Winds of War Read Online Free PDF

people. But when Slote mentioned that he was a Rhodes Scholar, Byron decided not to pursue the topic.
    Jastrow lived in a yellow stucco villa on a steep hillside, with a fine view of the cathedral and Siena’s red towers and tile roofs. It was a drive of about twenty minutes from town. Byron hurried after the girl and Slote through a terraced flowering garden full of black-stained plaster statues.
    “Well, there you are!” The voice was high, authoritative, and impatient, with a faint foreign note in the pronouncing of the r ’s.
    Two sights struck Byron as they entered a long beamed living room: a painting of a red-robed Saint Francis with arms outstretched, on a background of gold, taking up a good part of one wall, and far down the long sitting room on a red silk couch, a bearded little man in a light gray suit, who looked at his watch, stood, and came toward them coughing.
    “This is Byron Henry, Aaron,” the girl said.
    Jastrow took Byron’s hand in two dry little paws and peered up at him with prominent wavering eyes. Jastrow’s head was large, his shoulders slight; he had aging freckled skin, light straight hair, and a heavy nose reddened by a cold. The neatly trimmed beard was all gray. “Columbia ‘38, is it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, well, come along.” He went off down the room, buttoning the flapping folds of his double-breasted suit. “Come here, Byron.” Plucking the stopper out of a heavy crystal decanter, he carefully poured amber wine into four glasses. “Come Leslie, Natalie. We don’t take wine during the day, Byron, but this is an occasion.” He held up his glass. “To Mr. Byron Henry, eminent hater of the Italian Renaissance.”
    Byron laughed. “Is that what Dr. Milano wrote? I’ll drink to that.”
    Jastrow took one sip, put down his glass, and looked at his watch. Seeing the professor wanted to get at his lunch, Byron tossed off the sherry like a shot of rye. Jastrow exclaimed with a delighted smile, “Ah! One, two, three. Good lad. Come along, Natalie. Leslie, take your glass to the table.”
    It was a spare lunch: nothing but vegetables with white rice, then cheese and fruit. The service was on fine old china, maroon and gold. A small, gray-headed Italian woman passed the food. The tall dining room windows stood open to the garden, the view of Siena, and a flood of pale sunshine. Gusts of cool air came in as they ate.
    When they first sat, the girl said, “What have you got against the Italian Renaissance, Byron?”
    “That’s a long story.”
    “Tell us,” said Jastrow in a classroom voice, laying a thumb across his smiling mouth.
    Byron hesitated. Jastrow and the Rhodes Scholar made him uneasy. The girl disconcerted him more. Removing her glasses, she had disclosed big slanted dark eyes, gleaming with bold intelligence. She had a soft large mouth, painted a bit too orange, in a bony face. Natalie was regarding him with a satiric look, as though she had already concluded that he was a fool; and Byron was not fool enough to miss that.
    “Maybe I’ve had too much of it,” he said. “I started out fascinated. I’m ending up snowed under and bored. I realize much of the art is brilliant, but there’s a lot of overrated garbage amid the works of genius. My main objection is that I can’t take the mixture of paganism and Christianity. I don’t believe David looked like Apollo, or Moses like Jupiter, or Mary like every Renaissance artist’s mistress with a borrowed baby on her lap. Maybe they couldn’t help showing Bible Jews as local Italians or pseudo-Greeks, but –” Byron dried up for a moment, seeing his listeners’ amused looks. “Look, I’m not saying any of this is important criticism. I guess it just shows I got into the wrong field. But what has any of it to do with Christianity? That’s what sticks in my craw. Supposing Christ came back to earth and visited the Uffizi, or Saint Peter’s? The Christ of your book, Dr. Jastrow, the poor idealistic Jewish