The Recognitions (103 page)

ice cube against his upper lip, raising it now and then to look at the chipped tooth inside, and staring at his image in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. Someone banged on the door, as someone had been doing at impatient intervals for some time, a guest apparently unable to make the stairs for he had directed them above with some irritation at the second assault, and now he cried out, —All right, damn you. He dropped the cold pack into the sink, saw the swelling gone down somewhat, peeled up the lip for another look at the tooth and then drew it down firmly, catching his own eyes in the glass. And since the intimacies of catoptric communion were by now as strange to him as any others (he was always prepared for, and satisfied with what he saw in the glass, in those numerous but brief encounters when he hunched toward it, washing his hands, his face an established proposition, his mind busied elsewhere with still mutable concerns), he stood now reflecting his face more absorbed than that most dubious mirror-gazer of our acquaintance; and it took another attack on the door to sunder Basil Valentine from this conspiracy of chin and eyes, the straight nose and high bones which were his face. He turned, adjusting himself behind, under the ventless jacket, and before, at the weighted waist, and came out, without a look in either direction until he'd arrived among people. He took some brandy immediately, and managed to avoid a con-versation on whether the names of soft drinks spelled across the sky were desecrations of the House of God; a man who said, —In dthis kenntre no ouonne toks ovv dthe ouor becose ovv krissmess? . . . and a young woman who said something about King George III which he hoped, vaguely, he had not understood aright, as he looked anxiously over the room. —Et ce vieux moricaud . . . où se cache-t-il? . . . —Because Mister Schmuck wants to have one made just like George the Third ... Valentine stopped beside a dark man who barely reached his shoulder, and before he'd noted the peaked sharkskin suit or the glazed eyes asked, —Where's Brown? Have you seen Mister Brown? —I fear you too are at the wrong party? Perhaps . . . Basil Valentine moved quickly. He touched another elbow, —Have you seen Brown? Mister Brown? . . . —Men den himmelske rustning . . . hey? Then Valentine stopped short, staring more than half the length of the room at a stout fluttering figure, plucking the point of a black beard with one hand, disposing the other in riotous gestures on the air, and lor all his apparent weight, moving with admirable agility upon his toes. —Good God! Good God no! —Say, old man, where you been hiding, eh? . . . Missing all the fun, what? —What? —Jolly old rascal, isn't he! sweating up there like a ... mmp. Just came down for a bit more of this cognac, eh? Good heavens yes, have to keep up, don't you know. —Brown's . . . up there? Some of the guests were leaving, with over-shoulder looks of last-minute anticipation, —We'd hate to miss anything . . . Some had left. Some appeared rooted; and even those that continued to move did so with a buoyant vagueness, sustained on the flood of heat filling that vast room like a natural element. Thus Basil Valentine's eyes, like those in the tapestry vacant, remained attached to the capering figure with the black beard beyond simply because it moved with such mimetic extravagance: a spell which he might break in an instant, as he well knew, by summoning his gaze to the right, near the Christmas tree, where a conversation on Cheops' prophecies, or the improbability of a Fourth Dynasty mummy (—There were none, properly speaking, until the Eighteenth . . .) was most certainly taking place. So much for his unbroken gaze; for now, in like manner, he was aware of sounds from the balcony above, scraping sounds, and the slight shocks of metal against metal, an affliction momentarily worse to whose relief the habit of intervention threatened to betray him, but he stood firm, giving the R.A.'s voice the same glazed attention his eyes gave the cavorting beard beyond, waiting, glamorized, for the shock which would break the spell. Even then, lapsing voices allowed the radio to penetrate with what sounded like dissonant caterwauling, (The music was Ravel, L'Enfant et les Sortileges.) —Is he up there, you say. Good heavens yes, with all his . . . mmmp. You'd think he wanted to climb into the thing, like that Don mmpht the Spanish fellow don't you know. Nice enough thing of its kind, I spose, but I mmp . . . never been very partial to armor meself. And good heavens, eh? Hardly the sort of thing to be seen running about in these days, eh? atom bombs and all that sort of thing popping off everywhere, eh? Not much protection, I shouldn't wonder, mmpht . . . like being roasted alive in a ... I don't know what, eh? I say, hev you gut any more of thet Virginia about you? Smoking my brand, don't you know. Basil Valentine's hand alerted, and he took out the packet of cigarettes as he continued to stare down the room. —Lot of odd ducks kicking about this evening, eh? Oh yes, yes, thnks vry much. —The armor? Basil Valentine said in a low tone, listening. 674

