The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —Oh no, I’m . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, I hope I didn’t disturb you but I . . . I didn’t see you.

  —That’s all right, chum. I been listening to you for a long time now, I’m used to it. Have a swat at this? A bottle appeared, from under the pillow.

  —Oh no, no thank you, no but listen . . .

  —Play cards?

  —No but listen, what do you mean you’ve been listening to me for a long time?

  —Right up until you were excommunicated, since then you been real quiet, you know?

  —Since I was what?

  —You got excommunicated, right up at the high altar with a bishop and twelve priests, don’t you remember? It sounded pretty swell, all of them carrying lighted candles and talking Latin, you know? And then they all shouted Fiat! Fiat! Fiat! and threw their candles down. And then she gave you a shot.

  —Who? Stanley asked helplessly.

  —That squarehead. She’s got a nice ass, hasn’t she.

  The woman in white was approaching again from the far end, carrying some linen. She stopped to put the tray in front of the man two beds away, and smiled threateningly at Stanley, who sank back.

  —It sounds like you were in trouble with some dame, said his neighbor, trying the mashed potatoes with his finger. —Just tell me one thing, will you? Who the hell is Saint Mary of Egypt?

  —Why she . . . that’s when I came down and found her in front of the mirror making up her face with make-up and lipstick and everything, and black around her eyes, and she had those streaks on her face, from the poison, I mean that’s what she said, from the poison the black androgyne, I mean that’s what she called Father Martin, the poison Father Martin put on him and it came off on her but only on her face. Because she said, See? and pulled up her dress to show me her . . . to show there weren’t any marks on her . . . anywhere else on her body.

  —You mean on her snatch?

  —I mean then she said, This was covered when she lay with him, for he was poisoned here and so he died, but she shall not. That’s what she said and then she said we’re going to the Holy Land and she’s going to be Saint Mary of Egypt going to the Holy Land on the boat.

  His neighbor looked at him a moment longer, and then started to eat, saying —Thanks, through the first mouthful. —That clears up everything.

  —And talking . . . Stanley mumbled, looking down with a fixed stare, —about the beast with two backs, he mumbled to himself, —about . . . making the beast with two backs.

  It was quiet for a minute, except for the sounds of his neighbor’s eating, and the distant radio playing something Italian. Then the blond woman loomed over him, and Stanley jumped as though she were going to strike him.

  —Now you just lie back and try to get some rest, sonny boy. Don’t try and remember everything.

  —But I do, Stanley whispered desperately, —I remember, I . . . because all that time I repeated the Angelic Salutation and then I repeated the Apostles’ Creed, and those beads were rolling all over the floor and the . . . the crucifix was . . . I couldn’t hold it because . . . and then Father Martin came, you can ask him, he came in, that fat woman must have sent him because he came in and he put a hand on me and said something, and she was laughing. And I said thank God you’ve come Father she needs you and he just looked at me and she kept laughing. She called him a funny old hermaphro-ditic and asked him if he could relieve a possessed camel like Saint Hilarion did once. And then he held up his crucifix and she changed all of a sudden and said, Take him away he’s hurting her, and she spat at him. But he kept looking at me, and he had his hand on me and I said, Do something for her, Father, I kept saying that, but he didn’t pay any attention to her. He sprinkled some plain water around and nothing happened and then he sprinkled some holy water around and she started to cry then and she said her shoulder hurt her.

  Stanley shivered, and stopped speaking. The woman in white had turned away, and was walking with a firm silent tread toward the other end of the place, down the aisle of beds. The man two beds away spilled the last forkful of his lunch in his lap, and swore.

  —And then when I confessed, all the time I was kneeling, she kept . . .

  —You better have a swat at this, said the other man, getting the bottle out again. He took a long swat himself, and offered it.

  —No, because listen . . . Stanley commenced again.

  —How about a hand of casino?

  Stanley sat in the bed with his knees drawn up, and he let his head fall forward on them. He swallowed, and started to talk again, more rapidly, less loud and, with his head like that, less coherent, —Because when he said, “I exorcise thee, Stanley, being weak but reborn in Holy Baptism, by the living God, by the true God, by God Who redeemed thee with His Precious Blood, that thou mayest be exorcised, that all the illusions and wickedness of the devil’s deceits may depart and flee from thee together with every unclean spirit, adjured by Him Who will come to judge both the quick and the dead, and who will purge the earth with fire. Amen. Let us pray . . .” when he said that she just looked at him and I could see her there, and she looked . . . she looked . . .

