The Recognitions

  —Really, and tell me, who is this . . . Solveig of yours? this Senta? The girl you’ve been using to model, I suppose, didn’t Brown say he’d sent along something?

  —Listen . . .

  —And how is it I didn’t see her? the night I dropped in on you.

  —But she doesn’t . . . we’ve never even . . .

  —Gimmeyatail Zimba, the boy said between them and the cage.

  —Or is it all in this phantasy of yours, eh?

  —Yes, I’m working it out, and everything fits, everything fits so far, everything. And, that dream? I told you about that. Why, you’ve dreamt? and afterward, you meet them, who you dreamt of? What an advantage! . . . you know things they don’t know, things about them they don’t know that you know, things they’ve done, they never suspect you know. Why, they can go right on talking as though nothing had happened. Yes, like the saints, Rose of Lima? and what innocency of hers was woven into her past by her Jesuit confessor! What defense have they against our phantasies? And meeting her again, can she imagine what she’s shared? where she’s been enjoyed, in privacy? Can she imagine the postures and pleasures she’s shared? And you know, all the time. What an advantage you have, over people you’ve dreamt of!

  —Gimmeyatail gimmeyatail gimmeyatail . . .

  —So you understand, how important this is? How crucial . . .

  Basil Valentine turned and laughed in his face. —Really, really my dear fellow. No, he said, clutching the single gray glove before him. —The “somber glow” at the end of the second act, is it? the duet with Senta, is that it? . . . “the somber glow, no, it is salvation that I crave,” eh! “Might such an angel come, my soul to save,” your Flying Dutchman sings, eh? Good heavens! And up they go to heaven in a wave, or whatever it was? Really! And all that foolishness you were carrying on with the last time I saw you, that “I min Tro . . .” and the rest of it, that Where has he been all this time? and your Solveig answers In my faith? In my hope? In my, . . . good heavens! You are romantic, aren’t you! If you do think you mean all this? And then what, They lived happily forever after?

  —But listen, listen, she . . .

  —No, no, it’s too easy. After all, you know. With no interruption, Valentine paused, looking into the cage of the lioness. The lioness had come to the middle of the cage, watching him. She went round the tree trunk where her tail followed close, circling it. She stopped and moaned at the tail. She turned and bit at it. Then she moaned and faced him again. He did not speak until threatened by the voice beside him, then went on derisively, —And Saint Rose of Lima! Why, this sudden attempt to set the whole world right, by recalling your own falsifications in it? And then? Happiness ever after? Then you will be redeemed, and redeem her, and . . . good heavens knows what! And then, what next? First it’s Shabbetai Zebi, now it’s the Flying Dutchman? Listen to me, he went on, his voice dropping, —this lost innocence you’re so frantic to recover, it goes a good deal farther back, you know. And this idea that you can set everything to rights at once is . . . is childish. I know what it’s like with Brown, of course I know, I know you can’t go on like that. But you and I, my dear fellow . . .

  The broken cries from the next cage had stopped, given over to heaving and groans.

  —What! You and I, what!

  —Listen to me, Basil Valentine said, suddenly closing his grip on the wrist he’d recovered, without taking his eyes from those of the lioness. —Do you remember, when I told you that the gods have only one secret to teach? Neither was looking at the other. Over Valentine’s shoulder, the blond woman reached the child who had run to her. She was bent down now, listening, her skirt drawn tight, her jacket full with the weight of her breasts, her face alive with attention. —Were they really fighting? she asked, still inclined over the child, being led back to the next cage where the pumas were, in her voice that tone children accept as awe, delighting to shock the innocence of those who awe them.

  —That secret, do you remember? said Basil Valentine still holding him tight there and still looking, himself, into the cage of the lioness. —What Wotan taught his son? the only secret worth having?

  —But how were they fighting?

  —The power of doing without happiness, Basil Valentine said.