—Eh? Oh yes, rather a nice suit of its kind, I daresay, Italian, round about the fifteenth century looked like to me. Odd little fellows, the Italians, eh? I mean to say, small stature, don't you know, nothing Saxon about them at all, small-boned little fellows, fine Italian hand and all that sort of thing. Some of the more . . . mmmp less decorous guests up there egging him on. A regular carnival, don't you know. Good heavens, I daresay they'd hev a devil of a time getting him into it, eh? He's hardly a mmpt Renaissance figger, eh? The R.A. paused to light his cigarette, and then as though bound from having accepted it to the donor, who showed no inclination to move, he continued. —Not quite the . . . son metier, as that obnoxious little Frenchman says, eh? But then the French, eh? Good heavens. The French, don't you know. Can't do a thing with them. I mean to say, there's nothing I'd want to do with them, except mmmp . . . never mind, eh? Hardly go about doing that sort of thing. Good heavens, no. Not these days. He paused again, and made a clucking sound with his lips before he raised his glass there. From above came a dull thumping sound, the heels of hands on metal, forcing it down, pounding among strictures of laughter, and Basil Valentine raised his fingertips to the vein in his temple. —Why good heavens, you'd hardly get the mmph what-do-you-call-ems down over his shoulders, the pauldrons I mean to say, eh? Made for some skinny little Italian . . . mmpht horse-soldier, don't you know. All bones, those little fellows, bones and sinews, you might say, eh? I daresay that's why it's such a delicate piece of craftsmanship, don't you know . . . all of a piece, as Dryden puts it somewhere. Good heavens yes . . . but not this suit, not this suit. A shame, too, lovely thing like that, to be mmmh . . . it's not my field, of course, so I've no right to interfere with my comments, eh? But good heavens, the feet, don't you know, a bit incongruous, having German feet wouldn't you say? I mean to say, that rather sort of delicate Italian line all the way clown, and it ends' up in a pair of German feet. Bear-paw type, don't you know, great wide clumsy German sort of things. Not that I'm carrying any ax to grind with the Germans, good heavens no. Much healthier heving a neighbor you can break out and hev a bit of a war with now and then, eh? Settle your differences right out in the open, eh? Instead of putting up with the mmpht absurd posturing of the French year after year, eh? What's the matter? . . . Basil Valentine had startled suddenly, as the cigarette between his fingers burned down to meet the skin. He looked round at his interlocutor, as though fully aware of him there for the first time. —Eh? You all right? I was just about to say . . . what the devil do you spose they're doing up there? . . . The sounds of metal on metal had become more noticeable, an irregular and subdued clatter; still Basil Valentine did not move to go. —Eh? You don't think that . . . good heavens no, why they couldn't even get the mmph what~do-you-call-ems over his calves, over his ankles, don't you know . . . the greaves I mean to say. Not my field, not my field at all. Though I did write a paper once, some occasion, what the devil was it . . ; when I was studying, I suppose, eh? Some time ago, don't you know, though one doesn't just stop being a scholar, eh? like putting otf Eton collars, eh? Good heavens no. Now that paper, what the devil was it ... mmmpht. Oh yes yes yes ... I was younger of course, it may sound a bit naive now, don't you know, but it was a raiher original bit ol thinking, I was told so at the time, at any rate, rather fresh approach, don't you know . . . but damn me if I can remember what it was . . . And now, though very tew laces turned to one side or the other, or up, to show they had noticed it, came the distraction of an even and metallic tread from above, and Basil Valentine turned his head slowly left, though he did not raise his face. —Pl'ooo, the R.A. went over his glass, —yes, yes, here it is. The devil, wearing false calves, do you recall? Mephistopheles, don't you know, in mffít that ponderous thing by Goethe. Good heavens yes, wearing false calves, don't you know, to cover his cloven feet and his mphhht calves, yes. Well my thesis, don't you see, was that these things weren't simply a disguise, to fool people and all that sort of thing, but that some sort of mffft . . . aesthetic need you might say, some sort of nostalgia for beauty, don't you see, he being a fallen angel and all that sort of thing, rather . . . unpleasantly different in his mphhht appearance from mphhht . . . The white-haired gentleman stopped, looking at Basil Valentine square [or the first time and, apparently for the first time, realizing that Valentine was not listening to a word he said. —Mphhht ... a long time ago all that, eh? There, that's rather a nasty place you've got on your lip, eh? Going up like a balloon, eh? Good heavens . . . Then, as Basil Valentine raised his hand to touch the broken swelling, his arm was pulled down. —Ghood heavens! Ghood heavens! Ghood heavens! . . . D'you see? Here's your lunatic come back again. Eh? Do you see him there by the foot of the stairs? . . . looks like he's ready to ... good heaven knows what ... go up in flames, eh? Won't do, won't do at all ... can't hev this sort of thing, invading a private gathering, eh? A man's home is his mphht what-d'you-call-it, don't you know, eh? Popping in here from nowhere in that sort of a get-up, good heavens no, no reason at all to run around in two suits of 676

