“ ‘Because she chose you instead of us!’ said the one who had injected me. She was angry but she didn’t raise her voice. ‘Do you know how long we’ve waited? We’ve been teased by her since we were children. Always she has an excuse, except when she is angry, and then she offers no excuse for anything, and God help those who ask her for one!’ She took a comb to my hair. ‘You’re ready as far as I can see.’

“ ‘Don’t worry,’ said the other one. She stood with folded arms. Her face was cold. She had beautiful sneering lips. ‘We won’t hurt you. She would know when she comes. And then she would kill us for certain.’

“ ‘Are you talking about Petronia?’

“ ‘You don’t know anything,’ said the one who had been combing my hair. ‘She’s just playing with you. She’s going to kill you like all the rest.’

“I could feel the drug working in me, or was it my imagination? I was so hot, so miserable. I was neither drugged nor conscious.

“ ‘Don’t try to get up,’ said the woman with the comb. But I did try and I pushed her away from me.

“She fell back, murmuring in Italian. I think she was cursing. ‘I hope she tortures you!’ she said.

“I was flat on my back. I imagined myself crawling to the balustrade. I should have dropped down, no matter how low it was. I had been a fool not to try it. My eyes closed. I could hear their voices, their cheap, cruel laughter. I hated them.

“ ‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘Help me to the balustrade. I’ll go over it myself. You can tell her that I jumped. I’ll probably die, and you’ll be happy and free of me, just like . . . just like . . .’ I couldn’t make my mouth form the words. I wasn’t sure I had said even what I thought I had said.

“I was swooning. I could no longer see.

“The bed was moving, and at first I thought it was my disorientation, but then I heard the squeak of the wheels. A coolness came over me and I felt my clothes being ripped from me, and then, down into a pool of warm water, my body was slipped.

“Thank God for it, I thought. The sweat and the heat were gone. Someone was bathing me and I didn’t hear the voices of the young women anymore.

“ ‘Listen to me,’ said a voice right close to my ear.

“I tried to open my eyes. In a flash I saw the ceiling painted with murals—a great blue sky with flying gods and goddesses: Bacchus in his chariot and satyrs around him with wreaths and trails of green ivy, and the maenads with their hair ripped and their clothes in tatters following behind. Brand-new. Too bright.