The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —It’s the Sacred Heart. Red Heart’s a dog food.

  —Well anyway, have you?

  —Yes Maude.

  —And can we go up and get it in the morning?

  —We may have to wait.

  —How long?

  —Maude, please don’t have another drink.

  —A little brand-new one, Arny. It will make everything different between us again, won’t it? for you? I mean for me, it will make us more like we used to be, won’t it?

  —Is dinner ready?

  —Do you want chutney?

  —Chutney?

  —With the curry.

  —Yes.

  —Then you’ll have to go out and get it. There isn’t any.

  —Never mind then.

  —But I want chutney.

  —I’ll wait while you go out and get it. The walk might do you good, he added, looking up at his wife’s eyes, wandering past him wed to nothing. —There’s someone at the door.

  —Oh Herschel, I forgot, Herschel called and you can’t get him off the telephone until you make some kind of date with him, he said he’d stop in . . .

  —Are you going to answer the door?

  —Herschel! . . . Arny, it’s Herschel, and . . . he has a girl with him!

  Outside the door stood a young lady adjusting a garter. Her companion watched. —Anyhow, come in, said Maude. Herschel waited until the garter was taken care of, the stocking smoothed over the knee, the skirt over the thigh. Then he said:

  —Baby! looking up to see Maude for the first time, and he offered both his hands. Herschel was tall, and had always been handsome. He had been the handsomest boy in his home town, and the only one in that part of Ohio to own dinner clothes. His picture, in dinner clothes, still stood in the photographer’s window on Front Street where, faded and fly-specked, it continued to exact a certain prestige, for it was some years since he’d been home. —I brought along a little two-legged friend, he said. —Arny and Maude, I want you to meet . . .

  —Adeline, the blonde supplied.

  —Adeline.

  —How do you do, I’m sure, said Adeline.

  —Baby is your name really Adeline? I had a nurse named Adeline, a black one, big West Indian black Adeline. One day under the apple tree I bit her right square . . .

  —Herschel! . . . your head is brachycephalic, Maude said from where she’d gone to pour drinks, whisky with water (she’d heard soda was bad for the stomach lining). —It’s the coming shape in heads.

  —Aren’t you kind, baby. No one’s ever told me that before.

  —Maude.

  —Arny, it’s true. Head shapes are very important. Arny thinks I’m silly, reading books about heads, that book there. Do you see the picture it’s open to? That’s a good domestic. That’s why I want to look at the babies first, we don’t want one that will be a domestic. On the next page there’s one kind of sticking out in the back, that’s the Intellectual. And the kind of big square one is a Leader of Men. We’re going to have a baby, she said pausing on her way to the kitchen for more water. Adeline stopped her drink halfway to her lips and looked at the other woman’s figure curiously. —Tomorrow morning. Adeline looked downright insulted.

  —Oh God, baby, again? Herschel sank back in his chair.

  —No, this time we’re really going to get there, aren’t we Arny? Tomorrow morning at nine. Oh, did you want a drink? I didn’t know you wanted one, Arny.

  —I shouldn’t tell this, baby, but if you’re shopping for a bargain . . .

  Maude cried out from the kitchen. —Oh . . . a cockroach. I hate New York, no matter where you live, you have them. The people downstairs have them, they chase them up here and then I chase them back down, up and down the drain.

  —Why don’t you use D.D.T.?

  —It’s no good, it just makes them hysterical, Maude said, coming in with water. —They run around screaming.

  —Cockroaches?

  —Well you can’t really hear them, but you can tell that’s what they’re doing, that’s what you do when you’re hysterical.

  —Baby . . .

  —Yes, tomorrow morning at nine. Have you finished that already, Arny?

  —If you’re not in a wild rush, Herschel said slyly, —I know someone who might help you. Someone who’s going to have one. I mean really have one. Not just yet, though.

  —A woman? But how does that help . . . ?

  —Because she doesn’t want it, baby. Someone told me she was looking for a doctor, someone who must be nameless, and he asked me. Can you imagine me knowing such a thing?

  —A doctor? I know so many doctors, what kind? Back doctors, bone doctors . . .

