The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  What would I have done in his place? People say that, and they mean it because they do not understand it. Sometimes I clean my pocketbook, and that is a wonderful feeling though a task. That is why I do not telephone you, telephones are dangerous things, they separate us from one another and is that simply because we put them to the wrong use? Human, we treat them as we treat others, take for granted services to which they did not pretend. But we force telephones to corrupt intimacy while they pretend to preserve it by keeping alive only its dangerous immediate symptoms. Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to. There, now we are apart! Doctor? That is why I did not telephone you, send only a symptomatic fragment of me to you in my voice where you cannot see my face but instead sit and stare upon matters of your own intimate self arranged like furniture but not my face which I have been so long in forming for just this moment, writing you a letter where you will see my face doctor and all of me laid out, what can I give you more for forgiveness?

  That’s all right, we serve them better than they know, if only we exist for them to reject, for they do not understand as you and I do, doctor, and to be certain of accepting one thing they must reject another. I remember, we serve them well. Many of them must make you unhappy before you will take them seriously, so honest are they. Do you remember envy when it called itself admiration?

  We serve them well, icons of their desperate and idle manufacture, and Oh! when we betray them by being other selves, and the icon is broken, doctor, do they grow? Or fashion it again and elsewhere, so detailedly the same, different only enough to prevent their recognizing it for what betrayed them once. We serve them well, doctor. That is what I did, extended my vanity where I thought it would be held in trust, and found it taken with desperate seriousness in all the confidence that envy engenders. Then you have accepted a confidence, and laid ground for mistrust. Do you read, doctor? Do you read so far? Are you, too, always certain that you have found the answer at hand, demanding it so, articulate and incarnate? and then you are betrayed? and who betrayed you? How many have you around you, who have never feared you? nor mistrusted you for fear of your being more than one? How many who will share what can be shared but do not fear to expose, simply expose without confidence, nor the secret sharer, those other things which must be worked out alone in privacy, knowing they exist but respecting you for respecting that privacy as the matter of fact indeed it is, doctor have I trapped you?

  Are you there, an island in their past, afloat, or a rock shoal, and sailing back do they sight you with cries of happiness and recognition? Indeed, do they cruise back just to reach you, to land and enter the same pleasance with recognition even delight, share it with others who have languored there, or meet those others upon the beach and do battle? Or cruising somewhere else beyond do they sight you casually, remark your presence with a smile, or do they mark you severely upon the chart and sail by far to leeward and out of sight, to meet further on others bound forward and warn them of your dangers where you lie in the past there though it is for these bound forward the future and they will set their course accordingly. Or sailing back do they sail past however near or far offshore with a shrug and a glance of dismissal recalling nothing but an arid coast. Or do you float, as they told us the Sargasso Sea floats partly under the surface and none is certain exactly where, necessitating vigilance and uncertain anxious care.

  Have you ever thought about this, that right now this instant every one of them is somewhere being real? The Pope and the President and also certain surviving kings, the people whose secrets we know and the ones of whom we know no more than the newspaper confides, all the people you have met and all the people you will meet, and all you have never met and will never meet, all of them they are somewhere now right this instant being real. Even when you are not talking about them, not thinking about them perhaps not even remembering them in spite of these insults they are somewhere being real. As though they did not care! At the very same instant they are being real right now. It is too much to comprehend that, still they dare it, but it is too much.

  From the train window I see places I have never been, a street corner with the streetlamp on one evening in New Britain Connecticut, and I wept. For it is worse being alone without someone than just being alone. Why I remember green, that color, when color was more than itself, green at sundown after a rain when it was blinding with life, doctor should I have been a drunkard or a nun, for they will not love us as we want to be loved, and a nun or a singer, a singer or a child, doctor or only unborn? For when she lay alone making love, do you think as that ring slipped round her finger, and breathing in the feverish dark do you think she fancied his breath upon her? visioned his beauty? or her own, and only the beautiful woman she will be—Now you have tricked me! coming into the garden so, carrying cut flowers in your hand. In spite of the prohibition which even you could not help but see, so you were deliberate? Yes, I understand, why you cannot forgive, love and forgive, if forgiving restores our innocence and being loved confirms the beautiful things we want to be, and loving is always forgiving that we are not. Why love is divine, because only divinity can restore innocence. You knew the secret I had, didn’t you, coming in with a nosegay, love-in-a-mist, love-in-idleness, love-lies-bleeding, you knew the worst thing didn’t you. But there wasn’t time. The honeysuckle grew and covered everything like a blanket and smothered it. The grape arbor collapsed, not with the weight of the fruit for the birds had taken the grapes away, but under the weight of the vines. I remember the holly trees, where the female stood alone out on the front lawn, and the male cringed away upwind, did you know that doctor? Everything grew too fast then, it was no use trying to keep it down. Everything grew too fast.

  But in reading it, the hand had defeated its own purpose: for those lines written in frantic haste took time to interpret; while it was quick work to go through those written with careful painful pauses, written slowly, to compel the reader to read slowly and attentively, a habit she might have made in conversation.

