Volume 45, Number 11 · June 25, 1998
Roman Candle
By William Weaver
It was the rainy, bone-chilling Roman winter of 1947. A new acquaintance had invited me to a dinner party, giving me an address near the US Embassy, somewhere behind the Excelsior Hotel. The streets were ill-lighted in those immediate postwar days of scarcity and hardship, but I managed to find the turn-of-the-century urban villa, surrounded by a small, thickly wooded garden. Inside, the house was almost as gloomy as its dark exterior. The central, clear panes of the windows were framed by strips of stained glass; the little conservatory off the salon was a dank jungle. And, like the parsimonious landlady of my pensione, my dinner hosts kept the wattage of their light bulbs to the minimum available.
Feature, 4073 words
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