The Recognitions (105 page)

mirror minutes before as that image's smile returned, and he felt it distorting the lips in betrayal of the emotion he did not feel, as he summoned his voice and said, —My dear fellow . . . you're weeping, aren't you. Still nothing moved. —Come along now, my dear fellow, straighten up. It's a shock, but ... —Who are you? ... Basil Valentine stepped forward again, almost kicked the headpiece. —Now listen to me, he said firm for the first time, —there's been enough of all this . . . business. He sounded impatient. —Don't you think it's time to ... wash up, and get into some fresh clothes, get a fresh start? Because all this ... all this . . . Valentine raised his foot, and jarred the headpiece with his toe, at which the other stood up quickly and turned away, leaving the penknife dropped on the carpet where he'd knelt. —After all, now, Valentine said to his back, —there will be some changes, won't there, without . . . now that there are just the two of us. —I've got a headache, a . . . I've got a rotten headache. He stopped in the middle of the room, and Valentine came up on him where he stood pressing his forehead in his hands. —I should think you might, you know. Basil Valentine put a hand gently on his shoulder, but he drew away quickly. Valentine stepped back. —And I suppose we should . . . call the police, you know, he said, licking his lip. —They'll probably be here any minute. —How do you mean? —Where do you think I've been all this time? Good God, what do you think kept me from getting right back here before this . . . this ... He shook a hand out at the scene behind them. —After I'd broken your door down, and was coming out . . . —You broke my door down? —Where the . . . what do you think those . . . pieces of ... dirty . . . burnt wood, that . . . what do you think that is? I knew what it was, when I got in and saw the . . . saw something smoking in your grate, I knew what it was, I knew what you'd done, damn you ... I knew what you'd done. —Now listen to me, what is all this? The police are in my flat? —T don't know, I don't know, I don't know where the police are. I know that two of them were taking me somewhere afterwards and I got away from them . . . and came here. How should I know Where the police are? Why should I ... care where the police are. Basil Valentine had gone pale in the face; and now he touched his lower lip, tapped it with a fingertip. Then he looked up and said calmly, —There was really no reason for you to do a thing like that, you know. I ... I've been trying to get hold of you since . . . yesterday morning, when you left me in the park there so ... precipitously. —You have! Then who did you think it was ringing your bell an hour or two ago? —I've been out . . . for some time, Basil Valentine answered. —I've even been down to Horatio Street, you know, looking for you. —You have! And what did you find there? —No one at home, my dear fellow, obviously. —No one at home! Yes, that's good . . . No one at home! Do you know what happened down there? Do you know what had happened when I went back down yesterday? It had burned. The whole place had burned, the whole building. It must have been that ... I left some things burning there, in that fireplace, and there was oil and everything spilled everywhere, and something must have . . . the oil must have . . . Good God I don't know, but it's gone. Basil Valentine had backed to the pulpit bar, where he leaned watching. —That painting you were working on too, eh? he said after a moment. —The last one, the one I liked as it was, eh? —What? The face turned to him in confusion from the abstract emptiness it had fallen into, staring down at the carpet. —That Stabat Mater? —What, she? —Burned too? —Good God! Good God! She wasn't . . . she . . . —Here, my dear fellow, Basil Valentine said coming at him again. —Get hold of yourself, get hold of yourself. This time he did take both shoulders in his hands, to say, —We're both upset, there's no sense in all this now, and it's no time to try to talk rationally about it. If the place is burned, it's burned, and anything in it ... —Oh yes, and the griffin's egg, that was there! Oh, that griffin's egg, damn it. That's why I went down there, to get it so I could . . . Then he stopped and pulled from Valentine's hands again. —This last picture, he said, —the van der Goes, where is it? —My dear fellow . . . —Where is it? —Come back here . . . listen . . . —Oh yes, it's in his privy chamber, isn't it. That's where he kept things like that, isn't it? Yes, in the genizah? —Come here, listen . . . And at that moment Basil Valentine's eye caught the painting behind him, just beyond the pulpit bar. —What's this! What's happened here? 686

