The Importance of Symbolism

By the time our father came upon it, its vast ruins were inhabited only by two oxygenarian twins. The gazebos with their conical terracotta tiled roofs were covered with brambles and vines. Later, when the jungle had been stripped away, one of these turned out to be from an Italian crusader who'd brought it back from Jerusalem as a souvenir. Before our father bought the house, during the period when the estate was being divided up and sold off in parcels, a blue and white enamel Madonna and child had been stolen right off the wall. Other treasures too heavy to steal, a Roman sarcophagus, a 17th-century wishingwell