The Recognitions

  —Fas et Nefas ambulant, pene passu pari . . . He cocked his head for a moment and listened. —Prodigus non redimit vitium avari . . . He studied the face before him, as the words came on, —Virtus temperantia quadam singulari . . .

  Mr. Inononu’s nose was no more than two inches from the Vulliamy clock on the mantel. He stood peering into it as he did every face, an intent scrutiny of clinical exactness, brevity, and disposition. Then he raised his eyes to the gilt cupid, sniffed silently, lowered them to the fire smoldering in the grate, at which he sniffed audibly, and went on to the desk to examine its furnishings, the twitching fingers of his hands folded behind him the only signal of the agitation which the distant voice of his host provoked in him. Basil Valentine’s voice continued, the book held in white hands above the clear water, reading in his tub.

  Mr. Inononu stood a stolid five feet and four inches from the ground, draped in a brown suit which was some shades lighter, or at least softer, than his skin. His face reared in enigmatic blossom from the calyx of a sharp black beard. His brows were heavy and as black, doing little to hide or even temper the blacker eyes beneath them. The dark skin kept its patina to the back of his crown, where a black fuzz, gradually nourished into distinct hair, collared the back of his head and rose in slight peaks above his ears. Full face, as the Vulliamy clock had had him for a minute, there was something distinctly oriental about Mr. Inononu.

  As he went on around the room, silent on the carpet, he seemed to have difficulty resisting putting out a hand and touching things. He was touching the gold egg atop the column near the couch when Basil Valentine entered, a book closed in one hand, the other holding closed the untied front of the blue dressing gown. —An egg?

  —It’s damaged, obviously, Valentine muttered.

  —You are very nervous this evening, Mr. Inononu commented, turning from the column with a look which another face might have matched to his tone of solicitude, but his own reflected merely passive curiosity. His clothes were cut full; and for all the quiet alertness of his manner he seemed to billow in a wealth of folds and creases, moving to a bookshelf where he stood reading titles and touching the spines as he did so. —You are in the nineteenth century, he murmured running a thumb down Azigazi pozitiv filozofia. —And Móricz, side by side with Gárdonyi? . . .

  —You came to discuss literature? You’ve already kept me waiting . . .

  Mr. Inononu made a deprecative sound with his lips. —A Véres költö . . . you are fond of Kosztolányi? he asked, returning to the couch. —I would recommend to you Bródy? I do not see him on your shelf. His Faust orvos, his Don Quixote kisasszony . . .

  —Have you looked at these papers? Valentine interrupted him impatiently. —You’ve already made me late for an important . . .

  —I did not know which ones . . . still, you are not ready to leave yet.

  —Which ones! They’re right there in front of you, on the table there, if you’d simply looked, instead of poking around . . .

  —I disturbed nothing on your desk, Mr. Inononu said, watching him look sharply over the books and papers spread out there. When Valentine turned, having difficulty inserting a cuff link, Mr. Inononu picked up the papers from the marble-top table and said, —This information deals with a Rumanian, Yák is his name?

  —Among other things, Valentine answered shortly.

  —He is presumed to be in Spain now?

  —So they think. I think he’s here, myself.

  —You have information you have not communicated?

  —I have no information, Valentine dismissed it quickly, going on to the other cuff link. —Even if he is, it will take them long enough to find him in this . . . chaos, he raised his eyes to the window. —Whatever name he’s using now, he’s certainly sold his passport, or burned it by this time if he has any sense, any sense of . . . you, Valentine brought out harshly under his breath. He stood there abruptly motionless, staring at the glass without seeing through it, his eyes fixed on the reflection, the pacific image of this guest who sat as though occupied with an academic treatise. —He’s a scholar, you know, this Rumanian Yák, a scholar, and that means nothing . . . to you? he went on in dead monotone. —A scholar, a, a man you’ve never seen?

