The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —I didn’t mean . . .

  —What?

  —But there was something else I meant to ask you, I . . .

  —In a killing like that, you don’t get permission, you don’t seduce, you don’t agree. You don’t even touch. So there’s no breaking faith there. In a killing like that, they don’t consent, he finished in a harsh decisive whisper, dropping his hands slowly, and then taking up again, his voice became clearer, the words more rapid working out their own logic. —Go where you’ve sinned, and give yourself up, do you think I mean the police? Why do you think he sent me away then, just like the old man sent me on. Do you think it’s that simple? I did. And it wasn’t. They wouldn’t let it be, they weren . . . children. And now, to start it again. I’ve been a voyage, I’ll tell you . . . “To tell the truth . . . ?” yes, but not yet. I’ve been a voyage starting at the bottom of the sea. I willingly fastened the tail to my back, “I’ll scratch your eyes till you see awry, and all you see will seem fine and brave . . .” Good God, what a luxury he was! A journey like him sailing off the Cape forever, the Germans dressed that up, though, with a woman, but it’s not that simple. Come into Toledo at night, it’s monstrous, with only the stars, the heaps of broken buildings, all weight and shadow, and you’ll never see it that way again, after you’ve waked the next morning and walked through the town all laid out under foot in the daylight, and where were you wandering the night before? It’s all different by daylight. Find Valencia, with the sky brocaded with fire, in the heat of the summer, there’s a telephone exchange there Sangre, I liked that. The women fanning themselves in the trains, fanning down into their crowded bosoms, that old woman’s face like La Mancha after the July harvest. There are pieces spread everywhere. “A souvenir of New York,” he’d ask me for, or “Give me some money for medicine,” always medicine, and he’d show me a swollen leg before he’d play the guitar, and say it was his heart gone bad, that old gypsy looking at my frayed cuff, and he said he could have it fixed nicely, he’d a friend a tailor. It fit him, too. Hiding money in another pocket at the last conscious minute, and then the next morning searching everywhere for it, the shame of it! . . . and then finding it, so carefully put away, and out to celebrate the husbandry of the night before. Commuting between disasters, and always the land and the sky, and now, starting it again? I’ll tell you how cold it is in the desert at night, and they think Africa’s only the heat of the sun! I was only there because I wasn’t anywhere else. You’d see a town with two walls overlapping, and a man disappear into the wall, everything regulated to the gait of a camel, an ass hobbled on a brown rock hillside and palms at the bottom. Do you wonder why I’m telling you all this? Do you believe me? Here . . .

  He got up and rummaged in his clothes, and came out with a fragment of clay pottery; some other things dropped but he didn’t look down after them. —That’s from Leptis Magna, it’s not pretty is it, you can still see the thumbprints on it, from molding the edge here. What do you keep a thing like that for, from Leptis, and Arabs crouching making tea over sheep-dung fires on the marble floor, the temple of Hera, and the lilies sprung from her milk, and the Roman’s ruins run right down into the sea.

  Ludy stooped to pick up what had dropped, some crumpled one peseta notes, and a raggedly cut out picture on canvas stiff with the cracked paint, a sharply detailed figure of an old man drawn out, being flayed by detached hands. —This, he said, holding up the likeness, —it’s the old man, the porter here, is it? The face . . .

  —Old men, he’s like all the . . . old men, Stephen said, starting to reach for it, then he waved it away. —He told me . . . look at their difference in ages, he’s sixty and more, and she’s still a child, and they’re still in love. It’s . . . that, now do you understand? It’s here he can be closest to her now, while he’s waiting. But for me? That’s when he said no, and sent me on again. He’s here, a penitent? . . . but it’s different, for she comes to him here, and . . . all this time he’s carrying on this love affair, being loved. But for me, that’s why he sent me on, to find what . . . what he has here.

  —But . . . after what he did . . .

