all a cat’s grace.
We got the meal together. His slim, beautiful hands were amazingly deft and strong. With ease he twisted open a can to which I would have had to take the can opener. Sometimes his hands touched mine, but they never pressed or lingered. He found the bottle of wine Dr. Pulcinelli had given Richard as a parting gift, and though I didn’t drink much of it, I am afraid I laughed as if I had. It was good, so good, not to be alone!
Around mid-afternoon we began our dessert; the shadows were lengthening. I sat facing the window, and I could see them stretching out long black arms over the green depths, turning the walled garden into a true Valley of the Shadow. Only the high white shape of Eos still towered above those dark, up-reaching tentacles.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” I said. “It seems queer to think that last night I was afraid of her.”
Floriano smiled indulgently. “If she lived she would be a thing to fear. Wings like that belong only to the great hawks.”
“And to angels.”
His smile broadened. “To those pretty, pious fairies the priests teach you women to believe in, signora.”
That jarred me. More than I could quite understand. I said, “Angels’ wings are symbolic, of course. My husband says that the early Christians probably borrowed them from your Etruscans. As perhaps they did their ideas of Hell.”
His mouth tightened; a chill came over the handsome, vivid face. “So Prince Mino Carenni used to say.”
“I remember. You said your family knew him?”
“As a boy, I myself had that great honor.” His voice was soft, but something in the tone startled me.
“You sound as it you hadn’t liked him very well.”
“I like none of his caste. You Americana are forever praising the Greeks as the founders of democracy. But ancient Rome too was a republic—until those grasping, bloody-handed schemers, the Caesars, strangled it. The Italian people have always loved freedom. Like all people everywhere.”
“I’m sorry. I know that’s true. But Greek greatness died with Greek democracy; most of Rome’s came after the republic ended. I suppose that’s why we foreigners always think more about the empire.”
“You are wrong, signora.” His eyes blazed. “All Rome’s greatness was the people’s. Out of their blood, their sweat, their vigor, it was hewn. But the rotten scheming aristocrats robbed them of its fruits—they and their helpers, the greedy shopkeepers. Capitalists have always been with us.”
So that was it. Nobody talks more loudly of freedom than those who have never grasped its true meaning; those who send others to death or concentration camps for not believing as they do. “I disagree with every word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” Which great early American said that, or something like that? I am ashamed to say that I can’t remember, though to me his creed represents the very foundation of any world worth living in.
Well, Floriano had as much right to be a communist as I had not to be one. And he had grown up in a war-devastated country, recently ruled by Mussolini. To him Americans might still seem the victorious enemy, at best a pack of smug Santa Clauses. He certainly was the theoretical, idealistic type of communist, not the active kind that Dr. Pulcinelli had spoken of. He never could have taken part in anything like that atrocity at the ironworks. Not beautiful Floriano. Probably it would be impossible to make him believe that such a thing had ever happened.
I said peaceably, “I’m sorry again. You know your country better than I do; I’m just a tourist. But anybody can see that you’re a race of artists. I’ll never forget the wonderful things I saw in Florence. And that statue down there—the Eos—” I pointed toward the garden.
“She is not even an original work.” His face was suddenly, shockingly hard. “Taddeo Credi copied her from the design on an Etruscan mirror, made her to
We got the meal together. His slim, beautiful hands were amazingly deft and strong. With ease he twisted open a can to which I would have had to take the can opener. Sometimes his hands touched mine, but they never pressed or lingered. He found the bottle of wine Dr. Pulcinelli had given Richard as a parting gift, and though I didn’t drink much of it, I am afraid I laughed as if I had. It was good, so good, not to be alone!
Around mid-afternoon we began our dessert; the shadows were lengthening. I sat facing the window, and I could see them stretching out long black arms over the green depths, turning the walled garden into a true Valley of the Shadow. Only the high white shape of Eos still towered above those dark, up-reaching tentacles.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” I said. “It seems queer to think that last night I was afraid of her.”
Floriano smiled indulgently. “If she lived she would be a thing to fear. Wings like that belong only to the great hawks.”
“And to angels.”
His smile broadened. “To those pretty, pious fairies the priests teach you women to believe in, signora.”
That jarred me. More than I could quite understand. I said, “Angels’ wings are symbolic, of course. My husband says that the early Christians probably borrowed them from your Etruscans. As perhaps they did their ideas of Hell.”
His mouth tightened; a chill came over the handsome, vivid face. “So Prince Mino Carenni used to say.”
“I remember. You said your family knew him?”
“As a boy, I myself had that great honor.” His voice was soft, but something in the tone startled me.
“You sound as it you hadn’t liked him very well.”
“I like none of his caste. You Americana are forever praising the Greeks as the founders of democracy. But ancient Rome too was a republic—until those grasping, bloody-handed schemers, the Caesars, strangled it. The Italian people have always loved freedom. Like all people everywhere.”
“I’m sorry. I know that’s true. But Greek greatness died with Greek democracy; most of Rome’s came after the republic ended. I suppose that’s why we foreigners always think more about the empire.”
“You are wrong, signora.” His eyes blazed. “All Rome’s greatness was the people’s. Out of their blood, their sweat, their vigor, it was hewn. But the rotten scheming aristocrats robbed them of its fruits—they and their helpers, the greedy shopkeepers. Capitalists have always been with us.”
So that was it. Nobody talks more loudly of freedom than those who have never grasped its true meaning; those who send others to death or concentration camps for not believing as they do. “I disagree with every word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” Which great early American said that, or something like that? I am ashamed to say that I can’t remember, though to me his creed represents the very foundation of any world worth living in.
Well, Floriano had as much right to be a communist as I had not to be one. And he had grown up in a war-devastated country, recently ruled by Mussolini. To him Americans might still seem the victorious enemy, at best a pack of smug Santa Clauses. He certainly was the theoretical, idealistic type of communist, not the active kind that Dr. Pulcinelli had spoken of. He never could have taken part in anything like that atrocity at the ironworks. Not beautiful Floriano. Probably it would be impossible to make him believe that such a thing had ever happened.
I said peaceably, “I’m sorry again. You know your country better than I do; I’m just a tourist. But anybody can see that you’re a race of artists. I’ll never forget the wonderful things I saw in Florence. And that statue down there—the Eos—” I pointed toward the garden.
“She is not even an original work.” His face was suddenly, shockingly hard. “Taddeo Credi copied her from the design on an Etruscan mirror, made her to
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