Sveva Ersilia Giovenella Maria was a strong, lean baby with a full head of hair and a face so much like her father’s already, it was startling. When she cried, she howled, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was heard for blocks around the villa. Sveva bellowed, balled her little fists, and Ofelia called for her sister, Emerika, to come to the villa. She lived in Florence, where she was married to a Spanish doctor and had her own small son. “They’ll be fine for a couple of weeks, my boys, I’m sure.”
Emerika slept late each morning, then trailed behind me in nightgowns and robes, her speech a murmured commentary on the machinations of various politicians, theatre actors, artists and Caetani family members. She spoke even of the calibrated worlds of the staff that skittered around al