  —No, a doctor to take care of it for her, one with an in-strument.

  —Oh!

  —Maude, you’re spilling your drink.

  —You know Esther, baby . . . well I’m not to tell but . . .

  —I saw her on the street, Maude said. —She has such bad luck.

  —She told you about it?

  —About Rose?

  —Oh no, everybody knows about Rose, that they’ve sent her sister Rose back from the tee-hee farm and Esther has to take her in. But this is something you mustn’t tell, baby. This is for your tomblike little ears. She has a turkey in the oven.

  —She has what?

  —She’s preg, baby.

  —But . . . her husband?

  —Her husband! No one ever sees him. I’ve never met him. I’m sure if he had ever said anything amusing I would have met him somewhere, but I understand that he lives underground. Or underwater. Some really absurd part of town. No one’s ever been there.

  —He used to paint, didn’t he? used to paint things?

  —Oh who didn’t, so did I, said Herschel, —the naughtiest . . .

  —No one’s seen him since that boy Otto . . . do you remember Otto?

  —Otto? Nobody’s named Otto any more, he must be an impostor.

  —Herschel, you’ve met him, silly. He used to show up everywhere with Esther before she and her husband . . . I mean after she and her husband . . .

  —Oh I do remember him, Otto. He talked all the time. He was rather cute. Yes, I remember Otto, for almost a year he and Esther made half of a very pretty couple. You mustn’t repeat this, but I was told that Otto and Esther’s husband . . .

  —Herschel, don’t . . .

  —Baby I’m not responsible for all the queer things that go on. It was all explained as a father complex or a mother complex or something vulgar. Why, no one has secrets any more.

  —But Esther’s husband, what . . .

  —You mustn’t tell, but he’s mixed up with an international counterfeit ring, he makes gold down there, out of fingernail parings . . .

  —Herschel, silly . . .

  Adeline looked very interested.

  —But baby everyone knows it. And there’s a skinny little girl he keeps there . . . well, there are simply terrifying stories about her. It’s known she takes dope. Known simply everywhere.

  At that, Maude took out a small round Battersea enamel box, with the words We Live in Hope on the cover, and took out a pill. —Arny, not another drink, tomorrow morning . . .

  —Don’t you want another?

  —No, I have a little headache.

  —Don’t be put out if I ask you this, Herschel commenced, —after all we all had the same analyst.

  —I wish Arny had finished, I almost finished mine, Maude said. —He reminded me of Daddy. He introduced us, did you know that?

  —You and Arny?

  —Yes, he thought we could help each other, so he thought we should get married. I guess that’s why we never finished. Analysis I mean. Arny you’ve almost finished that bottle of whisky. You know what happened Saturday.

  —But . . . you can tell me, why don’t you just go ahead and have a baby?

  —It’s easier . . . it’s easier this way isn’t it Amy, and besides how can you have a baby these days in a . . . a place like this, how can yo
u . . . Maude looked suddenly about to cry. When the doorbell rang she ran to answer it, but stopped for a moment before she opened the door.

  Outside stood a tan, summer-clothed, rather embarrassed young man. —Otto! she said. —Why Otto, how funny! It’s Otto, she said into the room, and —How brown you are, following him in.

  —I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, that was the Academic Festival by Brahms. Our next number, by the French composer Clair . . . I mean Claude, Debussy, Alla-press, midi, dunfon . . .

  Otto raised an eyebrow, brandished his sling, and tripped over the pair of shoes by the table.

  Arny got up and offered him a drink. Herschel got up and said, —Baby what are you doing in an outfit like that? You’ll freeze to death. And Adeline looked at the golden mustache, and the arm-in-a-sling, and said nothing at all.

  —I am, but I haven’t any others. They’re all following me, somewhere between here and banana land.

  —Who’s following you, baby?

  —No, I mean my clothes. I’ve been on a banana pl . . .

  —Oh yes, you were on a banana plantation, said Maude. —Esther told me. It sounded so . . . so quite hideous I’d tried to forget it.

  —I didn’t know people ran off to banana plantations any more. No, don’t go to a banana plantation, baby. It’s old hat.

  —Herschel, silly. He’s just come back.

