but they would have been amazed if he had had the words to describe itdhow delicate it had been , how it reached almost three quarters of the way from the top of the desk to the ceiling , a lacy construct of jacks and deuces and kings and tens and big akers , a red and black configuration of paper diamonds standing in defiance of a world spinning through a universe of incoherent motions and forces ; a tower that seemed to 'cimi 's amazed eyes to be a ringing denial of all the unfair paradoxes of life .