them. It went without saying that I should have received them, all of them, without exception, Caecilia said, and Amalia seconded this. All of them had asked after me as soon as they arrived, even before going to the Orangery to pay their last respects to my parents and my brother. I had avoided all these people, I had lain low in the most craven fashion. They had looked all over for me and had other people look for me, but I had evaded these naturally tiresome proceedings, playing an artful game of hide-and-seek. That had always been my way. So should I have stood at the door all the time, shaking hands with them and repeating the same words over and over again? I asked. That was what they had demanded of me, I said — that I should stand at the door with them, wearing a fittingly solemn mien, and receive the guests as they arrived. I didn’t do you this favor, I told them, because I wasn’t up to it. Even before leaving Rome I decided not to stand at the door. Before I left Rome I knew what this funeral would be like. Dreadful, I said, with every possible attendant horror. But it’ll soon be over, I said, and all the horrors will be over. This is neither the time nor the place for hypocrisy. The whole thing has nothing to do with mourning — it’s all theater, I said. Our parents no longer exist. There’s nothing lying in the Orangery but three bodies consigned to decay, I said, which no longer have anything to do with the human beings they once were. What’s left is pure theater. And I have neither the desire nor the ambition to be gaped at as the principal actor. We naturally all spoke softly, so as not to be overheard, so that no one would understand what we were saying, supposing that someone was eavesdropping, which I thought quite possible. From time to time people knocked on the locked door but then stopped, although they certainly did not know what we were doing inside. Our private supper was after all only a device for being alone and undisturbed, my sisters must have thought, but that was not how it worked out, as the repeated knocking gave us hardly any peace. We were all highly agitated, as may be imagined. My sisters told me that about eighty people had already arrived and would be staying the night. I remarked that most of them would be attending the funeral just so that they could have a break in this beautiful part of the world and for no other reason. It’s the right time of year, I said, and they’ll all get it more or less for free. After all, we’re paying their bills — they’ll all be paid out of the Wolfsegg coffers. I’d gladly pay for all these people to have a break somewhere else, so that I wouldn’t have to see them. But now I have them in the house. I did not say, Now we have them in the house — I said, Now I have them in the house, speaking as the sole proprietor. We mustn’t deceive ourselves, I said—funerals are never anything but theater. No sooner had I said this than I realized that I had gone too far and wished I had held back. I wished I had not said a word, but I had said so many words, so many senseless words, all of which showed me in an impossible light. Hearing me talk, people must think I’m the worst character in the world, I thought, but there are undoubtedly much worse characters. To divert attention from my outbursts of fury, especially against the funeral guests who had been accommodated at the house, I told my sisters that Rome meant everything to me, that I could no longer live anywhere else. Suddenly they woke up and did not understand me. Really, I said, I have only to think of Rome and I can’t wait to be back there — and I’ve been here only a few hours. I find it quite bizarre that this morning I was still in Rome, I said. Then I asked whether Spadolini had called. Yes, I was told, he had called from Rome to say that he would naturally be coming, this evening; he did not know how he would be traveling, but he would be arriving today. So we all waited for the archbishop, Mother’s lover, the illustrious Spadolini. Gambetti always reproaches me with being unable to control myself, I told my sisters, but I’ve always been uncontrolled and unpredictable, and I’ve always relied on people’s making allowances for my lack of control. My lack of control, and the lack of consideration that goes with it. But of course that’s expecting too much. In Rome I’m quite different, I said. There I don’t get so excited, so out of control, and I’m not so unpredictable. Rome calms me down — Wolfsegg works me up. Rome has a soothing effect on the nerves, even though it’s the most exciting city in the world, but at Wolfsegg I’m always agitated, even though it’s so peaceful here. I’m a victim of this paradox, I said. In Rome I express myself quite differently, I talk to everyone quite differently. Gambetti once told me, I said, that whenever I returned from Wolfsegg I talked in a very agitated manner, but only when I’d been to Wolfsegg. On that occasion I had told Gambetti that my family was to blame. He said that my thinking got out of phase with its normal rhythm, what might be called its Roman rhythm. Gambetti had often said that he hardly knew me when I had been to Wolfsegg and could never have made friends with the kind of person I was at such times, since I had an entirely different persona, quite the opposite of what might be called my Roman persona. He could not stand my Wolfsegg persona; he liked only my Roman persona. He said that when I returned from Wolfsegg it took me several days to revert to my Roman persona and become once more the kind of person who was useful to him as a teacher, the kind of person to whom he could be a friend, a pupil, and a conversational partner. He could be none of these when I was in my Wolfsegg mood. Gambetti maintains that Wolfsegg’s bad for me, I told my sisters, that two or three days at Wolfsegg are enough to throw me off balance for several weeks. I’ve never understood what it is that throws me off balance at Wolfsegg. I don’t know whether it’s the landscape, the people, or the air, though the air here is the best I know — the air at Wolfsegg is superb. Is it more to do with the buildings or more to do with the people? I don’t know. It’s Wolfsegg as a whole, I said. It was ridiculous to entertain such thoughts, and not only to entertain them but to express them, given that I had become heir to Wolfsegg overnight and had taken it over, as my sisters were bound to believe. It was not that I was going to take it over — I had already done so, I thought. They were forced to take the question of the succession seriously. They could not imagine that I would not comply — in every detail and with all the consequences that compliance entailed. Despite the fact that they had not heard most of what I had been thinking and therefore did not know the drift of my thoughts, I suddenly said to them, I’m not a farmer, the sort of man who gets on a tractor, as Father did. I’m not a tractor man, and I’ve no wish to haggle with warehouse managers over a bag of artificial fertilizer because it’s only half full and I’ve paid for a full bag.