  —After what he did, and he learned only through her suffering, Stephen brought out more loudly, —Now . . . If she comes to him carrying lilies that turn to fire? And the fire, what do you think it is? If that was the only way he could learn? So now do you see why he sends me on? If somewhere I’ve . . . done the same thing? And something’s come out of it, something . . . like . . . he has. While I’ve been crowding the work alone. To end there, or almost end running up to the doors there, to pound on the doors of the church, do you see why he sent me on? Look back, if once you’re started in living, you’re born into sin, then? And how do you atone? By locking yourself up in remorse for what you might have done? Or by living it through. By locking yourself up in remorse with what you know you have done? Or by going back and living it through. By locking yourself up with your work, until it becomes a gessoed surface, all prepared, clean and smooth as ivory? Or by living it through. By drawing lines in your mind? Or by living it through. If it was sin from the start, and possible all the time, to know it’s possible and avoid it? Or by living it through. I used to wonder, how Christ could really have been tempted, if He was sinless, and rejected the first, and the second, and the third temptation, how was He tempted? . . . how did He know what it was, the way we do, to be tempted? No, He was Christ. But for us, with it there from the start, and possible all the time, to go on knowing it’s possible and pretend to avoid it? Or . . . or to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through.

  He took a few steps down the hill, and stood looking over the valley, where smoke was rising from the drift of roofs of the town, and further on the mountainsides.

  He looked fragile enough there, blocking the path before the figure in Irish thorn-proof, which loomed larger for being slightly uphill. Still Ludy saw no way to get round him, but stood unsteadily awkward waiting, trapped once more, seeking some detail of sight or sound, threatened again with the torment of loss tolling his senses one by one, while somewhere unseen the bell against the ruminating jaw jogged the silence. —You can’t go on this way, he broke out at the back turned to him, —this wandering . . . and he amended, —I mean, I travel a good deal myself, but . . .

  —Listen! there’s a moment, traveling . . .

  —But I . . .

  —Offered shelter, there they were, all the family at dinner . . .

  —Usually working on something . . .

  —But she didn’t wear her breasts around to be chewed by strangers, when she said . . .

  —Without . . . reproach . . .

  —her daughter . . .

  —What? Ludy came down upon him, —You said, you have a daughter somewhere? . . .

  At that he came round so quickly in the path that Ludy startled off it and the instant his foot went into the deep grass a commotion burst there. Another step back, Ludy stumbled and fell, and the bird which had fluttered up was caught in Stephen’s hand above him, where it beat its wings frantically.

  —A daughter, yes.

  —I’ve cut myself, Ludy said from the ground.

  —Yes, Stephen laughed suddenly over him, holding the bird, looking down, where a streak formed on Ludy’s hand.

  —But I’m bleeding . . . don’t, why are you laughing?

  —Yes, who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him . . . ? Stephen stood there looking down, and he covered the bird in his hand with the hand mounting the diamonds. —But you can’t quiet it, you can’t comfort it, it would die of fright.

  —It frightened me, so close . . .

  —See, how it’s made . . .

  —No, no . . . from far off, flying, yes, they’re beautiful . . . Ludy struggled up on his elbows. —But no, not this close, like that, they make my blood run cold . . . He looked at the faint streak on his hand and repeated, —I’m bleeding . . .

  Stephen burst into
laughter again, more loudly, standing there with the bird. —Yes, yes, who would have thought, the old man . . . he laughed more loudly, at the slight and so faintly colored streak, —to have had so much blood in him! . . .

  —But what is it . . . no, Ludy shuddered on the ground and unable to rise while the bird was held over him there.

  —A daughter, yes! and born out of, not love but borne out of love, when it happened, the bearing, the present reshaped the past. And the suitor? Oh Christ! not slaying the suitors, no never, but to supersede where they failed, lie down where they left. Where they lost their best moments, and went on, to confess them in repetition somewhere else without living them through where they happened, trying to reshape the future without daring to reshape the past. Oh the lives! that are lost in confession . . .

  —I’m bleeding . . .

