Tenor of Love
Chapter One: Little Sister
In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si torva una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.
In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be deciphered, there is a rubric that reads: Here the new life begins.
-- DANTE, LA VITA NUOVA
1
Every summer my family would escape the heat and the crowds of Firenze and move to Livorno where we had an apartment on the uppermost floor of a building on Viale Regina Margarita. Poplars shaded our home there, singing sotto voce in the marine breezes. The scent of pinewood, tamarisk, and lime trees blended with the salt in the air.
It was early in July, nearly noon, when a young man presented himself at the door. In 1897 I was barel ... read full excerpt from Tenor of Love: A Novel ebook