Crucial Instances

Excerpt

Have you ever questioned the long shuttered front of an old Italian house,
that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest
behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional?  Other houses declare the
activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life
flowing close to the surface; but the old palace in its narrow street, the
villa on its cypress-hooded hill, are as impenetrable as death.  The tall
windows are like blind eyes, the great door is a shut mouth.  Inside there
may be sunshine, the scent of myrtles, and a pulse of life through all the
arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where bats lodge in the
disjointed stones and the keys rust in unused doors....