clothes, she didn’t fully learn to speak English, and she rarely ventured outside her home. Throughout the 20s, the family made multiple trips back to Europe – not such an easy thing to do in those days – but those trips stopped after the stock market crash of 1929 and Leone lost a substantial share of his fortune. In 1935, Leone passed away after developing throat cancer, and that’s where the story takes a strange turn. Ofelia, due to her overwhelming grief and declining mental health, withdrew both herself and her daughter Sveva from society. For the remaining 25 years of her life, she never left the house. She only barely interacted with the outside world – when a doctor came to see her, she would only talk to him through the door, and Sveva had to translate as she barely spoke English. Sveva also very rarely left the house. As she grew older, her mother kept her around through guilt and manipulation. She had a weak heart, for example, as she had rheumatic fever when she was young. Sveva once said about her mother: “She hung onto me – it’s quite easy to persuade an 18-year-old that if she (Ofelia) does anything on her own, she will have a heart attack and die.” Ofelia and Sveva’s seclusion prompted rumours about the Caetani house, as hardly anyone knew what was going on. One of the prominent rumours was that a countess lived in the house – thus prompting Sveva’s later nickname. Other rumours were about witches living in the house, and kids would dare other kids to climb the fence that used to be at the front of the property and knock on the THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA
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