Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Half a mile across the valley from the inn Anthony was driving along the endless garden wall of the Palazzo Brignole. It had once been a summer school of the Jesuits but was long since deserted, as most of that suppressed order had fled to Russia or Poland. The hoofs of the mules echoed against the cracked and peeling stucco of the outbuildings in the empty moonlight. The driver turned in reluctantly enough through a rusty iron gate, and unhitching under a shed, began to make himself and his team as comfortable as the fleas would permit. Supper seemed remote. He was heard to wish fervently that il signore would not be long.

-"An hour or two at most," replied Anthony, who then began to pick his way gingerly across a weedy terrace, fingering the letter to Father Xavier. The address upon it now seemed improbable, for in the moonlight he stumbled over piles of rubbish and old stable litter while tribes of owl-eyed cats fled wailing before him.