  —To run back looking for every one of them? every one of them, no, it’s too easy, Penelope spinning a web somewhere, and tearing it out at night, and waiting? or to marry someone else’s mistake, to atone for one of your own somewhere else, dull and dead the day it begins. You’d see, listen, listen, listen here if the prospect of sin, draws us on but the sin is only boring and dead the moment it happens, it’s only the living it through that redeems it.

  —Where are you going?

  —I’ve an early start, I’ve come this far. Hear the bells! the old man, ringing me on.

  —But the bird . . . ?

  —There are stories, I could tell you about Saint Dominic plucking alive the sparrow that interrupted his preaching . . .

  —Just take it away, just, and let me get up, I’m bleeding.

  —I told you, there was, a moment in travel when love and necessity become the same thing. And now, if the gods themselves cannot recall their gifts, we must live them through, and redeem them.

  Stephen had knelt slowly beside the older man down on his back in the path who had retreated as best he could, shifting his weight away elbow to elbow, still prone with the bird’s brittle torment so close, bursting out, —But why are you doing this to me?

  —Doing? what. You asked me, where am I going?

  —But I’m bleeding.

  —Listen, whoever started a journey, without the return in the front of his mind? The bird fluttered there in the austere hand almost closed on it. Stephen watched it with calm, as he spoke only instants of intensity in his voice showed hardening lines stand out on the hand, which the man on the ground watched, the hand’s shape broken only by the darting beaked head of the bird while from above Stephen watched its soft fluttering mantle, and his hand only a shape to contain it. —If it leads back into the wind blowing in off the desert, there’s Biskra. Or Nalut, and the crescent moon hung in the sky there, it’s all mine, I remember. When something you hadn’t planned happens, where you hadn’t planned it to happen . . . from north the Atlas stands up out of the earth, at sundown all of it looks like the world after the Deluge, then the darkness comes in. There’s no horizon to separate fires on the mountainside from the low stars in the sky. The only way you know, a man passes between you if it’s fires there, you’ve that moment’s witness of goat hair passing between you it wasn’t a star.

  —Please . . . said the man on the ground, making movement to rise, but his own eyes pinioned him on that bird, —don’t . . . you’ll kill it holding it, that tight? And as he watched, Stephen’s hand closed, only enough to stand out its tendons, and a whisper as tense.

  —Yes yes yet should I kill thee? with, much cherishing?

  And as the bird stilled in his hand, Stephen looked down, before him, at the old man on the ground. —What was it? he asked.

  —But what, was what . . .

  —Yes, something you wanted to ask me? Oh, remember? varé tava soskei me puchelas . . . much I wondered . . . but no. Stephen smiled down at him.

  —Nothing, but . . . nothing, you see I I’ve been writing something here but I it’s it concerns an experience of a an a religious nature and the prayers, I wanted something from the service but the Latin . . . of course I studied Latin, I went through Vergil but hearing it, since I’m not Catholic, the Latin, I wanted something to, sort of round things off? And that old man, the prior? at the end of the service? whatever . . .

  —From the service?

  —But Latin . . .

  —That ex-Manichee bishop of Hippo . . .

  —Oh? is that the old man? the prior?

  —Do you have a pencil? Then write this. Dilige et quod vis fac.

  Stephen rose slowly above him, standing, watching the pencil move.

  —e . t . . qu . o . d . . v . i . s . . fac, and what does it mean? I studied Vergil but I’ve forgotten . . .

  —Love, and do what you want to.

  —What . . . ?

  Stephen stood, looking down at him.

  —What? is that part of the service?

  The bird was still warm in his hand. He opened it, and the bird moved against his fingers, as he stood looking down.

  —I can look it up later. Dilige . . . The man on the ground moved up on his elbows.

  —Yes, much I pondered, why you came here to ask me those questions, Stephen laughed above him, stepping away. He opened his hand. The bird struck it and went free. —Hear . . . ? Bells sounded, far down the hill there. —Goodbye.

  —You’re going? The man on the ground raised himself from his elbows, staring at the slight streak of his blood.