-That ... —Here, stop that laughter . . . this, did you do this? Valentine stood running a finger over the hole, where the figure of the Ern-peror Valerian stretched on his rack had been cut neatly out. —I? Good God no. Crémer, Monsieur Crémer, vous savez . . . —Stop that damned laughter . . . —Ah oui, qu'il voulait un souvenir, vous savez, un tout petit souvenir de sa vieille connaissance du monde des truqueurs . . . Valentine didn't answer, staring at the damage under his hand. He ran his finger along the edge where it was cut, as his tongue ran over his broken tooth, though he stopped that as he turned, to catch his lower lip under the broken place. —Bleu de Prusse, alors, ca ne fait rien vous savez, le ciel en bleu de Prusse, retouché simplement vous savez . . . the work of some incompetent restorer, un restaurateur vous savez . . . —Come here! Yes, and now you want to damage that . . . van der Goes the same way . . . come here! —For the same reason, vous savez . . . —Come here! But Basil Valentine followed him to the panel door; and stood behind him as he stared at the painting hung inside. —That face, that . . . Good God, that face, where did it come from? —The face? Valentine watched him, with hardly a look at the painting, —and . . . what do you think of it? ... —Think of it! Think of it? Good God, I ... I can't think of it, look at it, it's . . . —You don't care for it, eh? Valentine withdrew a step, and back outside the door. —You think it's bad, eh? —Bad? No. No, it's not bad, it's funny. It's funny, do you know what I mean? he demanded turning on Basil Valentine. —It's funny, it's . . . vulgar, he said holding a hand up between them. —But you . . . stop, my dear fellow, stop that laughing and come out. —That's why it's funny, because it's vulgar, do you see? —Damn it, come out of there. He came out, and followed Basil Valentine across the room laughing. —Oh, and they . . . said I dishonored death! Did you see that face? Then he stopped. —Where did it come from? —My dear fellow . . . —No, tell me, who painted that face, tell me. Basil Valentine stood taking a cigarette out, which he hung under the swollen lip. —Your benefactor there did it, he said, and motioned away. —He did it? He? —What do you think all this . . . foolishness about climbing into a suit of armor .was, this . . . —Oh no! No! No! The same thing, yes, oh yes, the same thing he wanted, but the only way he knew, but you . . . you . . . Basil Valentine tasted blood. The cigarette paper had torn his lip again. He stood backed against the pulpit. But he could not turn away as he had in the lion house: for these were the same eyes on him, the same movements the lioness made, approaching, the head hung, one foot crossed over the other in a bound, and the eyes again on him in another approach, and no bars between them. The broken smile on Valentine's face yielded its weak incipience as he tried to draw his lips tight against a feeble sound that escaped them, initiating defense, or some proposal. Then he straightened up, a step from the pulpit. The threatening shadows had stilled, the figure retreated across the room to stand over the low table in the dull glow of the fireplace. —And you were the boy! Valentine said in a tone gone almost childish with recrimination. —The boy in your story? whose father owned the original? The boy who copied it, and stole the original, and sold it, for "almost nothing" to ... him. —To him! How did I know, I didn't know who bought it, I just sold it. The original! I thought . . . do you know what it was like, coming in here years later with him, and seeing it here? Waiting, seeing it here waiting for me? waiting to burn this brand of final commitment, as though, all those years, as though it was what I thought, instead of ... a child could tell, even in this light . . . —Perhaps you were right all the time, Valentine said quietly, coming closer. —But this is a copy! —Of course it is. When the old count sold his collection in secret, this was one of the copies he had made. —And, the original? all this time . . . ? —All this time, the original has been right where this one is now. Basil Valentine stood very near him by the table. —Of course it was the original here for so long, the one you sold him. And this, I picked this one up in Rome myself scarcely a year ago. Do you recall when we first met? right here, across the table? Of course that was the original. I said it was a copy simply to hear you defend it. I knew Brown would trust your judgment. And I knew Brown would be troubled enough to have it gone over again, by "experts." I brought the idea into his mind simply to let him kill it himself, so that once I'd exchanged the two, no matter who called this a copy, he'd simply laugh at them. He'd just made absolutely certain, hadn't he? And the original? It's on its way back to 688