clothing, none that I recall at this moment at any rate, don't yot* mpphhht ... I say, my dear fellow do be a bit more careful, you're spilling your drink all over me . . . The member of the Royal Academy stepped back, brushing cognac from his sleeve, and spilling what was in his own glass as he did so; and his immediate vicinity quieted soniewhat, there under the balcony and round the foot of the stairs, as he stopped speaking. Then a number of people stopped talking, others to talk more loudly, some to turn their attention, and some their backs, on this diverting visitor who stood looking feverishly round, holding up a handful of charred wood, whispering, —Where is he? . . . where is he? . . . Basil Valentine had stepped back. His finger remained at his lip, and he pressed it; suddenly aware of acute pain there, he pressed harder, and blood reached his tongue. —Brown! That end of the room silenced. Several people stepped away from the foot of the stairs, and the figure standing there, looking among them. Some of them looked up, to the shuffling sound of metal on metal. He saw them looking there, and turned himself; but there was nothing to see but the bend of the stairs, and the polychromed wood figure exposing the coarse-grained scar of the arm amputated in benediction. Out in the room, voices continued. Flames moved unhurriedly up over a black wild cherry log in the fireplace. Muffled caterwauling came from the radio. —Brown! The panoplied figure reached the landing in one fall, taking a long time, so it seemed afterward to those who saw it happen; and making a good deal less of noise than they might have expected, hitting head-on at the turn, attacked by shadows leaping to meet it, withdrawing as it dropped away from the wall and hung, for a moment when the whole room silenced and all the eyes were brought into one equation, the quick eyes stilled, and the still eyes of the wart hog, the face in the youthful portrait, the blind eyes of Valerian stretched on his rack and the all-seeing eyes of the pale underclothed figure in the middle of the low table, those and the eyes in the tapestry, turned in the other direction, alerted. —There, of course, I disagree with Dante, came on a voice from the far end, restoring the unconscious balance, rescuing what was alive from what was not; and enough voices to deliver one another from the isolation of separate identity took up and spread in a slow Wave toward the broken weight poised on the edge of the landing, whose clinging shadows leaped away as it moved, and re- peated their concerted attacks as it fell from one step to another, stifling it in their last embrace at the bottom. —Good heavens! . . . they've knocked the thing down the stairs, d'you see? Heavier than one might have thought, eh? The white-haired gentleman approached. —Good heavens, I ... daresay . . . there's someone in it. Behind him, Basil Valentine crossed himself quickly with the third finger of his right hand; then touched the bend of his forefinger to his lips as he approached. Clattering down the stairs in his grotesque shoes, which looked like they'd been built especially for participation in some sport, possibly one on snow, or in marshland, or some such sodden surface, that grimpen, perhaps, where is no secure foothold, came M. Crémer, to plant those remarkably equipped feet among the Aubusson roses, and hold forth the broad-bowed thick-lensed glasses which his host had left behind. He was talking at a great rate, and in his own tongue, so no one stopped him, and no one paid him any attention. Behind him, a tall unexaggerated man stood on the step holding a damp double-breasted suit coat; and there were others, crowding between this one and the polychrome amputee, as wide-open eyed, and as silent, a reticent concord which might have been mistaken for reverence but for the immoderate curiosity which had shone in the eyes of Saint John Baptist ever since he had first been put out in the weather some centuries before. Then the tall woman reached up to catch a naked earlobe, and cry, —Oh! . . . I've lost my baby's breath ... a line which did attract some attention. Resounding in the regions beyond the staircase, the crash had ' straightened Fuller up on his kitchen stool forthwith. It was a minute before he could get out, for the dog wanted to get out too. It commenced to trot up and down the room, nervously sensing something amiss with that intuition which Fuller knew all too well, and seeing it active now, became the more alarmed. As the dog scratched at the door leading to the hall and the great room, Fuller slipped out another, up the kitchen stairs to the second-floor halls, round to the balcony and out slowly to the front stairs, where he paused at the newel and looked back, abruptly aware of a vacancy. Then his eye caught the cigar, half-smoked and gone out but not before it had burned a long scar on the rosewood chest. He picked it up, licked his thumb and rubbed the burnt place but it did no good: and at that moment, from the corner of his eye he realized what was missing at the end of the balcony, and carrying the half-678