  —All the more reason. What are you wearing that thing for? Herschel pointed at the sling.

  —My hand, I . . .

  —Did something happen to it?

  —There was a revolution. Why, they’re regular occupational . . .

  —I couldn’t understand why you wanted to go down there in the first place.

  —It wasn’t so bad. In spite of the revolution I got a play written . . .

  —Did you, asked Maude. —About bananas? Arny, please don’t drink any more. Tomorrow morning at nine, we’ve got to be there this time. She turned to Otto who was busy raising an eyebrow at Adeline. —We’re going to have a baby, she said.

  —Really? That’s wonderful, I . . .

  —Tomorrow morning, we’re going up and adopt one.

  —That’s wonderful, I . . .

  —Do either of you want to come to a party? Herschel asked. —That’s where we were on our way to.

  —Whose party? Maude asked.

  —I don’t know, baby. It’s a party for a painting. Somebody did a painting so they’re giving a party so everybody can see it. Don’t you understand?

  —Where is it?

  —I’ve got the address here. Somebody wrote it down for me. He took out a rumpled slip of paper with Memorandum across the top in bold face, and then in gothic characters, United States Senate. —Sullivan Street.

  —I couldn’t stand a Village party tonight. Could you Arny? They’re always so quite ha . . .

  —Hideous, Herschel supplied.

  —I wasn’t going to say that, silly. I was going to say harrowing. I couldn’t stand one tonight, that special Village quality of inhuman ghastliness and dirt. And tomorrow morning, Arny please don’t have another drink. No really, Herschel, it sounds too hideous.

  —You’re right of course, baby. Now you’ve made me feel awful about going myself. But everybody who goes feels the same way. Do you want to come down and see the painting? he asked Otto, who had just lit an angry black-tobacco cigarette with her help, beside Adeline’s chair. —Oh, I am sorry. Adeline, this is Otto. Do you want to come down with us? The painting’s called L’Ame d’un Chantier.

  —Herschel, how silly. Really? Really. What’s a Lom?

  —I haven’t a notion who’s giving it, said Herschel. —It doesn’t matter, you always see the same people.

  —It means soul, said Otto. —The soul of a . . .

  —And chantier is a singer, said Maude. —The soul of a singer.

  —You coming baby? said Herschel, with his coat and Adeline’s.

  —Have you seen Esther recently? Otto asked, faltering slightly. —I mean, do you think we might . . .

  —Not for months, said Herschel.

  —Well, I used to know some people down there, I . . .

  —Don’t be afraid. Everybody has a Village past. The ones who stay down there just don’t know it’s past.

  —No, that isn’t what I meant, I . . .

  —Arny, please. No more. You remember what you did Saturday night. Maude turned to them. —Arny sat up drinking late Saturday night here all alone, and when I got up Sunday I found he’d undressed and put all his clothes carefully into the refrigerator.

  Up four flights of stairs, Herschel instructed Adeline. —They all talk about painting. Now remember, no matter what anyone says, you just comment on the solids in Uccello. You can say you don’t like them, or say they’re divine. Can you remember that? The solids in Oochello, can you say that? They arrived at a room full of people who spent their lives in rooms.

  Adeline directly sought the bathroom; Herschel lay against the doorjamb getting his breath; and Otto (thinking only of what it looked like to see Otto entering a room) entered. He was dressed comfortably for the temperature. It was not a large room. The established guests were too engrossed in talking, or waiting for opportunity to talk, to attend the new ones. Some of them glanced up, as residents of a railway coach glance up at a new passenger struggling down the aisle after a seat; but all maintained a composure which reflected the impertinence of the new arrivals for arriving at all. Everyone, that is, but the two policemen, who were disposed like clocks which must be stood at odd angles to tell the time.

  On the gray chipped mantel lay a spray of flowers, which someone had gaily lifted from the door of a bereaved Italian family downstairs. Above it hung the painting. No one was looking at it. The unframed canvas was tan. Across the middle a few bright spots of red lead had been spattered. The spots in the lower left-hand corner were rust, above them long streaks of green paint, and to the upper right a large smudge of what appeared to be black grease. It looked as though the back of an honest workman’s shirt had been mounted for exhibition, that the sleeves, collar, and tails might be found among the rubble in the fireplace.

