Read Online The Recognitions by William Gaddis - Free Book Online Page A

of her brother but to insinuate that he had abandoned her in this bondage of mortality. She talked to Wyatt familiarly of death, as though to take him with her would be the kindest expression of her love for him possible: still, she never spoke directly of death, never named it so, but continued to treat it with the euphemistic care reserved elsewhere for obscenity. 
    —And this? she appeared one morning in the study door poised rigid, dangling forth a pamphlet between forefinger and opposable thumb, —tell me how this got among my things? As though there might have been movement in the air, the pamphlet fluttered open, quaking its suspended title: Breve Guida della Basilica di San Clemente . In his chair, Gwyon startled, to reach for it, but stayed held at bay by her unpliant arm, and unyielding eyes which had fixed the distance between them. With a single shudder he freed his own eyes from hers and fixed them on the pamphlet, to realize that it was indeed not being offered in return but rather in evi-dence: not an instant of her stringent apparition suggested surrender. —Another souvenir from Spain! she accused, a page headed in bold face La Basilica Sotterranea Dedicata alia memoria di S Clemente Papa e Martire fled under her thumb. —Pictures of Spanish idols, . . . fragments of Byzantine fresco captioned Nostra Signora col Gesu Bambino almost caught her attention, —Catholic images . . . Another page fell over from the hand quivering at her arm's length, and bringing her foot a step past the sill she held it out that space closer to him: nothing moved. But the sill's sharp creak underfoot penetrated, a signal for her to hurl it at him, or down; for him to leap and snatch it. But nothing moved until she retired recovering her advance, and spoke with bitter calm, looking square at the thing, —A nice . . . place of worship! The illustration pinioned by her gaze was captioned Il Tempio di Mitra. —Look at it! a dirty little underground cave, no place to kneel or even sit down, unless you could call this broken stone bench a pew? She got her breath when he interposed, —But . . . —And the altar! look at it, look at the picture on it, a man . . . god? and it looks like a bull! 
    —Yes, a pagan temple, they've excavated and found the basilica of Saint Clement was built right over a temple where worshipers of... 
    —Pagan indeed! And I suppose you couldn't resist setting foot inside yourself? Did you? Again she paused, getting breath she appeared to prepare requital for his answer, admission or denial, and when he withdrew mumbling only —Set foot inside myself . . . ? she snapped immediately, —At least I have finally had the satisfaction of hearing you call the Roman Catholic Church pagan! She filled her grievous gaze a moment longer with the picture, and finishing with —Now that we all know what the inside of a Catholic church looks like, . . . she was gone, holding the abhorrent me-mento at arm's length, her eyes alert upon it, as though it might take life and strike. 
    Gwyon came slowly forward in his chair, hands clenched on nothing, listening to her sharp footsteps receding toward the kitchen. He waited until he heard them on the stairs, then hurried to the kitchen himself. Janet came in a few minutes later to find him sifting through the kitchen trashbin; but he went out without a word, and empty-handed. And when at lunch he once or twice faltered toward questioning her she looked up and beyond him and the room, as though listening to a confidence, or a summons, from far away. 
    For the most part, conversation seemed to pass over her, when she would stop it in its tracks to rescue something which struck her. Few things seemed to stir her pleasantly but news of unhappy occurrences in Italy: whether storms or strikes or railway accidents, she saw imminent in them the fall of Rome. She waited, contemplating wholesale damnation for the whole non-Christian world with an eye as level as that of Saint