The Recognitions (128 page)

and then threw it back up on the table. As he chewed, a thoughtful expression came to his face for the first time. Though he may only have appeared thoughtful because his eyes, directed at the painting, were focused far beyond it. He chewed on. —There was a Beethoven Street in my home town, said Ludy. —We pronounce it just like it's spelled. Beeth-oven. —If you're going to make loaded dice, you have to make them perfect first. You can't just load ordinary dice, they have to be perfectly true, to start with. —Ahm . . . yes, what I meant to ask you . . . —I've passed all the scientific tests, Stephen murmured, picking up the blade again and bending over the picture. —With science you take things apart and then we all understand them, then we can all do them. Get things nice and separated. Then you can be reasonable. Leonardo just needed glasses. That's the enigma. He got busy with the scraping again. —I meant to ask, who's this a picture of? —This is Saint Dominic. He thrashed himself three times a day. —What? —He invented Rosaries. Our Lady revealed the Rosary to him. —You're Catholic, then? —Once a possessed person confessed that anyone who's constant to the Devotion of the Rosary will surely be rewarded with life eternal. But you've probably read Ganssenio's Vita Dominici Ordinis Praedicatorum Fundatoris. —Why no, I ... I'm afraid I haven't . . . run across it. —You may have forgotten it, Stephen reassured him, going on busily. —It's all in chapter five, De auctore Sanctissimi Rosarii, ejusque efficacia. Now do you remember? —Ahm . . . vaguely, but ... —He enclosed nuns too, he went on without looking up. —Strictly cloistered. Most of the Inquisitors were Dominicans. —Ahm . . . this, Ludy commenced, bringing his weight forward again to inspect the picture, —this little figure of ... the figure on the cross here is interesting, isn't it. —That's Jesus Christ. —Why . . . yes, yes of course. What I meant was . . . Ludy cleared his throat. Stephen straightened up, and held the blade before him as though it were a brush, and he was sighting some line along its tip before adding another touch to the canvas. Ludy sniffed helpfully. —This crucifix, what I meant was, the figure isn't ... it looks alive . . . He sounded embarrassed, at having got into this, but he went on, —A little . . . almost a live little mannequin . . . ahm, responding to ... ahm . . . you see a great va-

riety of ahm in paintings of the Crucifixion, the expressions on the face, don't you, some of them show an agony that is downright ahm . . . you can hardly say human, but . . . and then some of them ... I mean to say, others . . . The man sitting on the floor brought out another yellow paper cigarette and lit it. —In some of the cheap prints He just looks bored, Stephen said, and got back to work with the blade. —Have you seen El Greco's? —I ... I don't think I've come across it. Ahm. There's an El Greco painting here, isn't there. Here in the monastery, up in the .... one of those rooms, a picture of ahm . . . there's a white bird coming down . . . The blade stopped. Stephen darted a look at him, an instant in which the same leer Ludy thought he had seen on his face reappeared, but he got immediately back to work, even more busily, the cigarette smoke clinging to his face. —The Descent of the Holy Spirit, he said, a suddenly hungry tone in his voice. —He studied with Titian too. We all study with Titian. For almost a minute, there was nothing but the rapid scraping of the blade, and Ludy came forward further and further until he almost went off balance. —But ... he finally brought out, —the foot here, it's almost gone. You . . . why are you taking it away, it . . . this whole part of the picture here, it's not damaged. —Yes . . . Stephen whispered, —it's very delicate work. Why you can change a line without touching it. Yes . . . "all art requires a closed space," ha! remember Homunculus? —But wait, stop! What are you doing? Ludy brought a hand up as though he were going to interpose. —You can't . . . Stephen turned to him sharply. —Be careful now, he said, as Ludy dropped his hand and sank back against the stone wall. —I've passed all the scientific tests, you understand. And I have a lot of work here, very delicate, strength and delicacy . . . —But you can't . . . Ludy protested weakly. —That El Greco up in the Capilla de los Tres . . . —Yes . . . ? —I'm going to restore it next. —But you . . . there's nothing wrong with it at all, it's . . . it's in fine condition, that painting. —Yes, he studied with Titian. That's where El Greco learned, that's where he learned to simplify, Stephen went on, speaking more rapidly, —that's where he learned not to be afraid of spaces, not to get lost in details and clutter, and separate everything . . . —But you ean't, they won't let you just . . . take that painting and . . . and do what you're doing . . . Ludy was rising slowly, 872