  Mr. Inononu shrugged, turning the pages in his short lap. —You do a most neat job of the decoding, most orderly, he murmured, taking a notebook from his pocket. —Some of the information I am given . . . Then he commenced to read, closely and with extreme rapidity, pausing to make notes, or read aloud phrases which struck him with what appeared to be pleasure. —Yes, an accomplished scholar, of course . . . Coptic, Aramaic, of course . . . authority on the Demotic . . . Saite period, mummies . . . yes, something may be arranged around this . . .

  —Will you do that too yourself? Valentine recovered irritably. —And you could have had this information in the usual way, he added, affixing a collar. —They know I don’t like you coming here.

  —I do as I am told.

  —One would think you’d been told to keep an eye on me.

  —This is entirely possible, Mr. Inononu agreed calmly, without looking up from his notes.

  —What do you mean? Valentine’s voice was as calm, but he’d spoken too quickly.

  —Exactly as you suggest, Mr. Inononu said looking up at him.

  —Yes, most likely! And if it were true, you would sit there telling me about it, eh?

  —One never knows who will win.

  —Who will win! what do you mean, who will win. Basil Valentine stood over him, a black tie strung tight between his hands. —Come, you’ve started this, now. What is being said?

  —So many things, as always, said Mr. Inononu, closing the notebook and putting it in his pocket. —Stories, rumors . . . He paused; but when Valentine urged him with no more than the cold blue eyes, went on, —Of yourself? Of course, there have always been so many stories, as you know. Why, I have even once been told that when you first came to us, you could not bear friction of any sort? Soaking the feet in warm water and trimming the nails, and put on heavy socks before going to bed? But there are stories about all of us, of course . . .

  Basil Valentine had turned away, and speaking with apparent calm, repeated, —What is being said now?

  —Quite simply, that though the Roman Church believes you still to be acting to its interests, you came to us from the Jesuits some time ago. And that now, though we believe you to be in co-operation with the present regime, you are in truth working with those who would attempt to restore the monarchy of the Hapsburgs. Mr. Inononu folded the papers together. He had spoken disinterestedly, and did not even look up, as though to save Valentine the trouble of contriving some sign of indifference to this intelligence. —Of course, stories, rumors . . . he added.

  —Oh yes, Valentine said then, wearily, pulling off the dressing gown. —First they expect me to work like, what was his name, the seventeenth-century primate, Pázmány? . . . converting the nobles first, sure that the people would follow. Now they say this. He shrugged, drawing the tie round his collar. —Come, there are stories about yourself, he went on agreeably. —One to match my abhorrence of friction “of any kind” as you say. I was once told that the reason for your rather oriental visage was, that a bank fell on you in a Japanese earthquake some years ago? An American bank, of course. And there were none but the local surgeons to operate on your face, who knew only the faces to which their own mirrors had accustomed them . . .

  Mr. Inononu stood. His trousers, fully pleated at the waist, broke their crease two or three times before the shoetops, and almost touched the floor at his heels. He held forth the papers to Valentine, who motioned him to the fireplace, where he stooped before the grate and tried to prod the fire into life with the rolled papers before thrusting them in. —And I understand you shall go to Rome, yourself very soon? he asked, stooped there.

  —I believe so, Valentine said. —How do you know?

  —As I say, one hears things. Also I believe there is work contemplated there
for me. A priest, though I am told far more important than the simple priest he pretends, perhaps you know of him, the name escapes, it is something Martin? Or Martin . . .

  —Yes, I know of it, Valentine cut him short, and stood motionless looking at the floor until Mr. Inononu straightened up from the fire to say, —It is a very disagreeable smell, this smell of paint burning.

  Basil Valentine glanced up at him and smiled for the first time. —Yes, isn’t it, he said, commencing to knot the black tie.

  On the mantel, the Vulliamy clock struck softly behind Mr. Inononu, who stepped away from it and picked up a book. —De Omni Sanguine Christi Glorificato, John Huss? You have curious reading habits, he said, and put it down again, his eye catching the newspaper clipping thrust in as a marker, as he did so.

