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“So you say. But you are always delighted by the beauty around you. There is nothing terribly practical about beauty. And it isn’t absolute. One person can find something beautiful when someone else finds it wholly unremarkable. Similarly,” he said, speaking slowly, his dark eyes lingering on her in a manner that left her feeling hot, that left her feeling like he had touched her, “one can look at something every day for quite some time and never notice the beauty of it. Then suddenly, one day it might become beautiful to them. Beauty is strange that way. It hides in plain sight.”
She swallowed hard, not quite sure why she felt like she was on fire. “I suppose the reverse is also true. Beauty can be obvious. And as it proves itself to be nothing more than pale vanity it can lessen.”
“Speaking of your mother and father?” he asked, the question bold and insensitive.
She supposed he was entitled, as she had been rather bold and insensitive herself when they had discussed his parents. “Yes. Does it remind you of yours, as well?”
“Very much.”
“All right, I will concede then that maybe you’re correct about me. I do like art. I do like frivolous things. Just not…the same kinds of frivolous things as some in my family.”
“There is nothing wrong with enjoying the frivolous. I’m not even sure I would call it frivolous. Many people would argue that it is the beauty around us that makes life rich, don’t you think?”
She nodded slowly. “I do agree. My life is very quiet compared to most people in my family. Really, it’s very quiet compared to most people in my age group, I know. I live with an old woman and I suppose my habits are more reflective of hers than the average twenty-three-year-old. But I like it. I like to read. I like to listen to the sound of the rain on the roof. I like to watch the drops roll down the windowpane. I enjoy the quiet. I enjoy art for all that it doesn’t tell us. For the fact that it makes us think and draw our own conclusions. I suppose I enjoy genealogy for the same reasons. We have to extract our own meaning from what we see before us and, from there, guess what the truth might be.”
“A very interesting way of looking at it,” he said, his tone different now.
“Is that how you see things?”
He shook his head. “I do not have much time for art. Or for books. Or for sitting and listening to the rain.”
Her heart sank. “Oh. I thought… By the way you were talking…”
“I’ve lost the ability to appreciate beauty in the way you seem to. But it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your perspective.”
“I suppose you are too jaded.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone taking on a rather black quality. “I suppose I am a bit too jaded. But then, living the sort of life I have, opulence all around me, my every whim, my every
desire, so easily serviced, I don’t know how I could be anything but.”
“I’ve had a similar experience, don’t forget.”
“Yes, you seem to have practiced the art of self-denial a bit more successfully than I have.”
“I don’t consider it denial.”
“Another of your virtues, I’m certain.”
She frowned, walking slowly past him, pacing the length of the room, the marble floor clicking beneath her low-heeled shoes. She studied the paintings on the walls, depictions of the scenery around them. During another time. During other seasons. “My parents have indulged in everything imaginable, and yet, they still live life with a fair amount of excitement and passion. I want nothing to do with it. It looks exhausting. Dangerous. Selfish. But…for all their sins they aren’t jaded. I feel they enjoy their excess, or they wouldn’t continue in it. For you… You seem very bored. And I wonder why that might be.”
“I think perhaps the problem with my life, Princess, is that I have seen where the road ends. There is desperate poverty in this world. Tragedies. And I know that there are those who believe that if they simply had one more thing, a little bit more money, they would find happiness. But my parents had everything. They had wealth. They had family. They had beauty. Sex, drugs and alcohol in every combination. They had everything. And they were never satisfied. They never stopped searching. They were hungry, always. When they should have been full. It was that continued searching that took everything beautiful they had in their lives and twisted it beyond reason. They had marriage. They had children. And yet, they went out and had affairs. My father made a child with another woman. A child that he never acknowledged. A child whose existence only hurt everyone involved. When you have so much, and yet you have no satisfaction. When you have so much and yet you must continue going until you destroy it all, I can only conclude that there was no happiness to be found in any of it. Not really. And so, I suppose having seen the end my parents came to I have trouble putting much hope in any of the things around me.”
“You think it’s pointless.”
“I don’t think it’s pointless or I would have thrown myself off a building by now. I think there are aspects of life to enjoy. There is music I like. I enjoy my work. I certainly enjoy my money. I quite enjoy sex. But I’m not certain the satisfaction is to be found. I’m not certain that happiness is a thing that truly exists.”
“That all sounds quite…hopeless.”
“Maybe it is. Or maybe that’s why I choose to take things in life with a healthy dose of cynicism. There are worse things, I should think.”
“I think that there’s happiness. I don’t think that life is quite so meaningless as all that.”
He lifted a broad shoulder and she was drawn to the way he moved. He was like a big cat, a predator. Lying in wait for his prey to make the wrong move. The one that would trigger the attack.
She had to wonder if she was the prey in this scenario.
“We all have our coping mechanisms,” he said. “You have chosen to try and find satisfaction in the opposite things. While I have decided that I won’t find whatever magic cure my parents were looking for within life’s various debaucheries.”