the Irish thorn-proof back against the stones, sliding upward with his weight as he drew away from the figure on the floor, still busily working the blade. But his stare was transfixed by the squared hands, one of them gripping the picture with the long thumb along the top, the other blinking the two diamonds from the middle finger as the sound of the blade went on. Ludy closed his eyes, and opened them again, as he neared his height, and sniffed. —You . . . He was looking at the face, where nothing moved but the curls of thick smoke against its hollow surfaces. And then he cracked his head against the stone wall behind, so startled that he threw both hands up before him. Stephen had jumped to his feet. —Do you want to see . . . see one I've already restored? —But you . . . you . . . The Irish thorn-proof, the back of his head and his hands drawn back,. Ludy stood flattened against the stone wall. He stayed so as though pinioned there, staring at the moving figure before him in the dim light, as the table was dragged away from the opposite wall, all the while Stephen was talking in a voice which was strangely breathless and at the same time unexcited, —A painting ... a ... a Valdés Leal, I worked a long time on it, it ... yes there's warmth in it, I worked a long time on it, you'll see that. Venice, Venice ... we all studied . . . yes Titian, you'll understand, we all studied . . . with Titian, working out this . . . harmony, yes, it ... you'll understand when you see it, this . . . this picture. Holding to the end of the table with both hands, he stopped and stared at Ludy, who had begun to wilt against the gray wall. And when he repeated, —Yes, in a hoarse whisper, the same shock of a burning showed in his eyes, but he turned back to the table quickly, looked there uncertainly and mumbled something, grabbed up the half-loaf of bread he'd tossed there a few minutes before, and went on, looking behind the table and talking and chewing at the same time, so that his words were at once muffled and disconnected. Possibly if he'd been still and talked evenly, Ludy would have turned and got out the door; but now he stood against the wall, moving his lips slightly as though trying to finish the sentence which would dismiss him, bringing his hands out loose and empty to press them back against the stones immediately, then bringing them out again if only the distance of their own warmth from the wall, to complete the gesture which would allow him to escape. Meanwhile Stephen was muttering and he kept looking up as though he were talking to people in all parts of the small room, at one moment looking over Ludy's shoulder and hemming him in that way, then addressing an empty corner, or the table itself, with things like, —Separateness, that's what went wrong, you'll understand ... or, —Everything withholding itself from everything else . . . and the moment Ludy started to turn away the eyes caught him again and he sank his weight in Irish thorn-proof back against the gray stone wall, as the voice broke out, —You'll say I should have microscopes for this . . . delicate work. Yes, egg white, egg yolk, gums, resins, oils, glue, mordants, varnish, you'll be surprised how they're put together just to bind the pigments. We could take X-ray pictures, infra-red, ultra-violet . . . Layers and layers of colors and oils and varnish, and the dirt! The dirt! Look at that, that picture there, look at the crackle on the surface, that's from the wood panel expanding and contracting and the paint crackles when it gets dry. If we had a microscope with a Leitz mirror-condenser, we could turn it up to five hundred diameters, put on a counting disc and make a particle count of the pigment. Then we measure its thickness with a micrometer, put the Micro-Ibso attachment on the camera and you ... If we had a micro-extraction apparatus we could bore holes in it too and get some nice cross sections out, put them in wax and then you slice them in half just like that with a microtome knife. And when you get that under a microscope with polarized incident light then you can really see what's going on with a carbon arc lamp, you'll see when we get into the high oil immersion series of lenses. You'll see, if we can fix a microscope up with polarized light and put a particle of the pigment under it, we can see whether it's isotropic or aniso-tropic, for that we use nicol prisms. Then we determine the refraction index of the particles of pigment and then, well then of course, then we know exactly . . . the dirt that collects, and one layer of varnish after another, and the dirt that collects in every little ridge and crack century after century, then we'll know. Here's the secret, laying transparent oils on heavy thick ones. Bosch . . . not Bosch. The transitions . . . Leonardo put on wet paint with the palm of his hand . . . dark brown underpainting all the way, and . . . that plasticity, that plasticity. And . . . and ... if we can get a good reliable particle count, the refraction index on each particle and whether it's isotropic or ... when you get down to the gesso, you . . . what was it? What was it? . . . You . . . yes, the El Greco, I ... —No, you ... —Next. Ludy still stood with his back flat against the stone wall, and it was not only the eyes, each time they darted at him, which held him there, but the stilling sense, which increased every instant, that 874

