Palladian Days by Sally Gable Page A

their rush to drape plastic sheets over all the electrical equipment in the backyard and secure the flaps with tape. The assistant ballet mistress, whom I discover to be an expatriate Englishwoman, and a tight knot of parents cluster on the north portico to watch the storm roiling across the sky just miles away. Its arms stretch around us to the east and west, and an early darkness envelops us.
    I am not ready to surrender. “Maybe it will pass through before nine o'clock,” I suggest hopefully.

    Ballet students gather on the north steps after a rehearsal
    “No,” the ballet mistress says. “Once the stage is wet, we won't be able to dance on it. It wouldn't be safe for the dancers.”
    At precisely 8:40 the imps of hell are unleashed around us. Sheets of rain and lightning, alternating with vast sound chambers of thunder, strike with such fury that we are all surprised despite having spent hours watching the storm's inexorable march across the plain.
    The storm rampages through half the night, but is followed by a morning so brilliant it would challenge Titian himself to bring its colors to a canvas. The sharp edges of the Alps are a glistening and reproachful reminder of a world without smog. In our backyard the dripping chairs and sodden stage sit sleepily under the slowly warming sun. Gradually the heat lifts the water from the lawn and the leaves of the trees, and the familiar rustle of wind through the Lombardy poplars returns to wake the space.
    The week passes quickly, all sunny and dry Saturday arrives and the afternoon offers no hint of shadow in the northern sky. Gian-carlo returns to strip the plastic from his spotlights. Finally the chattering dancers appear, happy now in the certainty that the show will go on. Carl and I watch in amazement as the crowd begins to pour through the front gate and flow in a swelling stream around the villa to the park. The chairs are soon filled, and still the throngs arrive. At half past nine, when the recital at last begins, there must be five hundred people gathered, a third of them standing.
    The youngest children in their bright tutus are the biggest hit, but I am struck by the genuine talent of two of the teenage girls. A few years later I learn that the younger of the two, from a Piom-bino Dese family, has been recruited for the corps de ballet at La Scala in Milan, and that she has courageously accepted—a brave leap from the nest in family-centered Italy. (In fact, Piombino Dese must be a hotbed of terpsichorean talent: a son of a later
sindaco
now dances with the Rome ballet.)
    In all, the recital is a great audience favorite, aided no doubt by the fact that so many of the spectators have relatives onstage. But there will be a long hiatus before the dancers return to Villa Cornaro. The expense of the project, as compounded by the rain delay, I am told, is more than the ballet school and its supporters can risk again without financial aid.
    Several of our most vivid memories of villa life involve those same wild
temporali
that swoop in from the north at irregular intervals. I sometimes think I should name them individually, like hurricanes: Angelo, Bonifacio, Carlo, Davide, Epifanio. Our introduction to them comes early. During our first October stay at our new villa, while we are still learning the mysteries of the security systems that Giancarlo installed for Dick Rush, Carl and I settle in our upstairs bedroom at the west end of the villa for a sound sleep after a busy and happy day. The October air is chilly, but we've cocooned ourselves warmly. The
balcone
are tightly closed, of course, blockingout all light from the street and much of the sound. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, we are shocked awake by a one-two punch. First, a mighty clap of thunder explodes around the villa without warning. What can only be described as a stealth
tempo-rale
has ambushed us! Then, as we sit rigidly upright in bed, our senses floundering for an explanation of the first