a half-head taller. They found the cloakroom and, considering their numbers, came out rather badly.

  The R.A., who had resolutely sought the exit down near the Christmas tree for reasons buried near three-quarters of a century in his, or Sir Walter Scott’s past (he had trouble distinguishing them), came forth over the empty field.

  —Here now, don’t you know!

  —No listen, listen . . . you’ve got to listen to me, you’ve got to . . . to . . . wait . . . wait . . .

  —Ghood heavens, my dear boy, I don’t hev to wait for ennathing . . . here here now, turn loose, eh? You can’t mphhht don’t you know, eh? What the devil do you think I am, a mphhht . . . ?

  —No wait, if you’ll listen, if you’ll . . . listen to me.

  —Here now, there’s a good fellow, turn loose, eh? And mphht stop waving thet dirty hendful of mphhht whatever-it-is in my face, don’t you know . . .

  —Listen . . . Wait . . .

  —Here now, my dear boy . . . The R.A. turned himself loose, but stood there a moment longer, —Nice hot bath, eh? Nice hot bath and a good night’s sleep, eh? Thet’ll straighten you up, eh? Ghood heavens yes, don’t you know . . . And he got off quite nimbly, and spent hardly a moment in the cloakroom, for his threadbare tweed coat was one of the few garments left, and he would never have considered making off with the trenchcoat which hung beside it. So he was quite quickly out on the street, in a swank neighborhood, he noticed, for there was nothing in the refuse bins but empty bottles, and the elegantly long white boxes of florists.

  The last stare Basil Valentine had matched, as he stepped back, one step, and another, startled him only because he had for so long been staring down the room at its counterpart the yellowed mimosa, and here his arm was taken in a tight hold, and —Come away, this is not a good place to stay now.

  Valentine pulled away. —You . . . go on, eh? Go on. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow.

  —But you . . . are too nervous now, you are not well, this is not a good time to leave you . . . alone?

  —Alone? Go on. You go on, will you? . . . After a pause, in which Basil Valentine’s face rehearsed every muscle the other restrained, he said, —What do you know about this? What do you know about . . . me? . . .

  —Perhaps as much as you know about me. Yes. And the gun, now. You have no reason for it?

  —Yes, I . . . leave it with me, I . . . I’ll be in touch with you in the morning. Basil Valentine turned away, into the dark hall, and into the bathroom, where he locked the door.

  He stood still on the tile floor, and he heard Fuller on the kitchen stairs. Then he went to the mirror, and stared at what he saw there. The swollen lip twitched, and he drew it into a smile. Then he raised a finger and pressed it, and looked into the eyes for as long as he could, and then to the soft shine of the gold signet ring. The weight at his waist was heavy as he thought what it was, and took the gun out and laid it on a hamper. Then he took off his jacket, and with a good deal of unfastening of buttons and buckles, and stretching of elastic, undid himself, and sat to a weak hypospadial stream. He stood, and saw bubbles on the surface he’d discolored, bubbles drawing into the features of a face. He flushed it, and swung on the mirror again, doing himself up (and that was the detail, the totally irrelevant detail, the floating face, which he remembered long afterward).

  From the closed kitchen came the whine of the dog as Valentine emerged; and from the great living room, broken strains of music, as he approached, and stopped in shadow, watching, and licking his lip, and, as the voice came, listening.

  —Yes, your daughters all were fair, and . . . your daughters all were fair, but the youngest . . . here, I didn’t know you had a radio here? music here?

  Basil Valentine first looked to the foot of the stairs, there saw nothing but the still caparisoned bulk. Then he saw the figure at the far wall, as still as everything else in the room, and his back turned on it, tuning the radio, stopping methodically along the stream that poured from it, bursts of brackish laughter, shreds of music, the human voice in aggressive counterfeit, lowered in counsel, raised in song, sincere in extolling absurdities, absurd parading devotion up and down the scale: a vapid tenor, widely known and loved, wound Silent Night round his throat, and strangled on it, into the brackish laughter again, and then from the north Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis emerged, commenced to fill the place, and was gone into jazz, When the Saints Go Marching In. He left it at that, turned his back on it and walked vaguely across the room, empty-handed now. —You and I . . . he said approaching the foot of the stairs, —You and I
. . . you were so damned familiar . . .

  There, he went down on one knee, and tried to open the visor again but gave that up after a moment, and raised his hand to look at the blood he’d got on it. Then he looked back at the figure before him, and said quietly, breathing sharp in what sounded like a laugh, —Il sangue? ti soffoca il sangue? O yes, ecco un artista . . . Good God . . . Then he looked the figure up and down, and went off balance toward the feet, where he seized the exposed ankle and worked his fingers there seeking a pulse. —Yes, there’s where they nailed the wren, there’s where they nailed up . . . He pulled himself back to his knees again, staring suddenly feverishly at the chin and throat, his weight resting in a hand on the breastplate, where he turned his eyes and pushed it with the heel of his hand and all the weight he could give it. It sank a little, and came up again, and he rested there until his eyes caught the penknife on the rug across, and he reached over to pick that up and open it as he stood. —Yes . . . what chance had you, when hierophants conspired? . . . Then he walked away. —Good God, he said, wandering off toward the pulpit bar opening and closing the penknife blade in his hands, and the music continued, —I willingly fastened a tail to my back, and drank what you gave me, but damn it, there . . . He stopped and poured brandy into a glass, and with it turned and looked around the room. Then he put the glass down again without raising it to his mouth and took three steps, gone for a minute beyond the pulpit bar and out of sight for Basil Valentine who stood where he had stopped, tingling the tip of his tongue on the broken tooth and aware of a warm dampness filling the crotch of his trousers. A full minute of this, and Valentine prepared to step out, but put a foot back instead of forward as the figure emerged again, tucking something in an inside pocket, and, it sounded like whistling a broken delayed alto to the music, which he broke off with, —Oh yes, “I’ll scratch you a bit till you see awry . . . But all that you see will seem fine and brave . . .”