  The blond woman had returned with a small tray full of bottles and syringes. She stopped at the other bed to clean the mashed potatoes off the counterpane, and the man slid a hand round her waist and ran it up and down her starched thigh. As she bent over him he blew into her ear.

  —“to bestow Thy grace upon Thy servant who suffereth from a weakness in the limbs of his body,” Stanley mumbled on, —“that whatever is corrupt by earthly frailty, whatever is made violate by the deceit of the devil, may find redemption in the unity of the body of the Church. Have mercy, O Lord, on his groaning, have mercy upon his tears . . .”

  —In a minute, said the woman at the next bed, pulling away with a giggle and a snap of elastic.

  —You see? I remember all of it, even all the words, Stanley burst out, as the woman in white put the small tray down on his night table and pulled one of his arms out straight. —And then . . . because then the streaks, those red streaks she had on her, it seemed like they were leaving her face, like they just sort of disappeared and she was as white as . . . as this, and then he said, “Therefore, accursed devil, hear thy doom, and give honor to the true and living God, give honor to the Lord Jesus Christ, that thou depart with thy works from this servant whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath redeemed with His Precious Blood. Let us pray . . .” and she . . . she’d started to talk too, and she was crying too, and she said, She will be a nun and sweat blood too, and sweat blood like Blessed Catherine Racconigi, and like Saint Veronica Giuliani and like Saint Lutgarde of Tongres, yes and like Blessed Stefana Quinzani on every Friday the sweat of blood, and conceal the Four Wounds, and hide the Crown of Thorns under her veil like that Poor Clare of Rovereto . . . Owwwoww! . . . Stanley screamed.

  —Jesus Christ, chum . . .

  —Now hold still, sonny boy, this doesn’t hurt, just a little needle.

  —But you . . . but you . . . no, listen! No! No, because I’m . . . don’t! He cowered back at the head of the bed, away from her. The sun no longer danced off the ceiling and down the wall, but it shone in a steady weakening light of its own, no longer reflected off the water, but shining in through a porthole upon a heavy glass ashtray on another table, where he stared. The corner of the ashtray caught the sunlight and broke it into colors which changed slowly before his eyes, red, to green, to violet, to green, as the ship rocked gently. —Listen! . . . Stanley whispered hoarsely, drawn up rigid against the bars of the bed, the tendons in his neck standing out, —Listen . . .

  There were distant voices, indistinct, broken by shouts from closer by, and sounds totally unfamiliar by this time, all sustained on the throbs of a dull pulsation, which went on, and had been going on all this time like the beat of another heart, but not his own.

  —Listen . . . he repeated weakly. Then he appeared to fall off the end of the bed; but he was up, and with energy not his own, so far as h
e knew, for he knew his heart had stopped, he got to the door and pulled it open. What he saw stopped him. He staggered, and fell in two or three steps toward the rail where he caught himself.

  He stared at the static landscape. It would not move, and he could not accept it that way, not moving, and so crowded. Here and there fragments moved sharply and separate, small boats offside, and people on the dock, cars moving slowly but steady against the hard land, and everything separate; even the noises rose with the discordance of differences, whistles and sharp cries, bells and motorcars breaking their edges against one another.

  —Where are we? he said, as the woman in white caught him there at the rail.

  —Naples, but you . . .

  —But Naples, I have to get off, I have to get off here, I have to get off at Naples, tell them . . . wait . . .

  —All right, sonny boy, you come back in to bed, we’ll stop at Livorno and Genoa, and you can . . .

  —Wait wait wait look look there she is, there she is, don’t you see her? Look don’t you see her?

  He twisted out of the grip on his shoulder and almost went over the rail, pointing to the figures on the dock below. —Look don’t you see her? . . . there she is, don’t you see her? . . . with that man, don’t you see her with that man, with that man in the black hat and the black coat and the . . . with the sling, don’t you see them? Don’t you see her? Wait! Wait! Wait! he cried, over the rail. —Wait . . . wait for me! . . .

