The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —No . . . N O. Tresp . . . Oh Chrahst give it to me, I’ll do it, I mean Chrahst I’ll do it, I have to do everything here myself anyway sooner or later, and it’s too late to put it up anyway. But I mean Chrahst give me the paint, will you just let go of it, Otto? I mean just let go of the handle. Now give me the brush, I mean Chrahst just hand it to me, don’t throw it on the floor. I mean look at Hannah over there, the way she’s working waxing it, you know? I mean Chrahst, she’s going to go through to the cellar in a minute. Now go away, will you? I mean after a day like this I want to relax a minute, you know? I mean Chrahst, before I fix supper for all of you. Up in the ballroom, you know? The green room with the three chandeliers, go up there and wait for your supper while I bring the rest of them in. And look, I mean when you pass give Hannah a shove with your foot, will you? She’s going to wax my old man right into the floor, and . . . Oh Chrahst, I have to do everything myself. I mean look at him sitting there staring at the clock with the sun on his face, like he was going somewhere, and Chrahst I mean the best he can do is pick up the telephone and dial and by the time I get there he’s just sitting holding the telephone and he wonders who’s calling him. Chrahst. I mean he’ll never hang his hat on that buffalo horn in the Harvard Club again, and sit down and eat an omelette with a spoon. Now Chrahst, where are they all. Max is still mowing the lawn, even if there isn’t any grass there yet, when the grass comes up I’ll have to keep moving him along or he’ll mow the same strip until he gets right down to rock. And Chrahst look at Stanley painting that pillar on the porte-cochère, I mean he must have about fifty coats on one side of it by now. And where the hell is Anselm, or did I leave him washing the clothes. He’s scrubbed holes in everything we’ve got by now, he can go through a shirt in half an hour if you don’t take it away from him and put something else in his hands. But Chrahst I mean how many clothes can you wash at once in a couple of lousy cut-glass punch bowls. And Chrahst I might as well have another drink and another cigar, because that’s all there is in the house, and they can’t expect me to eat the kibbled dog food I feed them when I know the state inspector isn’t coining around, I mean Chrahst he can’t expect me to feed them anything else and pay the taxes too, at forty dollars a month a feeb. And I have to tie up another package for my mother to open before dinner, she’s been waiting for it all day again. And what a letter to get, Dear Classmate, We realize this letter, our second appeal to you this year, comes at a time when you have recently been solicited for reunion funds, I mean Chrahst. Many classmates have wondered how much money has been raised toward the 1975 goal of 100,000. Chrahst, listen to that record, you can hardly hear the tune any more it’s so scratched, I mean it’s just as good as having an automatic record-player to have a feeb sitting there starting it over again every time it ends. The Sunny Side of the Street. But Chrahst. I mean, 1975. I mean, Chrahst.

  Dear Mr. Pivner . . . Eddie Zefnic wrote.

  Gee you would really be interested in the work we are doing here now, and I guess I won’t ever really be able to thank you for all you have done giving me a start, and treating me practically like a son and all, I mean by helping me go on with my education to where it really comes to grips with humanity and learning all about things in science like in the work we are doing here. I’m sure glad you had your operation, and believe me I sure did everything I could so you would, even after I talked to you and I guess finally convinced you that it was a good idea, because now modern science knows what these things are and how to fix them, not like the Dark Ages. So maybe by convincing you to go ahead with it and have the operation, and while all along I’m working here right in the forefront of all that kind of things, maybe in that way I’m repaying you.

  Let me tell you about the work we are doing here now, first we are studying anxiety neurosises by giving some animals a nervous breakdown. Like we have a whole bunch of kids (ha ha I mean little goats) which are hooked up so that when the light dims it gets a shock, so after a while then the minute the light dims the kid backs into the corner and gets tense so after a while of that he gets anxiety neurosis, because at first he’s only tense but then when we change the signals around on him then he gets the real anxiety neurosis. Then you do that about a thousand times on him, you should see them kicking out their both hind legs so they won’t get the shock except waiting for it when they don’t know it’s going to happen at what moment then they get the anxiety neurosis which is a breakdown, while all the while we measure everything so that we know. So after about a thousand times then we try to get them out of it, and everything is recorded real close by the lab and then we go over all that and try to get them out of it, you can see it’s real interesting and how much good it will do.

  You must have a real nice nurse up there, to write me your letter like she did and all. I have been in the laboratory here where they took a sheep’s brain apart so I could see what it must be like having those nerve tissues between the frontal lobes of the brain severed off of the midbrain which is where you have the emotions, so I can see where the prison psychiatric doctor said how it might be a good thing because things like counterfeiting and forging arent crimes of violence but more something emotional maybe that gets mixed up so if you sever it off then it can’t get mixed up any more and you don’t want to do things like forging and counterfeiting any more. Which even though they aren’t crimes of violence they sort of mean something’s wrong somewhere.

