DUNNY TAKES THE HOTEL ELEVATOR UP TO THE fourth floor in the company of an elderly couple. They hold hands as though they are young lovers.
Overhearing the word “anniversary,” Dunny asks how long they have been married.
“Fifty years,” the husband says, aglow1 with pride that his bride has chosen to spend most of her life with him.
They are from Scranton, Pennsylvania, here in Los Angeles to celebrate their anniversary with their daughter and her family. The daughter has paid for the hotel honeymoon2 suite3, which is, according to the wife, “so fancy we’re afraid to sit on the furniture.”
From L.A., they’ll fly to Hawaii, just the two of them, for a romantic week-long idyll in the sun.
They are unaffected, sweet, clearly in love. They have built a life of the kind that Dunny for so long disdained4, even mocked.
In recent years, he’s come to want their brand of happiness more than anything else. Their devotion and commitment to each other, the family they have built, the life of mutual5 striving, the memories of shared challenges and hard-won triumphs: Here is what matters, in the end, not the things that he has pursued with single-minded [232] strategy and brutal6 tactics. Not power, not money, not thrills, not control.
He has tried to change, but he’s gone too far along a solitary7 road to be able to turn back and find the companionship for which he yearns8. Hannah is five years gone. Only when she had been on her deathbed had he realized that she’d been the best chance he’d ever had of finding his way from the wrong road to the right one. As a young hothead, he had rejected her counsel, had believed that power and money were more important to him than she was. The shock of her early death forced him to face the hard truth that he’d been wrong.
Only on this strange, rainy day has he come to understand that she was also his last chance.
For a man who once believed that the world was clay from which he could make what he wished, Dunny has arrived at a difficult place. He has lost all power, for nothing he does now can change his life.
Of the money he withdrew from the wall safe in his study, he still has twenty thousand dollars. He could give ten of it to this elderly couple from Scranton, tell them to stay a full month in blue Hawaii, to dine well and drink well, with his blessings9.
Or he could stop the elevator and kill them.
Neither act would change his future in any meaningful way.
He bitterly envies their happiness. There would be a certain savage10 satisfaction in robbing them of their remaining years.
Whatever else may be wrong with him—the list of his faults and corruptions11 is long—he can’t kill solely12 out of envy. Pride alone prevents him, more than mercy.
On the fourth floor, their accommodations are at the opposite end of the hotel from his. He wishes them well and watches them walk away, hand-in-hand.
Dunny is using the presidential suite. This grand space has been booked on a twelve-month basis by Typhon, who will not be needing it for the next few days, as business will take him elsewhere.
[233] Presidential implies an understated democratic grandeur13. These large rooms are so rich and so sensual, however, that they are less suitable for a steward14 of democracy than for royalty15 or demigods.
Inlaid marble floors, Oushak rugs in tones of gold and red and apricot and indigo16, bubinga paneling soaring sixteen feet to coffered ceilings ...
Dunny wanders room to room, moved by humanity’s desire to make beautiful its habitat and thereby17 bravely to deny that the roughness of the world must be endured. Every palace and every work of art is only dust as yet unrealized, and time is the patient wind that will wither18 it away. Nevertheless, men and women have given great thought, effort, and care to making these rooms appealing, because they hope, against all evidence, that their lives have meaning and that in their talents lies a purpose larger than themselves.
Until two years ago, Dunny never knew this hope. Three years of anguish19 over her loss, ironically, made him want to believe in God.
Gradually, during the years following her funeral, an unexpected hope grew in him, desperate and fragile but enduring. Yet he remains20 too much the old Dunny, mired21 in old habits of thought and action.
Hope is a cloudy radiance. He has not learned how to distill22 it into something pure, clear, more powerful.
And now he never will.
In the master bedroom, he stands at a rain-washed window, gazing northwest. Beyond the storm-blurred city lights, beyond the lushly landscaped and mansioned slopes of Beverly Hills, lies Bel Air and Palazzo Rospo, that foolish yet nonetheless brave monument to hope. All who ever owned it have died—or will.
He turns from the window and stares at the bed. The maid has removed the spread, turned down the sheets, and left a tiny gold box on one of the pillows.
The box holds four bonbons23. Elegantly formed and decorated, they appear to be delicious, but he doesn’t sample them.
[234] He could call any of several beautiful women to share the bed with him. Some would expect money; others would not. Among them are women for whom sex is an act of love and grace, but also women who revel24 in their own debasement. The choice is his, any tenderness or any thrill that he desires.
He cannot recall the taste of the oysters25 or the bouquet26 of the Pinot Grigio. The memory has no savor27, offers less stimulation28 to his senses than might a photograph of oysters and wine.
None of the women he could call would leave a greater impression than the food and drink that, still settling in him, seems to be a meal imagined. The silken texture29 of their skin, the smell of their hair would not linger with him past the moment when, in leaving, they closed the door behind them.
He is like a man living through the night before doomsday, with full knowledge that the sun will go nova in the morning, yet unable to enjoy the precious pleasures of this world because all his energy is devoted30 to wishing desperately31 that the foreseen end will not, after all, come to pass.
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aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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yearns
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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indigo
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| n.靛青，靛蓝 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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mired
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| abbr.microreciprocal degree 迈尔德（色温单位）v.深陷( mire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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distill
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| vt.蒸馏，用蒸馏法提取，吸取，提炼 | |
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bonbons
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| n.小糖果( bonbon的名词复数 ) | |
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revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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