Europe where it belongs. I exchanged them quite recently. Do you think he knew the difference? And Valentine laughed, a sound of disdain severed by a gasp of pain at the shock in his lip. —Yes, thank God! The figure across the table stood illumined at its edges with the steady glow of the fire. —Thank God there was the gold to forge! Valentine smiled his broken smile, coming closer, as the other retreated a step up the room. —And you wanted me to copy the Patinir, so you could steal it, so you could steal it from him too. —Steal! Look at him, look ;H him over there. Steal from him? Look at ... his hand on the carpet, Valentine shuddered. —Like a fat soft toad on the carpet, the ugly venomous toad with the precious jewel in its head, look at it. Hands like that, on these beautiful things? Then drawing his hands together before him as though in protection, Valentine's wrist pressed the weight at his waist. He stepped forward suddenly, keeping his arm there, and said, —Listen . . . —Good God! —It's all different, Valentine said, —it's different now, now that you and I are . . . alone. —You . . . what do you want of me? —And you! what do you want? Basil Valentine burst out, advancing again as this figure before him moved backwards up the room, not unsteady, but from side to side, back toward the staircase and the hulk flung at its foot. —Yes, your by all that's ugly! And you, handling you like a jewel, he went on, his voice rising. —You and your work, your precious work, your precious van der Goes, your precious van Eyck, your precious not van Eyck but what I want! And your precious Chancellor Rolin, look at him there, look at him. Yes, why didn't you paint him into a Virgin and Child and Donor? Do you think it's any different now? That that fat-faced Chancellor Rolin wasn't just like him? Yes, swear to me by all that's ugly! Valentine hissed, and got breath. —Vulgarity, cupidity, and power. Is that what frightens you? Is that all you see around you, and you think it was different then? Flanders in the fifteenth century, do you think it was all like the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb? What about the paintings we've never seen? the trash that's disappeared? Just because we have a few masterpieces left, do you think they were all masterpieces? What about the pictures we've never seen, and never will see? that were as bad as anything that's ever been done. And your precious van Eyck, do you think he didn't live up to his neck in a loud vulgar court? In a world where every-thing was done for the same reasons everything's done now? for vanity and avarice and lust? and the boundless egoism of these Chancellor Rolins? Do you think they knew the difference between what was bizarre and what was beautiful? that their vulgar ostentation didn't stifle beauty everywhere, everywhere? the way it's doing today? Yes, damn it, listen to me now, and swear by all that's ugly! Do you think any painter did anything but hire himself out? These fine altarpieces, do you think they glorified anyone but the vulgar men who commissioned them? Do you think a van Eyck didn't curse having to whore away his genius, to waste his talents on all sorts of vulgar celebrations, at the mercy of people he hated? Blood flowed over his broken tooth. He'd turned away, but swung about again unable to stop. —Yes, I remember your little talk, your insane upside-down apology for these pictures, every figure and every object with its own presence, its own consciousness because it was being looked at by God! Do you know what it was? What it really was? that everything was so afraid, so uncertain God saw it, that it insisted its vanity on His eyes? Fear, fear, pessimism and fear and depression everywhere, the way it is today, that's why your pictures are so cluttered with detail, this terror of emptiness, this absolute terror of space. Because maybe God isn't watching. Maybe he doesn't see. Oh, this pious cult of the Middle Ages! Being looked at by God! Is there a moment of faith in any of their work, in one centimeter of canvas? or is it vanity and fear, the same decadence that surrounds us now. A profound mistrust in God, and they need every idea out where they can see it, where they can get their hands on it. Your . . . detail, he commenced to falter a little,—your Bouts, was there ever a worse bourgeois than your Dierick Bouts? and his damned details? Talk to roe of separate consciousness, being looked at by God, and then swear by all that's ugly! Talk to me about your precious van Eycks, and be proud to be as wrong as they were, as wrong as everyone around them was, as wrong as he was. And Basil Valentine flung out a hand to the broken hulk on the floor, toward which he backed the retreating figure before him. —Separation, he said in a voice near a whisper, —all of it cluttered with separation, everything in its own vain shell, everything separate, withdrawn from everything else. Being looked at by God! Is there separation in God? Valentine finished, and held out his hand again, but more slowly, less steady, to withdraw it immediately the two retreating before him came up, breaking the surface as the voice broke the silence he left. —And that van der Goes? Who put the face on it? Who couldn't stand that emptiness? Who had to see it with his hands, then! Yes, what are you telling me all this for . . . you . . . —Look out! Valentine spoke too late, and stopped still as the fig-690