  Like I already wrote to you the last time mostly what I do here still is things like cleaning the pens of these kids and feed them if their being fed if we’re not testing something on them or something, and all things like that, which keeps me pretty busy because the rest of the time mostly I spend reading these books so I even haven’t been to church for a while now, and even the radio I don’t turn on listening just to music but only the news broadcasts, because there is all this I want to learn and the scientists here are real nice about if you want to ask them questions how they’ll explain everything to you, so I keep studying so I can too some day, I mean explain everything.

  That’s too bad about like you’re having this child to play with and like being trained all over again about things like going to the bathroom but gee we took care of the main thing didn’t we, and gee if I have repaid you by convincing you to have that operation when we talked in the prison, gee you know how much I appreciate how much I owe you and all, and I guess you sure must know I didn’t ever think anything bad about you when that happened, I mean that you were a criminal or like that, but just something was wrong somewhere which wasn’t your fault but a good scientific explanation for it, so If I have repaid you that way and by studying hard like I am and all, then I guess that’s the best I can do to show you how much I appreciate all you’ve done for me and all, and I sure study every minute, like last night this friend came by he had tickets for some concert when I was studying and he tried to keep asking me to go and I said no.

  Yours very truly,

  EDDIE

  P S I’m enclosing something I saw in the newspaper about this man who was a counterfeiter which they were trying to catch for a long time, I guess he was pretty good at it too which just goes to show you there was something wrong somewhere, like they found him in this hotel sort of in Spain it looked like he took his own life there, so I guess we took care of the main thing didn’t we, I mean if a counterfeiter has to take his own life like that, and thats one thing, I mean restoring life after death that science hasn’t figured out yet, but we’re working on it.

  Dear Friend . . . Mrs. Sinisterra read on a postcard,

  We have not yet heard from you regarding the plastic newspaper clipping which we sent you recently. If you would like to keep this “permanized” clipping just send one dollar in the self-addressed stamped envelope which was enclosed for your convenience, or mail your payment with this card enclosed for proper identification and credit.

  We can obtain additional copies of this item or items from other newspapers and permanize them in plas
tic at 1.00 each. If you can furnish the clippings, the charge is only 75¢ each. Thank you for your courtesy and patronage.

  MEMENTO ASSOCIATES

  She tore the card in half and went up the stairs alone. When she got inside, she clung to the edge of the slopped sink for a minute, her body hunched as though in pain and her head up, listening; she turned the plastic knob on the box pinned to the collapsed folds of her bosom, her head still up, as though listening. Then she went to a medicine cabinet at the end of the sink, opened it, and took the same attitude. —You! . . . she called out. There was a disagreeable sound of response from somewhere. —You took my . . . Then she stopped, and held her forehead in a hand.

  “Deft, moving, genuine, at once tough and compassionate . . . one does not often get from autobiography so satisfying an experience.” “Told with sensitivity which is fresh, combined with masterful insights, moving at a swift yet leisurely pace . . .” “A tingling narrative style, which touches deeply in its moments of swiftly known pathos, and breathes into memories of worldly experience insights into great truths almost worthy of the author of the Confessions . . .” —You’re trying to tell me these are reviews of your book?

  —Yes, yes, said Mr. Feddle eagerly, snatching the ribbons of paper back, and returning them to the book under his arm. He’d met the hunched critic in the green wool shirt plodding up Sixth Avenue as though in deep snow, a heavy book under his own arm, about to enter a tailor shop to have two buttons sewn on the front of his pants. —How come I haven’t seen it then?

  —It’s out. It’s out, it just came out, said Mr. Feddle retreating.

  —I thought it was poetry, how come these say . . .

  —Poetical autobiography, Mr. Feddle said quickly.

  —How come all these reviews have the name of it torn off the top?

  —Oh, oh that’s my . . . being modest . . .

  —You being modest? Don’t try to give me . . . is that it? Under your arm there, is that it? Lemme see it.

  —Yes, but . . . an advance copy, Mr. Feddle said retiring further out of reach, moving the book under his arm only enough to show his name on the jacket.

  —Here, lemme see it, you . . . all right, you stupid old bastard, don’t, I don’t want to see it.

  —But you . . . aren’t you even going to buy me a glass of beer?

  —Go on, you crazy old bastard. Do you think I don’t know what those reviews are? You think I don’t know the book those reviews are written about?

  —Oh did you . . . read it? Mr. Feddle asked helplessly.

  —No, but I knew the son of a bitch who wrote it, said the critic, turning away, into the tailor shop where he found his friend the stubby poet sitting debagged in a waist-high booth.

  —What are you doing here?

  —Having the zipper on my fly fixed.

  The critic undid his waist and sat down in the next booth. —That crazy old bastard out there, showing me reviews of Anselm’s book he’s trying to say are his. Anselm . . .

  —Anselm, the Church really had him. I laugh every time I think of him, retiring from the world and they make him publicity agent for a monastery. And the importance he tries to give himself by talking about what a sinner he was, he has to bring in every saint from Saint Augustine to Saint . . . some other saint to back him up, for Christ sake, publicity agent for a spiritual powerhouse. How’d you come out in court today?

  —That snotty kid swore he’d never met me, so how could he have used me in his novel. But we’re proving he took incidents right out of my own life . . .