  —Plain morphine, doctor?

  —Better give her a half-grain.

  —I don’t think there’s any on this floor. We’ve been using Pantopon.

  —All right. A forty-milligram dose.

  —Surgery recommended Trilene, with an inhaler? . . .

  —To hell with Surgery.

  —Yes doctor. And now . . . the nurse went on, turning, —Miss Deigh, or Mrs. Deigh, Mrs. or Miss? . . . which is it? I’ll just bet it’s Mrs. she said coyly, seeing a letter there on the night table addressed Mrs. The letter was from an insurance company, to inform her that upon receipt of her signature on the enclosed waiver, they would make payable to her the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars (25,000.00) in life insurance on her husband, who had fallen off a bar stool in Hollywood.

  —And wasn’t that an interesting young man that came to visit you tonight! Why, I think I could turn into a Buddhist myself with him to talk to me. The Four Noble Truths! and the Eightfold Noble Path! Why, life is suffering, isn’t it . . . you just try to lie still now. The nurse finished tidying up the bed and went out of this private room, where the patient had just been moved, mumbling, as she passed a ward, —But to say suffering is caused by desire?. . . and that story he told about Bishop . . . Whutley? . . . which she repeated to the nurse in the drug room, —And so this Bishop says to the man praying there in front of this little wheel, who are you praying to and what are you praying for my good man? and the man says, I’m not praying to anybody and I’m not praying for nothing . . .

  But that nurse shrugged her shoulders too, handed over the prescribed Pantopon, and went back to straightening the gay handkerchief pinned to her blouse, and untangling the plain gold cross whose chain ha
d got caught on a button.

  The night nurse paused on her return to reprimand a shapeless figure huddled half out of bed in the dark to receive this confidence from a low-tuned radio, —Another case of homicide. And so for really top-notch entertainment, listen in . . .

  —All right now Mister Jenner, tomorrow’s another day. And she carried her cheer, and the drug and a clean glass back to the private room. She turned on a bright light and started to speak, but the whistle of a boat, very near on the river, startled her, and she waited, pouring water into the clean glass on the night table, beside the flowers.

  —Isn’t this the nicest plant! she said, and her patient turned: until that moment the anthurium had really looked rather obscene.

  About the only person whom the blasts of the whistle did not intimidate into silence was Arny: it brought him round just enough to raise his head, and speak for the first time in two hours. He said it was getting late, and he thought he should call his wife. But he did not speak distinctly, and the blasts of departure drowned out every other sound.

  He was part of a gay throng on a promenade deck, where someone fluttered up to ask, —Where’s Rwu-dy?

  —Baby you’ll find that one in the bridal suite. Alone.

  The whistle blasted them into silence again. Arny alerted, and spoke.

  Up above, the tall woman said, —My God, what do you suppose we’ve got next door this trip . . . will you listen to that? . . . pouring-on party?

  Her husband put down his glass and stared at the passenger list for First Class. —Two United States Senators, he said finally, and got his glass back.

  Aft, as near as he, could get to his wife and the two with her who had come down to see him off, Don Bildow waved again and straightened up. His wife cried something out to him. He waved. It was past midnight.

  —If you can’t be good, be careful, she repeated. He waved. Then, —Oh! Oh! Oh! Look! . . . he forgot and left his Methyltestosterone tablets, he won’t be able to do anything without them. Look, he left his Methyltestosterone tablets . . .

  He waved. With the other hand he held on his plastic glasses. The wind stirred his brown and yellow necktie. From down below, he looked like he was being abducted.

  The whistle blasted again.

  —Baby you were sweet to come see us off but you’d better get back on sho-wer . . . we’re going to sail.

  —But I’m coming twoo.

  Lines were cast off, and the ship, as large as a country town, commenced a grotesque rearward motion, now as though embarrassed at its size, like a football player backing out of a doll house. Finally, faced in the right direction by six tugboats, it recovered its dignity in imperious puffs of smoke and a shrill blast of steam that lowered enough to sound, to penetrate chasms ashore and be rendered back in particles, each one more faint, as though the island were loath to let it go.

  Well below the water line, Stanley opened his door and looked into the passage. —It’s all right, he said, —come on out.

  Other Pilgrims were already apparent, and Stanley had, a few minutes before, met a priest whom he liked immediately, a man with a plump face which carried joviality easily, but could instantly recover a medieval sternness which, one realized, was there all the time. His name was Father Martin, and he accounted for the large number of Pilgrims, some of whom he was shepherding toward the impending Canonization ceremonies in Rome, which Stanley forth-with hoped, somehow, to attend. They had quite a chat in that minute or two.

  —Come . . . he said again, and took her arm. —Don’t you have any coat? You didn’t bring any coat at all?

  She looked at him and shook her head, her eyes impossibly large it seemed to him as his own widened. Then as though aware of the warmth of her elbow in his hand, he took her hand which was cold and led her up to an open deck.

  She’d brought no luggage, only a sort of bundle, and what was tied up in it he had no idea, except for a paper book tied on the outside. It was labeled The Story of Barbara Ubrick. There was a picture on the cover captioned, Smothering a baby. And below, Why nunneries are within high walls, barred windows and bolted doors.

