Читать книгу Innocence - Julian Barnes - Страница 8

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This story is not the one given out nowadays in the leaflet provided by the Azienda di Turismo or by the Committee for Visiting the Most Beautiful Villas of Florence — it starts in the same way, but ends differently. Nor, probably, is the Ricordanza, for all its high and airy position, for all its lemon terraces, really one of the most beautiful villas of Florence. Nor, in a sense, is the present Count Ridolfi really a Count, although the leaflet calls him that, because all titles were abolished in Italy after the Second World War. And, in the course of their descent, the Ridolfi family has taken so many turns and half-turns, so many doubtful passages, that the past generations can hardly be held responsible for those of the twentieth century. No more midgets among them now. Still a tendency towards rash decisions, perhaps, always intended to ensure other people’s happiness, once and for all. It seems an odd characteristic to survive for so many years. Perhaps it won’t do so for much longer.