In eclectic rather than famous styles, and shabby rather than broken, the still sturdy furniture also exuded an odour of decrepitude, while the black-and-white marble tiled floors, patterned like an out-sized chessboard, gleamed cheerfully and looked freshly cleaned. On one side of the reception room, two very high doors mounted with square bevelled mirrors, set in dark wood marquetry, reflected the desolation between flowery quicksilver blotches. It was then that the Count grasped what was behind the oddness he’d experienced on entering the room: there wasn’t a single adornment or painting, a single visual prop to break the grim void on walls, tables, shelves or ceilings. He assumed that the noble bone china dinner services, repoussé silver, chandeliers, cut-glass and canvases with dark or elaborate still lives that once brought harmony to that scene, had been sent packing in advance of the books, to address food shortages – a fate that the library, already flagged as a very valuable asset, might similarly meet, if he were in luck.

The moment mentioned by the woman turned into a wait of several minutes which the Count spent smoking, knocking the ash out of the window, through which he saw the first drops of an evening shower. When his hostess returned, an older, more ancientlooking man followed in her wake, in urgent need of a shave and, like his companion, of three square meals a day.

“My brother,” she announced.

“Dionisio Ferrero,” responded the man in a voice that was younger than his body, as he held out a calloused hand with grimy fingernails.

“Mario Conde. I…”

“My sister has already explained,” he said in the curt tone of a man used to giving orders, rounding off his remarks with an order rather than a request: “Come this way.”

Dionisio Ferrero walked towards the doors with bevelled mirrors and the Count noted that his own appearance, framed in the reflection between the dark stains, was no better than the skeletal Ferreros’.