Trump was exultant that The New York Times, which had given him such a hard time when he was down-and-out, had run a front-page story, replete with a huge photo, of his visit with Marla to city hall to pick up the marriage license. He had given Entertainment Tonight exclusive video rights to the wedding rehearsal. At Chén Sam’s suggestion, he would be selling family wedding photos to magazines and newspapers all over the world and donating the money to charity.

But although all the preparations were going according to plan, he was deeply concerned about the turnout for the next day’s ceremony. His staff had started phoning people only eight days before—there had been no time for printed invitations—and now, with so many people away for the holidays, it had become abundantly clear that most of the celebrities he had been counting on were not going to show up. There would be no Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Liza Minnelli. No super-models or Hollywood moguls. In fact, it looked as though there would be more photographers than familiar faces. There wouldn’t be any Trump kids, either, because Ivana, who was vacationing with her steady beau, Riccardo Mazzucchelli, an Italian businessman, wasn’t letting Donny, Ivanka, or Eric attend the wedding.

He had decided to spend his last night as a single man not at a bachelor party in the fleshpots of “the city” but in rural New Jersey, where a Christmas celebration was being given at the home of Nick Ribis, his C.E.O., for people associated with the Trump Organization. Trump nibbled from the buffet, then went into the study and presented himself to Carol Schuler, a professional tarot-card reader, who had been hired for the evening.

“How is his marriage going to work out?” I kibitzed from the sideline.

“O.K. with you if I answer?” the reader asked Trump.

“Uh, I guess so,” he said nervously.

Schuler threw a card on the table and said, “It shows imbalance in the relationship. You need to compromise more.”

Trump was clearly not pleased. The tarot reader threw another card.

“This shows it’s important to include each other in decisions,” she said. “She’s very protective. She’s there when you need her.”

“Will I have more children?” Trump asked with genuine curiosity.

“Yes, and the next one’s going to be a boy. And this changes your entire life.”

“Will business continue to do well?”

“This is another question that isn’t black-and-white,” she said, considering a new card. I watched as Trump seemed to sink under the weight of her words. “There is growth, but slower than you’d like it to be. You have some difficult cards here. Don’t take on more than you can handle.”

On the way home, I asked Trump if he felt that Marla had trapped him into marriage by having Tiffany.

“We’ve been together for six years,” he replied. “If she wanted to do that—get me by getting pregnant—she could have done it a lot sooner. We had just gotten back together, and she wasn’t using the Pill, and I knew it. I don’t feel as though I was trapped. Trapped would have been not to tell me she wasn’t on the Pill. I’m not the kind of guy who has babies out of wedlock and doesn’t get married and give the baby a name. And for me, I’m not a believer in abortion.”

I then asked him what he had learned from his brush with financial death, and the painful experience of being shunned by the world when he was down.

“I have friends who can have war with someone and then go back and be best friends,” he said. “I can’t be that way…. You have to remember who the loyal ones were and who were not, and if you don’t, you’re a total schmuck. And if I have a chance to hurt these people who weren’t loyal to me, I will. Call that vindictive. Call it what you will…. People who wouldn’t talk to me three years ago now call up and want to kiss my ass. I tell my secretary, ‘Rhona, call them back and say, “Mr. Trump told me to tell you, ‘Fuck you!’ ” then hang up.’ ”