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Onto the Castle, impressively converted, remade a hotel, five yellowstarred. At their arrival, the Sandersons’ suitcases are ported up to them: up the hill, its stairs spaced widely for the hooves of horses hauling around the slope; these mounts mounded high themselves, humping duffels and trunks over such prettily landscaped terraces — the other luggage is on wheels, though, and tiedoff to the tails of these rides, such a racket…stepping over the bridge over the moat then into the courtyard where baggage’s offloaded for staff, who burden it up a staircase unwound, torn open to the elements, flush with slush; up one ripped wideopen turret of twelve piercing the sky without flag (though it’s already too dark to be sure). A bellhop takes his tip, a weddingring, hers, splits it setting and stone with the concierge who’s informing on him. Rooms are pleasant, airy; taxidermied trophies antler over the kingsized; everything’s been prepared, immaculately: marble scrubbed, galleries gleaming with polish.

It’s charming, Mister Sanderson says out on his balcony, facing the city cankered below. He’s slowly understanding how to be guided: Charming, his wife’s pronouncement upon arrival, she’s right — he can’t fault her, just follow. Polandland, despite itself, its history, the appleweight, the wasting welter of years, seems untouched, lit from an initial lapse, the first Gardened Fall: everything in a gorgeous state of disrepair, slow decomposition, almost organically, as if it’s living with him, breathing within him, to soon breathe no more, soon to die…it goddamned better be — charming, Mister Sanderson says in his throat, know what I paid: the most expensive accommodation in town, nothing less for his honeymoon, theirs, his wife inside, his relatives already asleep next door then across the hall (the grandparents will have to cope with courtyard views, sorry). Mister Sanderson flicks snow from his parka, returns to his room to lay himself out on the bed like he would tomorrow’s outfit, next to his wife, who’s under the covers snuggled with a leaflet found in a drawer of the nightstand.