Life was rotten, he thought, but happily, because Amsterdam was excellent, cold, the sky blue, his wife by law beer-sleepy in a boat, he in a glass box, ready to be admired. Look at that man! He has rented a boat for his wife!

You might change your life at any moment; they had. They could continue to. Before they’d met, Sadie was unpassported, untraveled: Europe, Jack thought (grandly, accurately), was a present he’d given her. To move is to change. Even if they had a child—this was his secret, that he’d begun to dream of children—they could tuck a kid under one arm and keep going. What could ever stop them from traveling, in this wide world? Plenty, it turned out: themselves, the world, the people in charge. Downstairs Sadie had already taken off her shoes and was reading a book on the elegant sectional sofa.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Not sure.”

“What’s it about?”

“Not sure about that, either.” She put it aside. “Nice boat. Deluxe. Good job.”

“It is nice, isn’t it? Wait till you see the wheelhouse. Well done, me,” he said to himself.

“Well done, you,” she answered.

He began to unpack the suitcase, putting his shirts in one little cupboard and Sadie’s dresses in another. He stepped into the bathroom to set out the cosmetic case—“Heated floors!” he said delightedly, unsure whether that was something one should take delight in—and returned to her on the sofa.

“Here,” he said.

“You packed my slippers!” They were gray boots lined with artificial fur of a nearly malign softness. He knelt at her feet and put them on her with pantomime uxoriousness.

“I thought you might be happy to have them,” he said. “I like your hair.”

“Thank you.”

“What color would you call that?”

“Amethyst,” she said. She’d had it done once they were married, once nobody could disapprove. “That’s what the girl called it. I thought I was too old.”

“You’re not,” he said severely. “Maybe I’ll dye my hair amethyst. Carnelian. Agate.”

That was a joke. His hair was the sort of thick silvery gray that made people say, of men, He’s aged well. He said again, “You’re not too old.”

“And yet here I am in my bedroom slippers.” She closed her eyes in pleasure. “You’ve been here before?”

“When I was a teenager.”

“Oh. You didn’t say.”

“My father accidentally walked us through the red-light district. It was a traumatic experience. We should probably go out,” he said. “So we don’t fall asleep.”

“But it’s so nice on our boat,” said Sadie, stretching like the house cat she was. “How’s the bed?”

“The bed is also nice.”

“It’s our honeymoon,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.”