ITALY: Bowled Over by Ben

"Read this letter as if it were my love testament," wrote pert Clara Petacci to her paramour, "because it is the last one that you will get ... If sometimes I felt in me the desperate attempt to free myself of this amorous vise—remember how you hurt me—those were waves of revolt . . .

against you who did not understand me, against your incurable lechery . . . Now is really the end."

Alas for poor, weak, indecisive Clara, it was nothing of the kind. Her love and her letters continued to pour forth...

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