  The woman caught him by both shoulders, and dragged him back on his heels, back from that sudden landscape so crowded with detail. The ship’s whistle shivered every fixture aboard. Stanley was heaving helplessly when she got him back inside. His eyes were closed, but he kept mumbling, —Now wait . . . now wait . . . now wait . . . as she filled the syringe again and thrust the point of the needle into his arm.

  He lay shivering in the dim light, the sheet drawn perfectly straight across his shoulder, trying to speak but even as his lips moved, he could not make a sound. In his staring eyes, the image of the woman in white came up the aisle between the beds, carrying a screen, up the aisle. His lips formed, Now wait, not this bed, any other bed but not this bed, now wait . . . But he could not make a sound. He choked on a scream, Not this bed . . . but he could not make a sound. He felt for his pocket, but he had no pocket. He found his left wrist with his right hand, and all he felt was the naked wrist.

  —Not here . . . not this bed . . . not yet . . . he whispered; and the screen stopped there two beds away, and came open.

  Stanley listened: he thought he could hear the beads rolling on the floor; mounting, pausing, rolling back. —Pater noster, he whispered as they rolled, —qui es in coelis . . . His tongue found the hollow on his gum. —Qui tollis peccata mundi . . . no I mean qui . . . qui . . . who . . .

  He coughed, and tried to say, Wait! . . . but found he was throwing up, and put his head over the side of the bed. Then he put a foot out, and it touched the cold floor. The sound of the engines rose, and with that his heart took up beating heavily, and he caught his breath and was able to breathe. Both feet on the cold steel floor, he steadied himself with a hand on his night table and tried to whisper Wait . . . but he heard, —What? . . . what am I . . . doing here? all I have . . . all I have lost . . . He was dizzy, standing.

  The ship bumped, and shook. He held to the foot of the bed, and held the more tightly when the whistle sundered the only sounds he had, and failed, coming back from the harbor in fragments to augment them: the steady energumenical force of the engines, filling his heart to a shape rising from his chest to burst the bounds of his throat, and the squeaking, squeaking, squeaking behind the screen. That sound had begun unevenly, and then stopped, and commenced again with the regular mounting thrust and withdrawal of the engines and of his heart, faster, all of them as he came closer to the shadowless screen and behind it a moan, and gasps, the wary and then attacking steps and panting of the beast he approached silently, whispering unheard, —Wait . . . don’t . . . don’t . . . leave me alone.

  It was nearly dark. The whistle sounded again, halting everything. Even the reversed engines stopped; then there was a consummate pause, and the engines, and his heart, took up slowly, as the starboard side rose, and he took another step forward. He had seen Naples.

  V

  Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered. It is well.

  —II Kings 4:26

  Day did not dawn. The night withdrew to expose it evenly pallid from one end to the other as a treated corpse, where the hair, grown on unaware of the futility of its adornment, the moment of the brown spot past, is shaved away like those early hours stubbled into being and were gone, and the day laid out, shreds of its first reluctance to appear still blown across its face where dark was no longer privation of light but the other way round as good, exposed passive and foolish at the lifting of chaos, is the absence of evil. The day existed sunless, its light without apparent source, its passage without continuity, not following as life does but co-existent with itself, and getting through it was to blunder upon its familiar features, its ribs and hollows, impotent parts and still extensions, with neither surprise, nor hope, like the blind man identifying with a memory-sensitized hand the body of a familiar in what they had both called life.

  The sound of the bells sank on the air and was gone, while the clouds in shreds of dirty gray, threatening like evil recalled and assembled hurriedly, blew low over the town clinging for refuge to the embattled walls of the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Otra Vez.

  In the muddy plaza open beneath the wide porch of the monastery church, whose gothic façade and unfurnished rose window overlooked it, the village fountain spouted, and women with stone and copper jugs came to fill them. Their voices rose on hard sounds whose delicate edges went quickly to pieces and the words were lost, recovered and composed in that gentle mitigation, —Adiós . . . and gone on the soft monotonous confirmation until it was repeated, and every minute repeated, —dios . . . an expression of sound so much a part of that harsh chill and gray tranquillity that only lacking would it have been remarkable.

