What is Beauty in the End?

At the end of the novel, when Howard is about to give his very important talk, a type of beauty is defined. The last two pages of the novel begin with Howard running late for his speech. Once he gets there, he feels sick and nervous and it becomes clear that his entire life and work have led up to this vital moment. Once he walks in to the room in which he will have to speak, he is greeted with everyone who is anyone and some technology he is unfamiliar with to say the least. He realizes he has forgotten his folder of information and spots Kiki in the crowd. It is at this moment I felt genuinely scared and nervous for Howard. Without his notes he was completely lost. Clicking through all his slides, looking at Kiki, there was nothing for him to say.

In the very last paragraph, Smith has Howard admit that he can see his entire life in Kiki's face. The two of them seem to carry on a silent dialogue until at one point they both smile at each other. The painting Howard refers to (to the right) shows a women who seems to be slightly overweight and possibly poor. She looks thoughtful but does not show any signs of being the typical form of beauty. I believe that Howard realizes, when his entire life is put into perspective in the end, that Kiki was always the most important thing to him. He lost track of that feeling due to distractions in his life which at this point in the novel no longer exist. Howard finally sees Kiki as being beautiful for who she is. By Kiki smiling back at him, she is showing signs of forgiving him for all the things he has done to hurt her and his family.