  A young man in tortoise-shell glasses, who clutched in his hand some papers entitled Toilet Training and Democracy, was saying, —But you’ve got to understand New York. New York is a social experience. Someone else said, —Don’t tell me how sincere he is. He dabbles in Rome the way some people dabble in The Joy of Cooking. A bearded man was saying to a girl, —Since I’ve been married, I’ve never looked at another woman. Do you find me attractive? Someone cried out, —Queer! Even the cockroaches in his house are queer.

  —Really, said Herschel, when he had his breath, —how artsy can we get.

  —Yes, said Otto, who had stopped looking at the painting. —Who is that? A sun-tanned woman in a white dress had been exposed momentarily by an opening in the curtain of trouser seats round her, and as quickly hidden again. Her voice, however, carried on. —Darling, I was there for six weeks, and we didn’t have dinner at home the whole time, except four or five times and those were dinner parties.

  —Don’t you know her? It’s Agnes Deigh, she just got back from Puerto Rico. Thank God, she’s plastered too.

  —No I don’t know her, I . . .

  —Know her brother? You don’t? He’s the cutest . . . well! Of course I’ve never really met him, she won’t let me, for some girlish reason of her own. But I’ve seen his picture, in a soldier suit, the cutest . . . Nothing like her husband Harry, he’s just the most . . . he’s a writer too you know. “Publish and be damned,” the Duke of Wellington said, remember? Harry’s in Hollywood, spelled backward. Do you know what I mean? “Trade ye no mere moneyed art,” spelled backward. Oh never mind. After all, it’s just the impurities in gems that give them their exquisite luster isn’t it. And their value! I mean Shelley did drink laudanum by the gallon, didn’t he. And of course Swinburne! Dear! I feel so na-ked among all these people. It’s like a masquerade isn’t
it. Look! do you see her? the girl on the couch? looking just too like la noyée de la Seine, that touching death mask they made from the face of some nameless child who life was just too much for. I mean real life you know. And wasn’t it just so french to preserve her beauty when she was dead in a mask we could all enjoy, instead of squandering money to keep her alive and let her get . . . just all the things that women get. There, do you see her? just too noyée for words, why I’d run right out and drown myself tomorrow if I could be that beautiful, wouldn’t you? I feel so naked, don’t you? among all these frightfully masked people. Remember? de Maupassant, Guy de Maupassant of course, writing to that Russian girl, “I mask myself among masked people.” Remember? They’d never met, you know. They never did meet, did they. Of course he was just as mad as a hatter, and her name was Marie Bashkirtseff. She painted. She died too, you know, before she could gain three hundred pounds in all the most obvious places and turn into a woman. She was Russian. And there goes that awful boy who told me about Thomas à Becket. No, or was it à Kempis? plagiarizing the Imitation of Christ, imagine! See him? him, with the rather bad skin, he’s cute isn’t he. But imagine plagiarizing the imitation of Christ. Why, Handel plagiarized the most delightful things, didn’t he. But then that was music, wasn’t it. And he was finally stricken blind by the hand of you-know-Who for being so cavalier with other people’s work. Wasn’t he. But what about you. And so brown. Like a tootsie roll. For all the world . . .

  —Me? I . . . Otto had taken a step back, looking about the room with restrained anticipation in his eyes, and presentiment of greeting in his features as though he were searching for an old friend whom he had expected to see here. He was looking for a mirror.

  —like the Negro of the Narcissus!

  —Huh?

  —You have to be so careful below Fourteenth Street, baby. There are certain words you just can’t say. And imagine, you’ve known Agnes’s brother all this time and never introduced me! And were you a soldier-boy in the late hate too?

  —I . . . what?

  —And I didn’t know you knew her husband too. No one knows him. Even though he has the same name she has. The same last name, I mean. He took her last name when they were married, wasn’t that sweet? because nobody could pronounce his. Before they were married she called him Mister Six-sixty-six, because that was the number of the first hotel room she took him to. Didn’t you meet him then?