  —Yes, they’re waiting, Stephen said to him. —They’re waiting for me now, they . . . With his own eye, in the dawn, he caught the sparkle of the diamonds. —Her earrings, he said, —that’s where these are for. Did I tell you?

  Stephen’s throat caught, looking down at the figure on the ground struggling to get up. —Yes . . . His eyes blurred on the figure older each instant of looking down at that struggle, and the hand where the blood lost all saturation. —Goodbye, hear? the bells, the old man ringing me on. Now at last, to live deliberately.

  —But . . .

  —What!

  —You and I . . .

  —No, there’s no more you and I, Stephen said withdrawing uphill slowly, empty-handed.

  —But we . . . all the things you’ve said, we . . . the work, the work you were, working on . . . ?

  —The work will know its own reason, Stephen said farther away, and farther, —Hear . . . ? Yes, we’ll simplify. Hear? . . .

  —But . . .

  —The old man, ringing me on.

  The man in Irish thorn-proof did look a good deal older, by the time he’d picked himself up and got back to his room behind the walls. He meant to wash immediately he returned, but came in fumbling in a pocket with a wad of paper, which he brought out, saw there in his own hand, Dilige et quod vis fac, which he took out only long enough to annotate, “What mean?” and would, before his stay was out, find, as an unheartening curiosity, and drop on the floor (since there was no wastebasket).

  He had left his windows opened, and the bird was sitting on one of the framed pictures when he came in, and closed the door behind him.

  But he had already paused to make his notation, “What mean?” before he saw it, when it fluttered across the room to the other picture, and though he tried frantically to chase it toward the front, toward the windows and out, it fluttered the more frantically from one picture to the other, and back across the room and back, as he passed the mirror himself in both directions, where he might have glimpsed the face of a man having, or about to have, or at the very least valiantly fighting off, a religious experience.

  Aux Clients

  Reconnus Malades

  l’ARGENT

  ne sera pas

  Remboursé

  —Notices posted in brothels, Rue de l’Aqueduct, Oran

  Stanley was sprayed with green paint and had a finger broken on his first day in Rome. It happened when the band of Pilgrims he accompanied visiting the Basilica of Saint John Lateran was mistaken by alert police for a demonstration by a notorious political group, an
d set upon with as much ardor as the Saracens showed mauling those early Pilgrims to the Holy Land. Lonely, already tired before he started, unnerved by that violence, nettled to the extreme even by such small things as his constant re-encounters with the trundling, enamel-nailed, clicking (keeping tabs on Mystery!) fat woman, when he overheard mention of the Via Flaminia he remembered overhearing it named once before, lurking lonely in hospital corridors as he lurked now in Rome. He sought Mrs. Deigh, and reached her with less trouble than he might have expected. She sent the Automobile for him immediately.

  Like other monuments of antiquity in the Eternal City, the Daimler stood at an impressive height, and moved, when it did so, with all of the dignity possible under such vulgar circumstances as locomotion. Stanley sat up front with the chauffeur; and though they rolled imperiously past streets and buildings which he’d crossed the ocean to see, he spent most of the ride gazing over his shoulder into the empty interior behind him, and the single seat there. Eventually, Mrs. Deigh might well insist that she’d got the car straight from the Vatican garage after the ascent of Benedict XV to a landscape where he would have no use for it (for, as an eminent Spaniard supplies, mortal man must triumph over distance and delay because his vital time is limited: among the immortals, motorcars are meaningless). But she was generally the first to admit responsibility for installing the stained glass windows herself.

  Once arrived, the silent chauffeur let Stanley in, rang a bell, and left him standing quite forlorn beside a piece of bronze statuary. But only for a moment. A blond figure in organdy and white fox swept up, extended a muscular arm which, on a man, might have been called brawny, froze Stanley with what, man or woman, was most certainly a wink, and was gone. Stanley wilted against the bronze, and dropped the hand he had held out in greeting. Then he straightened up and pretended to be inspecting the voluptuous nineteenth-century triumph of Judith over Holofernes, as he heard footsteps in the hall behind him.