  —See? said the child. She saw. She pulled the child to her, and looked quick into the other faces before the puma cage. They were all men. They all found her upturned face instantly, caught her dark eyes, one with a smile, one grinned an intimate recognition, until seeking escape she found herself looking into eyes familiar from a minute before, eyes not drawn to her by this instant of leveling, but still fixed on her, eyes which made no response at all. So she continued to stare at him, where he stood held in Valentine’s grip there, for moments, finding sanctuary where she could recover all so abruptly assaulted, in eyes which shared nothing, recognized nothing, accused her of nothing: but those moments passed and, recovering, she groped for escape. But that lack of response held her, that lack of recognition no more sanctuary than the opened eyes of a dead man, that negation no asylum for shame but the trap from which it cried out for the right to its living identity. She clutched the child by the shoulder, as one essays handhold climbing from a pit, and turned to stare into the cage of the pumas, reddening over her face and neck and, though none knew it but she, to the very breaking-away of her breasts.

  The sun was visible, white, in a sky which showed no premonition but in its fleeting neighborhood. The fat woman had followed it, from her chill seat near the seals to another, facing the sun, though she did not look up so far, no further than passing waist-levels, mouthing behind her damp wad, or the faces of children. —Frerra jacka, frerra jacka, dormay-voo? one sang. —What’s that? asked the smallest. —Soney malatina, soney malatina . . . —What’s that mean? asked the smallest, and the string of the balloon slipped from her finger. —It don’t mean nothin stupid it’s French, and lookit you lost the balloon already.

  How old Valentine might have looked, to someone who’d shared with him the cruel familiarities of youth. Or are there moments of intimacy, of which only strangers are capable? of which those known, and suffered over years, could never conceive, so seeking for their own reflection in the attrition of familiarity. So the fat woman, mouthing —grot-zy, grot-sy . . . behind her damp wad looked up as though she might in that instant know the history of every line around his eyes but only lacked the time to set it down, set it down anywhere, even in her own; or set it down in prescience, not magic, not art, but only history before it happened: not age as mere accomplishment, but in performance, living out what would be lived out, age knowing itself, earning itself in that instant and gone. Until all she could have told, if she’d been interrupted a moment later, surprised? indignant? mouthing —grott-sy, probably all she could answer would be, —How old he looked, just then, throwing that gray glove into the ashcan when he came out of the cat house.

  —What now? the sun? A priest of Mithras, was it? Come along, my dear fellow, I’ll tell you why Mithraism failed, the greatest rival Christianity ever had. It failed because it lacked central authority. It spread all over the country with the Roman Legions, but Christianity was a city religion, and power lies in cities, remember that. And what was it you said? A man’s damnation is his own damned business? It’s not true, you know. It’s not true. Why, good heavens, this suicide of yours? Why, like Chrysippus then? feeding figs and wine to an ass, and dying of laughter? Look! look there, in the sky where it’s still blue, that line? That white line the airplane’s drawn, do you see it? how the wind’s billowed it out like rope in a current of water? Yes, your man in the celestial sea, eh? coming down to undo it, down to the bottom, and they find him dead as though drowned. Why, this . . . pelagian atmosphere of yours, you know. Homicide, was it? What was it Pascal said, There’s as much difference between us and ourselves as between ourselves and others? . . . no, but that was Montaigne wasn’t it.

  He stooped a little, finding his way up the steps to the street.


  At the corner the three children stopped, to look at a deer hung there by its hind feet, to remark, —Lookit where they stuck the paper flower!

  From down the block two women approached. —And I just haven’t been the same since the Morro Castle . . . the tall woman said, and laughed. —And I wish I could, but I can’t, this dismal cocktail party tonight, my husband has to go, he’s her editor, and I’m his wife. We’re going to miss the Narcissus Festival in Hawaii again this year, I told him we’d just have one of our own . . .

  Basil Valentine’s hands were clenched deep in his coat pockets. —Now? a Turkish bath? he muttered. —Well don’t worry, those fragments, I’ll be there tonight, I’ll be at Brown’s. And he looked up, as though watching something blown on the wind.

  Ahead, the three children approached a figure sprawled on the sidewalk, and a little boy on a tricycle wheeling round it.—What’s that? asked the smallest. —A man, what’s it look like? —It looks like a Sanny Claus. What it’s wearing, it looks like it was a Sanny Claus suit, don’t it? —How could it be a Sanny Claus? It don’t have a wite beard. —But it’s getting a beard.

