visit their commander, invited him to lunch.
Noblesse oblige.
Cosimo tried to dissuade him from the deed, warning that if the Americans witnessed the beauty of the palace, surely they would claim it, too, but Leo was convinced to demonstrate noble Sicilian life and culture to the Americans. Proud that his daughters and his ward might address the guests in their own language, we were extraordinarily primped and polished for the occasion. Clutching nosegays of white roses and repeating our mantra of
Good afternoon, sir, and welcome to our home,
we waited on the veranda. I don’t really know what I or Yolande or Charlotte expected of these Yankee soldiers, but surely it was something other than what they were. One was very fat and tall, the one who I think was the general. Of the other two I recall only their voices, which were loud and shrill in the quiet sanctum of the great dining room. We thought them scandalous for the noises they made when they chewed, for how they laughed with their mouths open and full. Leo cringed. Cosimo snorted quietly into his cups. I don’t recall whether Simona sat with us. When all was said and done, I, myself, found the Americans charming, in their way, perhaps because they were the single close-up symbol to which I’d been privy in all the hugger-muggery of that epoch. It would be a decade later and in another life before I would come to understand even some of what had been
la grande guerra.
”
“Pindar and Caesare; the inevitable
The Lives of the Saints;
French, English, Italian literature. Geometry, astrology. The pianoforte. I heard Mass from the family pews, spooned my puddings at the family table, linked my arms with the princesses in the family strolls about the garden. I was one of them. I was not one of them. It must have been about then, when I was fourteen, that I began to be included in the admirations of the visitors. The extended family. The savage green-eyed motherless child had grown to be a young woman. Well-spoken, graceful, bright. There were whisperers.
“ ‘Have you heard her play Brahms?’
“ ‘They say she’s memorized Virgil.’
“ ‘A perfect Parisian accent.’
“ ‘A brilliant horsewoman.’
“ ‘Poverina, and to think of what her life might have been if not for Leo!’
“ ‘The prince has such a good heart.’
“ ‘The prince has such a good eye.’ ”
CHAPTER V
“S OON AFTER THE PEACE WAS FIXED , L EO AND S IMONA HOSTED A party. Not one of our own boys or the men who had been called up or volunteered themselves to fight, not one had been lost. Eleven from among the
borghetto
had gone to war, six from the palace staff, and though three were severely wounded, all seventeen had returned.
“It was the third of May 1945, and to initiate the
festa,
Cosimo said Mass for the combined congregations of the household and the
borghetto
rather than performing the usual separate celebrations of the holy sacrament. At sunrise in the gardens, in the fickle, unconsecrated shade of the oaks, Cosimo said Mass for everyone. And afterward, we all walked, single file, upon the packed-earth paths among the wheat fields on our way to a copse of cedars by the river.
“A group of men had gone out the evening before to arrange the wood for the cooking fires, to rake the earth under the trees, pound torches into the ground. Under the sun, not yet high but already mean, we walked. Each of the men carried some crate of food—oranges, artichokes, potatoes—or parcels of linen or some bench or chair across his shoulders or led a pair of lambs or goats to sacrifice. Two had mandolins strapped across their chests and bundles of kindling tied on their backs. I remember them especially, for at the time, I’d begun to think I was mad with love for one of these troubadours though I never could decide which of the two it was. That day both were wearing shiny black trousers with a satin stripe down the leg, the splendors of which caused their chums to claim they’d
Noblesse oblige.
Cosimo tried to dissuade him from the deed, warning that if the Americans witnessed the beauty of the palace, surely they would claim it, too, but Leo was convinced to demonstrate noble Sicilian life and culture to the Americans. Proud that his daughters and his ward might address the guests in their own language, we were extraordinarily primped and polished for the occasion. Clutching nosegays of white roses and repeating our mantra of
Good afternoon, sir, and welcome to our home,
we waited on the veranda. I don’t really know what I or Yolande or Charlotte expected of these Yankee soldiers, but surely it was something other than what they were. One was very fat and tall, the one who I think was the general. Of the other two I recall only their voices, which were loud and shrill in the quiet sanctum of the great dining room. We thought them scandalous for the noises they made when they chewed, for how they laughed with their mouths open and full. Leo cringed. Cosimo snorted quietly into his cups. I don’t recall whether Simona sat with us. When all was said and done, I, myself, found the Americans charming, in their way, perhaps because they were the single close-up symbol to which I’d been privy in all the hugger-muggery of that epoch. It would be a decade later and in another life before I would come to understand even some of what had been
la grande guerra.
”
“Pindar and Caesare; the inevitable
The Lives of the Saints;
French, English, Italian literature. Geometry, astrology. The pianoforte. I heard Mass from the family pews, spooned my puddings at the family table, linked my arms with the princesses in the family strolls about the garden. I was one of them. I was not one of them. It must have been about then, when I was fourteen, that I began to be included in the admirations of the visitors. The extended family. The savage green-eyed motherless child had grown to be a young woman. Well-spoken, graceful, bright. There were whisperers.
“ ‘Have you heard her play Brahms?’
“ ‘They say she’s memorized Virgil.’
“ ‘A perfect Parisian accent.’
“ ‘A brilliant horsewoman.’
“ ‘Poverina, and to think of what her life might have been if not for Leo!’
“ ‘The prince has such a good heart.’
“ ‘The prince has such a good eye.’ ”
CHAPTER V
“S OON AFTER THE PEACE WAS FIXED , L EO AND S IMONA HOSTED A party. Not one of our own boys or the men who had been called up or volunteered themselves to fight, not one had been lost. Eleven from among the
borghetto
had gone to war, six from the palace staff, and though three were severely wounded, all seventeen had returned.
“It was the third of May 1945, and to initiate the
festa,
Cosimo said Mass for the combined congregations of the household and the
borghetto
rather than performing the usual separate celebrations of the holy sacrament. At sunrise in the gardens, in the fickle, unconsecrated shade of the oaks, Cosimo said Mass for everyone. And afterward, we all walked, single file, upon the packed-earth paths among the wheat fields on our way to a copse of cedars by the river.
“A group of men had gone out the evening before to arrange the wood for the cooking fires, to rake the earth under the trees, pound torches into the ground. Under the sun, not yet high but already mean, we walked. Each of the men carried some crate of food—oranges, artichokes, potatoes—or parcels of linen or some bench or chair across his shoulders or led a pair of lambs or goats to sacrifice. Two had mandolins strapped across their chests and bundles of kindling tied on their backs. I remember them especially, for at the time, I’d begun to think I was mad with love for one of these troubadours though I never could decide which of the two it was. That day both were wearing shiny black trousers with a satin stripe down the leg, the splendors of which caused their chums to claim they’d
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