suddenly, it was over. That gripping fear. Poof. Over. Because of human endeavor, human intelligence.
“When I worked in India on the smallpox project, and I would see face after ruined face, and afterward, after an exhausting day knocking on the doors of strangers, urging them to be vaccinated … and you know how I’ve always hated asking for things, I would say to myself, I’m doing this so there will be no more ruined faces. Except I never said it out loud. I don’t even remember what I said to the people whose doors I knocked on. We were given a script by UNICEF; we weren’t supposed to deviate from it by even a syllable. I couldn’t say what I was thinking, I’m doing this to work against death because the dead have become invisible. I couldn’t even think of it that way after a very short while, the idea of working against death, lessening the tide of death. It was overwhelming to contemplate the millions and millions dead to smallpox. Whereas if I could make my mind focus on one face, that could be seen and known and understood; if I could say, ‘I’m doing it so this one face won’t be ruined,’ then I wasn’t overwhelmed.”
“You did something that you know helped relieve suffering,” he says. “When we were young together and we spoke so easily in such high terms, you said, ‘I want to relieve suffering.’ And I said, ‘I want to create beauty.’ ”
“You could say we’ve both done something of what we wanted. And are still doing it. Not everyone can say that.”
“Come,” he said, “let’s walk off our lunch.”
They cross the Tiber, walk down the Via Giulia. She stops in front of the gigantic head, its mouth a spigot of running water that falls into its marble bowl, and she thinks how strange it is: the face is tortured, but the sound of water introduces play, the element of joy.
In the Piazza Farnese, she asks: “Why do I like those fountains. They’re kind of like big bathtubs …” But he knows she really doesn’t want an answer.
The Campo dei Fiori, denuded now of fruits and vegetables, has become a wasteland, a garbage dump; the Roman street sweepers, as glamorous, Adam thinks, as fashion models, haven’t made their way here yet; they’re seeing the campo at its worst. They pass through it quickly, cross the ugly, threatening Corso Vittorio Emanuele, turning down too many streets for Miranda to account for, and suddenly they are there: the Piazza Navona, Bernini’s lolling gods. She imagines that if she should say to them, What is right? What is good? What is to be done about the poor? , they would answer, What are you talking about? There is sun and water. Here is my galloping horse, and the lion chasing him. How pleasant life is: how clear and swift the flow of water, how firm and supple human flesh .
“You tell me, I must admit some things are better,” Adam says, sitting on the railing by the statue of the god meant to stand for the Danube, “but you must admit no one could accomplish anything like this now. We’ve lost the grand scale. Who would spend what would be required on what they would think of as useless space, space whose only use is pleasure? For the gathering of people and the sound of running water.”
Does she trust him enough to say what she is really thinking, to confess her anxiety: her Protestant guilt for crimes committed centuries before she was born. A response she dislikes in herself, but cannot banish. Partly because it is also a source of her greatest vanity. Not physical vanity, which she gave over long ago, but ethical: Unlike you, I do not forget . But she wants to say it, if only because it was the kind of thing she could have said when they were young.
“To have accomplished this, grotesque inequalities were necessary. Such projects are possible only if one forgets about the labor involved, if one forgets about an ideal of justice.”
“But aren’t you glad they did it? Wouldn’t we all be poorer without it?”
“But
“When I worked in India on the smallpox project, and I would see face after ruined face, and afterward, after an exhausting day knocking on the doors of strangers, urging them to be vaccinated … and you know how I’ve always hated asking for things, I would say to myself, I’m doing this so there will be no more ruined faces. Except I never said it out loud. I don’t even remember what I said to the people whose doors I knocked on. We were given a script by UNICEF; we weren’t supposed to deviate from it by even a syllable. I couldn’t say what I was thinking, I’m doing this to work against death because the dead have become invisible. I couldn’t even think of it that way after a very short while, the idea of working against death, lessening the tide of death. It was overwhelming to contemplate the millions and millions dead to smallpox. Whereas if I could make my mind focus on one face, that could be seen and known and understood; if I could say, ‘I’m doing it so this one face won’t be ruined,’ then I wasn’t overwhelmed.”
“You did something that you know helped relieve suffering,” he says. “When we were young together and we spoke so easily in such high terms, you said, ‘I want to relieve suffering.’ And I said, ‘I want to create beauty.’ ”
“You could say we’ve both done something of what we wanted. And are still doing it. Not everyone can say that.”
“Come,” he said, “let’s walk off our lunch.”
They cross the Tiber, walk down the Via Giulia. She stops in front of the gigantic head, its mouth a spigot of running water that falls into its marble bowl, and she thinks how strange it is: the face is tortured, but the sound of water introduces play, the element of joy.
In the Piazza Farnese, she asks: “Why do I like those fountains. They’re kind of like big bathtubs …” But he knows she really doesn’t want an answer.
The Campo dei Fiori, denuded now of fruits and vegetables, has become a wasteland, a garbage dump; the Roman street sweepers, as glamorous, Adam thinks, as fashion models, haven’t made their way here yet; they’re seeing the campo at its worst. They pass through it quickly, cross the ugly, threatening Corso Vittorio Emanuele, turning down too many streets for Miranda to account for, and suddenly they are there: the Piazza Navona, Bernini’s lolling gods. She imagines that if she should say to them, What is right? What is good? What is to be done about the poor? , they would answer, What are you talking about? There is sun and water. Here is my galloping horse, and the lion chasing him. How pleasant life is: how clear and swift the flow of water, how firm and supple human flesh .
“You tell me, I must admit some things are better,” Adam says, sitting on the railing by the statue of the god meant to stand for the Danube, “but you must admit no one could accomplish anything like this now. We’ve lost the grand scale. Who would spend what would be required on what they would think of as useless space, space whose only use is pleasure? For the gathering of people and the sound of running water.”
Does she trust him enough to say what she is really thinking, to confess her anxiety: her Protestant guilt for crimes committed centuries before she was born. A response she dislikes in herself, but cannot banish. Partly because it is also a source of her greatest vanity. Not physical vanity, which she gave over long ago, but ethical: Unlike you, I do not forget . But she wants to say it, if only because it was the kind of thing she could have said when they were young.
“To have accomplished this, grotesque inequalities were necessary. Such projects are possible only if one forgets about the labor involved, if one forgets about an ideal of justice.”
“But aren’t you glad they did it? Wouldn’t we all be poorer without it?”
“But
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