  —A personal matter, Valentine said, undoing the knot to pull one end slightly longer.

  —And this? Hungary to Sell Famed Paintings, from the local newspaper?

  —A tragedy, Valentine said thoughtfully, —an . . . absurd tragedy, as Inononu pushed the book away and sauntered billowing toward the windows.

  —Of course, to say something like that, he began.

  —Yes, put that in your report then! Valentine broke out abruptly, at his back. —Anyone who would say what I’ve just said, eh? must be working against the . . . present regime, eh?

  —Do not be upset, Mr. Inononu said, without turning or pausing his slow course toward the windows. —You are a critic of art here, of course you are interested in such affairs. Tell me, is it enjoyable, your pose of the art critic in this culture?

  Valentine cleared his throat and raised his chin, folding the knot. —There is always an immense congregation of people unable to create anything themselves, who look for comfort to the critics to disparage, belittle, and explain away those who do. And I might say, he added with slight asperity, —it’s not entirely a pose.

  —Still, other interests come first.

  —Oh yes! . . . yes! And they send a . . . hired assassin to look after me, to make sure they do! Yes, like this Rumanian scholar, eh? A man you’ve never seen? and you’re sent out to find him and kill him. Without asking questions, just find him and kill him. And if I say . . . there, does it surprise you? if I talk like this to . . . a hired assassin?

  Mr. Inononu stood motionless before the windows. —And it should surprise you that I am? he brought out after a moment. His fingers twitched behind him, until his hands clasped one another. —Because I am a dead man already, he added quietly, and then, turning, —Like yourself . . . with an expression near a smile.

  The knot broke in Valentine’s hands; and a tremble touched his lip as he lost one end. He caught it up immediately, and at that moment the doorbell rang. Mr. Inononu stepped away from the windows instantly, and his hand went into the full breast of his jacket.

  —It’s nothing, Valentine said. —Someone downstairs. He was hurriedly gathering together the papers still spread on his desk, which he took, with the plainly bound book, through the door to the bedroom. —I’ll just be a moment . . . And a moment later he appeared in the door pulling on a dinner jacket. —You’re coming tonight then, are you? to keep an eye on me, eh?

  —Let us say I come simply as an Egyptologist. I have in my leisure developed quite a monologue on the prophecies contained in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. At such a party, I might even encounter someone familiar with Egyptian culture. A Rumanian, familiar with the early dynasties? . . . I should think myself to be Turkish, since it is a culture with which I am familiar, and of course since, as you say, I look rather . . . oriental? But when he turned, Basil Valentine was not there. Then he heard running water, from the bathroom; and then Valentine’s voice, —We’ll go separately, you go along, I have an errand first.

  The fingers of his clasped hands twitching behind him, Mr. Inononu returned to the window and stood looking out on the city. —You live very nicely here, he said, —it is very civilized. But most of these people live in squalor. I have been in the apartments of very respectable people, and they are squalor. He paused, and then his fingers still moving behind him he said, —Did you see what they did with our Molnár? what happened to Liliom? That was a beautiful thing, a beautiful ragged thing, Liliom, and they made it to music that sounds like all the other music I hear here, everything is smoothed round like everything else, it is sugar-coated suffering of the spirit here.

  The doorbell rang again, in a long peal, and his hands stopped and held one another tightly behind him. As it went on, they relaxed.

  —I have heard the radio, he said. —But since I can understand it, it is very depressing. It is spiritual squalor. Does it surprise you that I can talk this way? if you thought me no more than . . . that, he said and his hands came apart to gesture behind him, and fell together again.

  —Do you know the novel of Mikszáth, Szent Peter esernyoje? Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk, and there is an item which can blow a city of the beloved enemy into a place where their sins will be brought home to them, with of course as much noise as the trumpets on the walls of Jericho . . .

