too decadent. These very soft slippers of black kidskin, which my mother had thought so elegant and which had never been worn, were now waiting for Spadolini. So is the dressing gown I’m wearing, I thought. I got up, took off the dressing gown, and hung it on the door. The hook on the door, I thought, was put there by my father, against my mother’s wishes. She had objected to his disfiguring the door, as she put it, but could not prevent it. My father’s bathroom had been cleaned; there were fresh towels on the rails, and the faucets gleamed. The maids have done a good job, I thought. They’ve done a good job here, I thought, but they’ve done nothing in my room. My room was still just as I had left it a week earlier. I had left in a foul mood, furious with my parents because on my last day at Wolfsegg they had heaped reproaches on me concerning the life I led in Rome. I could still remember their words but did not wish to repeat them to myself. I now discovered the silver toilet set that my mother had brought my father from Paris. She always brought him presents, but this toilet set he had found too womanish. These were the disparaging words he used about the Parisian silver toilet set—It’s too womanish for me. He never used it. It had now been taken out of the drawer and placed on the table for Spadolini. Mother had had my father’s initials engraved on it, I recall, but he dismissed this as a silly affectation. My mother had not succeeded in driving out his basic good taste, I thought. Sitting in the chair, I thought of how I had always admired Spadolini and the extraordinary life he led, which began in a North Italian town near Lake Como. The son of a lawyer, he was destined for the Church from an early age. He was one of five children, all of whom went to college and made something of themselves, as they say, but he was undoubtedly the most gifted. The young priest soon went to Florence and then, at the age of twenty-five, to Rome, where he carved out a career for himself. Admired for his good looks and his conversation, he at once raised the tone of any gathering he attended. At thirty he was adviser to the papal nuncio in Vienna, and at thirty-eight he was entrusted with an important financial office in the Vatican. At forty he became a papal nuncio, first in the Far East and then in South America. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese without an accent, as well as English and French. One can talk to him about any subject, and he never has the least difficulty in responding. It was at a reception at the Belgian Embassy in Vienna that he first met my mother. Spadolini always described her to me as a child of nature, and perhaps that is how he always saw her. Now the child of nature is dead, I thought, the much loved child of nature is lying in state in the Orangery, leaving him all alone. But Spadolini has never been alone, I thought; he has always been among people, all over the world, and this is immediately obvious from his bearing. As soon as he appears on the scene, no matter where or in what company, he dominates it. Everywhere people jostle to be near him. The best entertainment is always to be had at the table where he is placed. Mother used to invite him to Wolfsegg at least twice a year, and not only to Wolfsegg but to various Mediterranean resorts, for periods of several days or several weeks, and as far as I know, Spadolini never declined a single invitation. The prince of the Church would fly first class to wherever Mother was waiting for him, naturally at the best hotels in the most delectable settings. Sometimes my father knew, sometimes he did not, and eventually he ceased to care when and where my mother met Spadolini. At times all three traveled together, to Badgastein or Taormina, for instance, or to Sils Maria in Switzerland, where they checked in at the Waldhaus, the hotel with the finest location. Spadolini would put on his cross-country skis or take a boat out on the lake and elegantly row in the direction of the Maloja Pass, toward the painting, as it were, that made Segantini famous. It must be said that the archbishop, who had three passports — a Vatican passport, an Italian passport, and a diplomatic passport — and used whichever suited his needs, was always happiest in my mother’s company. He often told me this, and I believed him. How simpleminded our Austrian bishops are by comparison, I thought as I sat in the chair, even our cardinal in Vienna! Spadolini could be called