  Valentine’s look was not so steady: he raised it every three or so steps with that sort of blank surprise of a man glancing up to where he has been used to seeing a mirror upon entering a room, and finding a blank wall. —At Philippi? he murmured. —Yes . . . Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then. Like the sky, his eyes remained unclouded, but (perhaps it was the sky beyond him that did it) simply darkened, evenly, assuming a hard solidity and the enduring texture of gray, as the sky itself was doing, as one might have seen, looking up at them both.

  The tall woman turned her friend in at a door before the stubble-chinned figure sprawled on the walk in front of her house, —Right under the dining-room window, in fact, right here, as she remarked, —in front of God and everybody. She almost tripped over the tricycling child, but got the rail and down the steps to say, —My husband says that’s when you have to be careful, around lunchtime, that’s when most of them jump, when the streets are full of people, they do it then for the publicity.

  Above her the sky darkened. She did not look at it, but went in with her eyes on her own hand laid out at elegant length on her friend’s fur; while behind her, outside, the tricycle wove smaller and smaller circles, as its rider watched over the left shoulder how close the rear tire could come to the fingers on the pavement.

  By late afternoon it was snowing.

  The flakes were small, blown neither one side nor the other, nor falling direct to earth, but filling the air with continuous movement.

  Mickey Mouse pointed to ten minutes of four.

  The first thing she saw when she entered her apartment was the unnatural radiance of the sunlamp. Agnes Deigh paused there, still holding her keys, as though to appreciate fully the affliction before her, worse second by second as she hesitated, considering what might have happened had she not arrived; even perhaps that there was still time for her to leave, quietly as she had come, back into the transfigurating weather: but before she was able to contain this possibility sufficient to examine it, and find there one of those mortal shocks with which life rarely presents us opportunity to abandon the bonds of circumstances woven with such care, and start off upon any of a thousand alternative courses among which, like the needle in the haystack, lies the real one: habit betrays us, as it betrayed Agnes Deigh. She put a hand on the Swede’s shoulder, and made a sound.

  —Owwwayy . . . what . . . what . . .

  —How long have you been asleep under this thing?

  —What time is it?

  —Almost four, she said, and finally turned the sunlamp off.

  —Oh my God, my God, I’ve been here for . . . owwwww . . . what shall I do? . . . the Swede wailed.

  —There’s some butter. I’ll get some butter.

  So that is what she did. —I’ll die . . . she heard him a minute later from the bathroom, applying it. —How could it happen? But just look at me! . . .

  Instead she looked away, and said, —I wish you’d . . . But she had looked away in time, and broke off, biting her lip, her eyes fixed at the same level (staring at a table lamp) as though she could not raise them.

  —Baby. Ba-by! Oooooooooo.

  —I wish you’d put something around you, she said, recovered, looking up, and caught her lip again, for it had almost happened again: she had almost said what she did not know she meant, instead of what she meant to say; just as, that day in the office when she had intended to ask, Are you Catholic? . . . and had suddenly heard herself demand, Do you believe in God?

  The Swede had got back into the bathroom. Agnes Deigh sat down, and opened the only letter that was waiting for her. She read,

  Dear Madam . . . The case you reported to us as sadism and brutality reported by you to this precinct Tuesday December 20 at 10:17 A.M. resulted in false arrest for which you may be held responsible. Dr. Weisgall who you accused, was punishing his daughter in which case unless injury results no third party is obliged to intervene. This case is marked closed in our files but we feel it our duty to warn you that if at future date you accuse someone of criminal action that you investigate the facts thoroughly before reporting it to the Police. We also feel it our duty to warn you that Dr. Weisgall may be justified in communicating with you as agent of his unjust arrest, and any future action will take place between yourself and the injured party . . .

  —Baby who sent you ros-es? The Swede had emerged, clothed.

  Agnes looked up. She made a sound, almost told him, and bit her lip on that stark erect syllable. Then her telephone rang. —What? she said into it, shaken. —Hello? . . .