  —But . . . where did you get this?

  She had looked at him with these wide eyes, instantly frightened at his wrath but with no challenge, no question but that it must be justified. —An-selm, she answered him; at that he’d looked away quickly, put the thing back, its cover turned down, and stood looking away unable to confront the sad hope that had suffused her empty face for that one moment, and the bright pleasure her eyes had almost dared over this thing they were to share, that he had brought her to.

  She hardly spoke, except when he spoke to her and even then, only if he addressed a question, which she would answer very slowly, deliberate and brief. Though once she had burst out with, —Then do Pilgrims need a pass-port too? Or I shall wear a cockleshell, and he will know me and he will know me well . . . Which disarmed Stanley: what could she know of Santiago de Compostela? or when with the same light about to break in her eyes, waiting only his confirmation, she had asked whether it were true, Did the mice eat Saint Gertrude’s heart? —For she is patron saint of them . . .

  As now, he took his hand from her and stood, staring at the lights of the Jersey shore, unable to believe that this was New York, and he was leaving it; and as dreadfully convinced that it was.

  Even now the name Anselm threw him into a whirl, the more so now if what they had said a few evenings before, what Hannah had said and they had accepted, if it were true: and if it were true then everything else was true.

  With one hand in his pocket he clutched the gauze-and-newspaper-wrapped tooth, as Anselm’s dream, —I dreamt about you last night . . . I’m sure it was you . . . and the tooth almost came through to bite into his palm. At that the other hand came up in reflex to take her arm, and missed, though her arm did not move at all there on the rail: missed only so that his knuckles rubbed her bare arm and she turned that anticipating vacant beauty upon him, her eyes unblinking though the wind was rising and came round the upper decks full upon them now, as she waited, awaited his temper: and Anselm persisted, the more strongly, on the floor, ritu quadrupedis, —Succubus . . .

  The daring instant of a smile on her face provoked him, —Aren’t you cold? Until he asked her she might have been anywhere; now with his prompting question the smile and, if it had been warmth, left her. She shook, three times or four, sharply as though to atone for a multitude of slight shivers.

  He looked away, not toward the shore, or where the shore might be, but up forward; and saw only a man on the deck above leaning at the rail, a man in a Chesterfield with the collar up, a black Homburg hat and a long face which seemed to empty through the triangular chin, that, and a glint of gold, at the cuff was it? a finger?

  —Don’t you want to come in?

  After a moment he left her there, and with a shudder of cold went below himself. Roll and go, the motion of the ship was becoming familiar and inevitable to hundreds of people, the sole reciprocation that bound them together.

  Already through the Narrows and into the Lower Bay, past Sandy Hook, and into ten fathoms of water when Stanley realized that it was some time since he’d left her out on deck, and hurried up stairs and passages again with an anxious look on his face.

  She was not where he’d left her. But he was confused enough with the unfamiliarity of it all to be uncertain that this was where he’d left her, where he stood at the rail and started to call out, at the moment a wave hit the side and threw up spray, and knocked his voice right back into him. He swung round and looked at the water, terrified.

  He heard her call him; and he looked still more alarmed.

  She was up on the deck above, and waved to him. He saw her there with great relief, finally, and saw a shadow that had been standing near her turn and disappear in the dark. When she came down, he could not scold her for the fright she’d given him, and so he reprimanded her, —You shouldn’t go up there, that’s First Class . . . and he pulled the d
oor open with more effort than he would have thought necessary.

  —Was there somebody up there with you? . . . were you talking to somebody?

  —Only to the cold man.

  —Well you . . . you ought to be more careful, you can’t just go talking to people.

  —That is what he said, when he heard her singing.

  —Who?

  —The Cold Man.

  At the foot of a staircase leading to First Class, Stanley saw Father Martin descending, and let go her arm. Then as abruptly he took it again, up high where there was some sleeve, and came on resolute, slowing his step and so hers, for the greeting, the introduction, the explanations: but Father Martin passed, looking him straight in the face, without a word, without a shade of recognition, the medieval lines of his face standing out livid as though he had seen a ghost.

  Off Ambrose Light, there was some commotion. The ship almost ran down a rowboat in which a Chinaman, equipped with three New Jersey road maps, was setting out confidently for home, and had already got this far from the land into which he had been smuggled so many years before.

  But Stanley didn’t hear of the incident until a day or so later. Down a passage before him, she commenced singing, her voice very low,

  —Blessed Mary went a-walking . . . Over Jordan river . . .

  —Where did you learn that? he demanded.

  —The song you taught her?

  —But I . . . I never taught you that.

  —Stephen met her, fell a-talking . . .

  —Who is this . . . cold man? he interrupted her again.

  —The Cold Man, and he carries his arm like the boy did.

  —Like . . . what do you mean, in a sling?

  —In a black one.

  Inside, Stanley stood looking vacantly at The Story of Barbara Ubrick. Then he took her bundle from the chair where he intended to sleep.