  There was a heavy pounding on the door. Mr. Inononu swung round as he had before, his hand inside his coat. Basil Valentine came quickly from the bathroom, drying his hands on a linen hand towel. His coat and hat were laid out, and he picked them up. —Come, there’s a back staircase, he said. Mr. Inononu got his own hat and coat from the deep chair near the windows.

  The pounding continued on the front door as they went through the kitchen. —Do you know, there was a funny story about you that I heard, in the hospital in Székesfehérvár? They told me you had a radio transmitter sewn inside of you.

  —A transmitter? Mr. Inononu demanded at the head of the service stairs. —A receiver perhaps, but a transmitter?

  By the time that Basil Valentine appeared, it had all been going on for some time; and the voices of guests lay in monotonous layers on the pestilential heat, rising into the lighted regions, falling away to the dark beds of shifting infested silence. Someone had already remarked that Bruckner had been Hitler’s favorite composer, someone else, that there was something wrong with any young person who really enjoyed the late Beethoven; someone had already confided that the soap business in America amounted to seven million dollars a year, someone else that advertising amounted to seven billion. Someone had already turned the radio on, and someone else turned it off though not before Mr. Schmuck (of Twentieth Century-Schmuck, here from the Coast on business for the holidays) had heard a catchy phrase of music, demanded of his assistant the name of the composer, been told, —I think the announcer said Kerkel . . . and finished, —Have him in my office Monday morning. Mr. Sonnenschein (here from the Coast for the holidays, on business) had already told his story about the girl who had dramatized a suicide attempt in the apartment next door to where he’d been invited to dinner the night before, —to get my attention for herself . . . had, in fact, told it four times and was finishing the fifth, —So I can’t even finish my Baked Alaska. M. Crémer (here from the Continent, on business) with a cigarette end stuck to his lip like a sore, had already remarked the uncivilized lack of public toilets in New York, and a number of people had already remarked that the tall woman wore too much perfume. In one corner, under the Patinir, Miss Stein (she was with Mr. Sonnenschein) had already settled the future of American art with Mr. Schmuck’s assistant, who had already developed his late-evening stammer which bespoke sincerity; just as the past of German art (—There was none, properly speaking, before Dürer) had already been settled in another, under the massive Christmas tree, a Norwegian spruce, reared before the critical eyes of t
he wart hog, which gave the impression that the host might have been ashamed of a tree grown of earth, for any natural green that could betray such coarse origin was obliterated in one grand festoon of tinsel, sparkling under three hundred twenty blue lights which Fuller had spent nine dizzy hours in arraying.

  And something else had happened, as every face (except a few that had come after, like the tall woman) revealed in strained attempts to show, to one another, that it had not. (Though Mr. Schmuck had seen fit to repeat a number of times since, —Wherever you got art you got cranks, we got the same trouble out there.) All of their momentary discomposure, however, had accumulated, and remained unmollified in Fuller’s face, as Basil Valentine saw directly they met when Fuller took his coat in the hallway.

  —What is it, Fuller, he’s been here already? he asked quickly.

  —Yes sar.

  —What happened?

  —He accomplish very little, sar.

  —Come now, what happened?

  —Very little occur to happen, sar, Fuller commenced, having at first seemed eager to escape, and now as he talked unable to stop. —He enter a lit-tel wile ago, comportin himself very calm as he go about among the guests talkin very diligent to them, though I can tell in his eyes that he is in great extremity for they become very green, the eyes of each mahn, sar bein the windows of his soul . . .

  —Come, get on with it, Valentine cut in, looking back from the great room beyond to Fuller, who stood before him staring at the hard surface which had come over the watery blue of his eyes.

  —So he restrain himself very peaceable, all the wile wearin one suit atop the other one as he go about addressin the dignitaries gathered in there until no one take notice of what he so carefully speakin to them about, and then at long last so it seem to me he arise very excited to proclaim he can prove all this what he so perseverinly try to inform them of is the truth, and upon hastenin his departure say he goin in search of you, sar.

  —And Brown? Brown, what about Brown? . . .