  (—Hello, Mrs. Deigh?

  —Baby I’ve got to find a doctor.

  —Yes, what is it? who is it?

  (—I’m sorry, this is Stanley and I think I left my glasses at your house once, and when could I . . . how . . .

  —I hate to run off like this baby but I’ll call you, from the hospital probably, but I can’t go to the hospital on Christmas Eve . . .

  —Stanley, Stanley, I . . . I’m so glad you called. Yes, I found them. I found your glasses, Stanley. But I won’t be home now, I’m going to a party in a little while. But could you come there? Couldn’t you meet me there?

  (—But I’m getting a toothache, but yes, all right, I can come for a little while but I have to go up to this new hospital where they moved my mother . . .

  —Yes here, here’s the address . . . She lead it to him; and almost a full minute passed after she’d hung up the phone and sat, staring at the letter she’d just received, before she looked up and realized she was alone.

  Immediately she got pen and paper and started to write. “Dear Doctor Weisgall. I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am for my recent mistake. How can I explain it to you so that you will forgive me? A woman’s life is not . . .” She stopped and read that; as she would stop and read again, and again, until the letter on the edge of the wastebasket started, “Dear Doctor Weisgall. Perhaps it is not until late in life that we realize that we do not, ever, pay for our own mistakes. We pay for the mistakes of others, and they . . .” And the letter which fluttered to the floor, “Dear Sir. I trust that you are intelligent enough to distinguish between a vulgar act of meanness and revenge, which God knows I have no reason to commit, and the act of a citizen and a human being doing what she believes . . .” when she got up to find two strips of tape. Then she stood at the window stretching the skin at her temples, sticking the tape there to discourage wrinkles while she rested. Unblinking, she stared out at the snowfall a minute longer; and when she turned on the room her moving eyes found the roses. They were full blown with the steam heat: and that instant her gaze struck them, three petals fell.

  The snowflakes frolicked about the Swede’s face, which was growing larger and more brilliantly red by the minute. He hit at them, as though they were a flight of insects sent to plague him. It did no good. They came from every hand until, s
eeing a bar, he fled from the white swarm inside, where patrons looked with impolite interest at his high buttered countenance. He got into the telephone booth, after only one drink, and dialed. —I came out in this blizzard to find a doctor but I don’t know any doctors . . .

  (—My doctor’s away . . . on vacation . . . in prison . . . I can’t think which . . . The tone was vague.

  He dialed three more numbers, got no answer, and returned to the bar to try to think of telephone numbers.

  —Nothing?

  —Nothing. Nothing at all, except this . . . wet, said Maude, standing against the door she had closed behind her. Snow crystals melted and dripped from her coat to the floor. —I had to come home in a taxicab.

  —The same judge?

  —Oh yes, and I almost hate him even though he does look like Daddy.

  —That’s a good sound reason itself.

  —Arny please don’t be cruel, not today. It’s Christmas Eve, Arny. I feel so awful. Even when my doctor said, Does she look like she’s malingering to you? Would you undergo an operation on your spine if you were malingering? And their lawyer said he was sorry but . . . Oh Arny, I get so tired.

  —Do you want a drink?

  —No. My doctor gave me some morphine. Are you drinking this early?

  —Just a couple before I have to start drinking at the party.

  —Arny I wish you wouldn’t drink so much. Have you filled out the papers?

  —What papers?

  —The papers. You know, the ones for the . . . I can’t pronounce it, for Sweden.

  He planned to fill out these papers, declaring their fitness as parents, after the party. Now he poured the last of a bottle of whisky into his glass and sat down slowly, making a wry face, supporting the lower part of his abdomen with a hand inside his trouser pocket.

  —I’m hungry, he said abruptly. —I didn’t have any lunch.

  —Do you want some spaghetti? Maude said vaguely.

  —Spaghetti in the middle of the afternoon? he mumbled, as she went toward the kitchen. But what Maude thought was spaghetti turned out to be a box of waxed paper. She offered salad; but they were out of whisky. When he went out for some, she sped him with, —But get a quart, there’s something sinful about a pint of whisky.