  —So what good are they to you . . . ? The tailor came out with a pair of pants over his arm. The poet put on his pants and the critic took off his pants. —Tell him to hurry up, we have to get uptown to meet this guy who’s going to put up money for a new magazine.

  —I can’t go without my pants, for Christ sake. Give him a couple of minutes to sew the buttons on.

  And then they silenced, each bending forth, closer and closer, to fix the book the other was carrying with a look of myopic recognition.

  —You reading that? both asked at once, withdrawing in surprise.

  —No. I’m just reviewing it, said the taller one, hunching back in his green wool shirt. —A lousy twenty-five bucks. It’ll take me the whole evening tonight. You didn’t buy it, did you? Christ, at that price? Who the hell do they think’s going to pay that much just for a novel. Christ, I could have given it to you, all I need is the jacket blurb to write the review.

  It was in fact quite a thick book. A pattern of bold elegance, the lettering on the dust wrapper stood forth in stark configurations of red and black to intimate the origin of design. (For some crotchety reason there was no picture of the author looking pensive sucking a pipe, sans gêne with a cigarette, sang-froid with no necktie, plastered across the back.)

  —Reading it? Christ no, what do you think I am? I just been having trouble sleeping, so my analyst told me to get a book and count the letters, so I just went in and asked them for the thickest book in the place and they sold me this damned thing, he muttered looking at the book with intimate dislike. —I’m up to a hundred and thirty-six thousand three hundred and something and I haven’t even made fifty pages yet. Where’s your pants?

  —Wait a second, he’ll be right out with them. I got a card from Max.

  —Did he hear about Charles Dickens yet?

  —I wrote a note to him about it on a review of his book I sent him.

  —Your review? He’ll thank you for that.

  —They cut it on me, for Christ sake, you know that. The hell with them, anyway, they’re all of them fucked and far from home, sitting over there right now pretending they’re in New York pretending they’re in Paris . . . hey wait, wait . . .

  —I can’t, I can’t miss this guy, I’ll see you later, the Viareggio.

  —That place, for Christ sake, it’s taken over by fairies. Wait . . .

  Out on the sidewalk, Mr. Feddle hurried up fluttering the ribbons of newspaper. —Beat it, screw, go on you crazy old bastard, I heard all about your book . . .

  —You did? you did? You’ve heard about it already? Yes, a beer? a beer to celebrate . . . ? And in his enthusiasm Mr. Feddle came too close. The book was snatched from under his arm and he fluttered here helplessly, listening to the laughter, and an instant’s more hope that it might not be opened, that the dust wrapper he had made so carefully, lettering his name with such meticulous clarity on the front, pasting a picture of himself taken forty years before on the back, might yet sustain it. Then pages flashed, the laughter broke. —The Idiot? That’s the title of your book? The Idiot . . . the laughter came on, —by Feodor Feddle . . . ?

  “ ‘Did you imagine that I did not foresee all this hatred!’ Ippolit whispered again . . .” Mr. Feddle wiped his eye, sitting at an empty cafeteria table a few minutes later, over a tomato cocktail he had made with catsup and water, trying to hold together the torn dust wrapper so that his picture and his name might be seen whole by anyone coming near, the book balanced upright as pages slipped under his thumb, and a smile as of satisfaction fixed to his lips, weary satisfaction for a work completed, as the last page turned and the last paragraph swam before his eyes. “They can’t make decent bread anywhere; in winter they are frozen like mice in a cellar . . .” He touched at his watering eye with the crook of a finger. “ ‘We’ve had enough of following our whims; it’s time to be reasonable. And all this, all this life abroad, and this Europe of yours is all a fantasy, and all of us abroad are only a fantasy . . . remember my words, you’ll see it for yourself!’ she concluded almost wrathfully . . .” Someone approached his table. He swallowed hard, preparing to speak. It was a Puerto Rican busboy, with a hairline mustache. Pages retreated under his thumb.

  “ ‘Pass by us, and forgive us our happiness,’ said Myshkin in a low voice.

  “ ‘Ha, ha, ha! Just as I thought! I knew it was sure to be something like that! Though you are . . . you are . . . Well, well! You are eloquent peop
le! Goodbye! Goodbye!’ ”

  On the terrace of the Flore sat a person who resembled the aging George Washington without his wig (at about the time he said farewell to his troops). She was drinking a bilious cloudy liquid and read, with silent moving lips, from a small stiff-covered magazine. Anyone could have seen it was Partisan Review she was reading, if anyone had looked.

  Paris lay by, accomplished. Other cities might cloy the appetites they fed, but this serpent of old Seine, pinched gray and wrinkled deep in time, continued to make hungry where she most satisfied, even to that hill where by night, round corners, she fed on most delicious poison, where, with, —Hey Joe, you see ciné cochon? deux femmes fooky-fooky? the vilest things became her still; where by day picturesque painters infested picturesque alleys painting the same picturesque painting painted so many times before: the spectral bulbiferous pyramids crowning the ascent where the first bishop of the city had approached carrying his head under his arm in a two-league march which centuries later would provoke a comment worthy any thinker before him, in a woman’s pen whose shrewd instant would, ever after him, define and redeem the people whose patron saint he became.