It was the cathedrals that Dahlia loved most, and she wondered was it Dahlia who loved the cathedrals? They were after Catherine's time, after all. To Catherine they represented the excesses, even the cruelty, of the Catholic Church. To Catherine, this city was a morbid shadow of the Rome that she knew. Dahlia, on the other hand, could see the beauty of ruins.
Was it Dahlia or Catherine who conjured a tear for St. Teresa's ecstasy? And was the tear for the sheer beauty of Bernini's composition or some memory of that sharp point of inspiration, of knowledge? Surely it was Catherine who drove them to the Colosseum, or was it instead Dahlia's attempt to bury Catherine there?
Object: downstairs