  With the church doors unlocked, the porter stood a full minute on the wide stone porch, tapping the keys which he’d got strung to one end of a stick, most of them the length of his hand, and he was a big man, with long hands. He was old, and his face was scarred with memories of a disease half a century gone, a heavy face broken by ridges like the land before him where walls were built everywhere to clear small spaces of the stones. He wore a black cloth jacket closed with a single button at his throat, and after standing a full minute looking on the muddy plaza, he turned his bare head back to the walls of the monastery, and disappeared from view.

  At that, the figure watching from above turned from the window, was gone the time it took to pace the length of the room and back, and then stood there again, staring down at the muddy plaza. There was a narrow balcony before him, and the window itself was set in the façade of the church, though it was a guest room. He raised his eyes, over the roofs of the town, and fixed his vacant stare on the cloud-steeped mountains. He was a comfortable man of middle age, dressed in an expensive suit of Irish thorn-proof, the last two buttons of the vest undone, or rather, never done up at all, in token of the casual assurance he afforded himself as a novelist successful enough to be referred to by his publishers as distinguished. At this moment he wore an expression of intent vacancy, his face that of a man having, or about to have, or at the very least sincerely trying to provoke, a religious experience: so it appeared to him, at any rate, when he passed the mirror and confirmed it.

  He stood now, staring down at a boy poised on the balustrade of the church porch below, a boy big enough for the Boy Scouts, constricting his person to see how long a stream he could send out into the muddy plaza, where a sow and three pigs were passing in a dignified procession of domesticity. The distinguished novelist stare
d, to see, he was bound to admit to himself afterward, if the stream would reach, when a bird flew up against the glass square before his face, and continued to flutter there as he staggered back and almost lost his balance on the bricks of the floor. He recovered, returned the length of his room, and sat down on the bed. Notes for the magazine piece he’d begun lay on the table beside him. He saw them there and looked away. The moment of religious experience was gone again. The boy directing his stream from the very porch of the church had upset it; the bird had dispatched it. The distinguished novelist clasped his hands between his knees, and wondered if it were a mealtime.

  The room was large and, in spite of not being especially warm, a comfortable one. On a white wall to his left hung a color print of a Raphaelite Madonna; on the wall to his right, a picture of his hostess in stiff dark effigy, Nuestra Señora de la Otra Vez, the features of her deeply browned face marred and irregular from years spent underground during the Moorish ascendancy. In this picture, he could barely make out if she had a nose; he certainly could not tell if she were returning his stare, so he withdrew it and sent it elsewhere, wrinkling his nose with the sniff of impatience which had become more and more frequent the last day or so. He began to look uncomfortable.

  The bed was set in an alcove. It was one of the softest he would find in the country, made up with a blanket of rich wool, and in this clandestine arrangement highly suggestive of pleasures beyond the walls, reminiscent of illustrations in Boccaccio, stimulating to every sense but the ascetic. He stood up abruptly, looking severely uncomfortable. And he was. He had come all the way from Madrid, along roads which got worse at every turn, changing his bus at almost every town for another more battered until the one he arrived in appeared to have been rolled to its destination over the mountain rocks like a barrel. That was a promising start, and it might have been difficult to know what his thoughts were as he approached the gray walls whose greatness gave way to delicacy in the gothic tracery of the spandrels over the arched doorway where he knocked. It might have been difficult, that is, had he not written some of them down before the spell was broken by the old woman who showed him to this guest room. (“Since it was well known that people from the world without seldom if ever win admittance to this almost inaccessible retreat, I felt throbbing within my breast the thrill of a deep emotion which I was powerless to describe, as I approached the soaring walls after an exhausting climb, and reached up to pull the cord of the centuries-old bell. Its gentle voice, sounding distantly just as it must have on that sunny day (snowy night &c) when Saint X (fill in) appeared at this same door, quickly summoned a lay brother of the Franciscan Order, who opened to me. He was still young, a slim yet virile figure, in the depths of whose piercing gray eyes I could read a message of patience and kindness seldom seen out in the bustling world of affairs . . .”) The old woman, who had delayed opening to him, explained it by saying that they had to be careful of beggars. Since she spoke in Spanish, which he could not understand, he acknowledged her greeting with a few words in English, mustering an expression somewhere, he believed, between humility and beatitude. Seeing what appeared to be signs of illness rise to his face, she hurried away, and returned with a young monk who had been plaguing him ever since.