the doorway was not open, that there might be no doorway at all; and inching in fear of confirming such a possibility, his hand moved as slowly as he could let it, toward the door frame. —Yes, the El Greco . . . that . . . using carmine for shadows, and . . . the red and yellow ochre for the flesh . . . the flesh, the . . . hematitic . . . painters who weren't afraid of spaces, of ... cluttering up every space with detail everything vain and separate affirming itself for fear that . . . fear of leaving any space for transition, for forms to ... to share each other and ... in the Middle Ages when everything was in pieces and gilding the pieces, yes, to insure their separation for fear there was no God . . . before the Renaissance. He stopped speaking with the effort of lifting a panel from behind the table, and he rested it there, its face turned to the wall. But once he got it there he commenced to mutter again, —Everything vain, asserting itself . . . every vain detail, for fear . . . for fear . . . Then he snatched up another of the small loaves of bread in the hand that bore the ring with two diamonds, steadied the panel with his elbow and tore the loaf in half. Ludy's hand had reached the door frame, and his fingers began to curl against it, pulling his whole weight in that direction of escape, when they touched cloth, and stopped. —Yes, do you remember, Cicero, in the Paradoxa? . . . and he gives Praxiteles no credit for doing anything more than removing the excess marble, until he reaches the real form which was there all the time. It was there all the time, and all Praxiteles did was to remove the excess marble, and here . . . here this is the . . . the one I just restored, the Valdés Leal . . . —Hahauuuu! ... —You ... —Who? . . . —He? He's been standing there, Stephen said calmly, as calm as he had sounded when first intruded upon. —Didn't you know he was standing there? Stephen asked, with the same simplicity he had shown when he was discovered at work. —You know him, don't you? —Yes, he ... he's the janitor here, Ludy got out, staring up at the porter who filled the doorway, and with apparently no idea that his presence had provoked any more than mere notice, showed no sign of moving. He stood there a good head taller than the figure in Irish thorn-proof, and seemed to stand as massive and motionless as the walls, out of respect for the engagement he had interrupted. —Casa con dos puertas, mala es guardar, eh? Stephen addressed the old man easily, and pleasantly. The porter answered him in the same familiar manner, and shrugged his heavy shoulders. He lowered his head, and a smile commenced to break the lines on his fare, pressing the disease scars away until they were almost out of sight in the flesh. But the smile stopped there: the lines restrained it, and the scars showed out. —He's like all the old men I've ever known, Stephen said quietly, as the panel under his elbow came slowly face down on the table. Ludy stared at the square of gray sky in the wall above while they talked in Spanish, pressing his heels against the wall as though he were going to leap for it, though their voices were low and casual, and Stephen shrugged and almost smiled as he spoke, a shock which brought Ludy down full-footed on the floor, slowly, but looking at the figure standing by the table with incredulity as though he had emerged Jroin the stone. Nonetheless Stephen's smile stopped where the other did, unrestrained by deep lines and scars, but it stopped. The old man was talking, and Stephen, looking at him as though listening, said in a low tone, —Me comes to watch me work sometimes . . . and got out a sharp constricted sound near a laugh as he picked up the remaining loaf from the littered table. —He says it's like Sigisinundo in the cell. You've read that haven't you? —No, Ludy answered helplessly, looking down at the space between the leg and the door frame as though he might try to slip through it. —You haven't read about Sìgismundo in the cell? "Vive Dios, que pudo ser!" . . . falling off a balcony into the sea, though there's trouble there because Poland has no seaports. Vive Dios, que pudo ser! You haven't read La Vida es Sueño? Here . . . Ludy saw a piece of bread held thrust before him. He took it and stood holding it. He could hear the old man chewing beside him. The two figures seemed to be crowding him to the wall. —He is a penitente, Stephen said, close upon him, —when he came out of prison. Though think! . . . for him she's still a child, and beautiful in wax, while his face is old and broken like the ruins everywhere here, the past left where it happened. There's a permanence of disaster here, left where we can refer to it, the towers of the Moors lie where they fell, and you'll find people living in them, whole cities jealous of the past, enamored parodies weighed down with testimonial ruins, and they don't come running to bury the old man, but give him the keys to the church, and he rings the bells. He says she comes to him carrying lilies that turn to flames when he takes them. You see how I trust him. Ludy looked down at the bread, which was crumbling in his hand. ~I ... I have to ... go ... —I have to trust him. That it comes to this, envying an old man. Why, two thousand years ago, thirty-three was old, and time to die. "A curse on youth, that age must overcome; a curse on health, that 876