In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

"Is the truth!"
"Okay, okay," Penny said, "so they've had faucets here for two
thousand years, and aqueducts to bring down mountain fresh water,
and it all went out the Cloaca Maxima. I knew that, but, hey, I had to
make sure I wasn't drinking any 'dog water.' I mean the stuff in those
Paris caraffes, 'dog water', right? So, I was just asking."
A few steps further and they stood before the Pantheon. For a
monument to all the gods it looked so small, sitting in that dip just
behind a little fountain topped with yet another of those Egyptian
obelisks. They walked under the portico past a group of gypsy beggars
huddled together against the damp cold. They had the same hair as
Sandro and his mother, only not styled by Madame d'Oc. Inside the
bronze gates the round temple was the last living remnant of Ancient
Rome. A hole in the center of the cupola was the only source of light
below which was a shiny puddle. For the grand temple to all the gods
of creation, the scale was downright cozy.
Sandro pointed to the blue disk of sky. "The Oculus makes a
sundial there on the polished floor as it moves in a circle around the
center. The pool of water there was for prayer, where the void's rising
vapors are caught by the gods."
"The gods? So now you are a pagan, Sandro? Is this Ula or
Penny's doing?" Beatrice teased.
"Neither, this is from Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoires
d'Hadrian, I was reading it at Dick's."
"Dick is interested in antiquity? That is news."
"It is not antiquity, but the Emperor Hadrian he finds
interesting. I think you know why, mama." To Penny, he continued,
"One of the greatest of Roman Emperors, and very gay. When his
lover Antinoüs, who resembled exactly Elvis Presley, drowned in the
Nile, Adriano had him deified and put statues of him in all the temples,
maybe even here. He also built a beautiful villa out of town on the way
to Tivoli. I will take you there some day, but in the summer, not now.
Perhaps we can go to the Castel Sant'Angelo, his mausoleum where he
is buried and after which my brother was named for some mysterious
reason mama would never tell us."
"I bore two sons. One for the kingdom of man and one for
kingdom of God. But I..." She shrugged, following Ula's swirling dance
inside the circle of melted snow with a look of blank incomprehension,
before abruptly clattering away towards the massive doors.
"Why don't you show Penny the Spanish Steps? She can buy
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