fearless woman. Energetic, said Spadolini, full of verve. And that evening she looked so elegant, wearing a Persian dress, a cream-colored dress, he said — you’re bound to remember it. My God, he said, how good your mother looked in that dress! Perhaps you don’t remember your mother as I do, he said. I have the most wonderful memories of her. I felt terrible when I heard the news, said Spadolini. It was the most terrible news I’d had for a long time. How often your mother saved me from death — that’s the truth — by inviting me to Wolfsegg. Here I had the peace I needed in order to survive, he said. This house and this landscape are dearer to me than any others. The high culture that is to be found everywhere here shields one from despair. When I was nuncio in Peru I constantly thought of Wolfsegg, of you and your mother. Thinking of you here enabled me to survive there. But Peru is a magnificent country, said Spadolini, magnificent, magnificent. The news was the saddest I could possibly have received, he said. He got up and said that he would now go across to the Orangery and see the dead. Before we all left the room, he came up to me and said that the death of my mother was the greatest loss he could have suffered. Don’t lose control, he said. You’re now the master of Wolfsegg. The time had come for Spadolini to visit the Orangery. The other guests had long since retired to their rooms. Noises could still be heard from the kitchen, but silence reigned everywhere else. Caecilia led the way, almost running and opening all the doors. She arrived first at the Orangery. For the last ten or twelve yards she slowed down to a walking pace. She did not go straight in but waited for Spadolini, who was following her. He had lost none of his composure. He was wearing the most elegant shoes I have ever seen. I had noticed them earlier as I walked behind him up to the second floor. It was always a delight to see him buying his shoes, only in the Via Condotti, of course, never on the Corso, where I bought mine. I looked admiringly at them in the fresh grass. They showed up particularly well in the light of the catafalque lamps, which lit up part of the park, while the rest was in darkness. Spadolini wanted me, or Amalia at least, to enter the Orangery first, but we ceded precedence to him. He took Caecilia’s arm and went in. He halted in front of the coffins and pressed Caecilia to his side. My brother-in-law stood behind her, and Amalia stood behind Spadolini, while I stationed myself in the background, behind them all. The huntsmen who were keeping watch stood stock-still, their faces impassive, as at a military lying in state. The scene reminded me of the monument to the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, which I had once seen with Johannes when we met in Warsaw for a trip to Krakow. He had been hunting near Zakopane, and I had been visiting relatives near Wilamowice. For a few minutes we all stood motionless. Then I conceived a sudden desire to see the faces of my sisters, my brother-in-law, and Spadolini, instead of the dead and by now quite alien faces of my father and my brother. I went up to the coffins and pretended to check the ice blocks, lifting the sheets, looking under them, then dropping them again, though I was interested only in the faces of Spadolini, my sisters, and my brother-in-law. Yet their faces gave no hint of what was going on in their minds. They betrayed nothing. They were quite motionless, like curtains behind which everything lay hidden. I had hoped that these faces would reveal what lay behind them, but everything that would have interested me remained hidden. They’re all so clever and controlled, I thought as I stood in front of them, not knowing whether they had divined my purpose. I could well believe this of Spadolini, and of my sisters. The only one who showed his true face, with no curtain drawn over it, as it were, was my brother-in-law, the wine cork manufacturer. He had not drawn a curtain over his stolidity, of which he was not even aware, I thought. All the others had their facial curtains drawn; my brother-in-law, the wine cork manufacturer, was the only one who did not interest me at all. What the others are thinking behind these facial curtains would certainly be extremely interesting, I told myself. But I know what kind of thoughts they’re thinking. I don’t have to pull back the curtains to know what’s going on behind them, I thought. Carefully, in keeping with the occasion, I again lifted one of the sheets, then gently let it fall back over the ice blocks, fully aware that I was behaving atrociously. It’s natural that Spadolini should have taken Caecilia’s arm, I thought. Like a scene in a film. Faces in a film. Film stars’ faces. I stepped back quickly, as though suddenly realizing that I had disturbed a solemn act, and returned to my former position behind the group. The huntsmen were irritated but tried to remain composed in spite of their irritation. The faces of the dead were now like wax, their color a dirty gray. These dirty-gray sunken faces must be washed in the morning, I thought. I’ll give instructions. I mustn’t forget. Suddenly Spadolini knelt down in front of Mother’s coffin. It was an embarrassing scene. My sisters had no option but to kneel down with him. I naturally remained standing. For two or three minutes, which is a long time in such a situation, Spadolini and my sisters knelt before the coffins. A film scene, I thought again. It occurred to me that before visiting the Orangery Archbishop Spadolini had fortified himself with a hearty supper. First we have supper, then we pay our respects, I thought. How elegantly he rises to his feet, I thought, unlike my sisters, whose movements were awkward as they got up off their knees. Spadolini turned around to me as if to ask what happened next. I led him to the entrance, and he went out. It was completely dark. Your mother was probably so badly injured that it was impossible for her to lie in state like your father and Johannes, he said softly. Then, after we had walked a few yards toward the house, he asked how the accident had happened. My sisters being unable to give a coherent account, I told Spadolini what I had read in the papers, speaking in short sentences, as though reciting the headlines.