C2206 In December 1936, a man knelt beside his mother and wept. He had been king of Great Britain for only three days, elevated after his brother walked away from the throne. The weight of what had been forced on him had already cracked the fragile constitution he had carried since boyhood. In his own diary, … Read more
On the morning of October 6, 1954, Marilyn Monroe stood on the front lawn of a house on North Palm Drive in Beverly Hills in a black dress, pressing a handkerchief to her face. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut and her hands would not stop shaking. Beside her stood Jerry Giesler, the most expensive … Read more
When Edward VIII died in the spring of 1972, much of the world assumed a famous love story had simply reached its final page. The truth was messier. The story continued inside a shuttered house on the edge of a Paris forest, with an aging widow in an upstairs bedroom, a lawyer guarding the front … Read more
Narodila jsem se v roce 1939 v malém městě v Nebrasce, kde se všichni navzájem znali. Bylo to kolem roku 1968, téměř dva roky po naší svatbě, když jsem si poprvé všimla něčeho podivného. Volala jsem na Edwarda potichu celým domem, ale nikde nebyl. V tichosti jsem sledovala, jak dokončil kopání malé jámy, opatrně do … Read more
Ještě tu noc jsem měla spát klidně. Místo toho jsem ležela při světle měsíce, který se prodíral žaluziemi mého pokoje, a držela telefon tak pevně, až mi bolely prsty. Jmenuji se Loretta May Johnsonová, jednaasedmdesátiletá vdova se stříbrnými copy, louisianským přízvukem a páteří, kterou si cizinci pletou s magnóliovým dřevem. Tu noc jsem ale měla … Read more
Quand l’avocate a fait glisser le document sur la table, j’ai d’abord cru à une erreur. J’ai cru qu’elle s’était trompée de dossier, qu’elle avait mélangé les papiers, que quelqu’un allait s’excuser et tout reprendre. Mais personne ne souriait autour de moi. Personne ne bougeait. Le seul bruit venait des néons du bureau, qui bourdonnaient … Read more
In the early hours of July 17, 1918, a family was led down 23 steps into a semi-basement room in a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg. The room was small, roughly 25 feet by 21, with a vaulted ceiling, striped wallpaper, and a single window behind an iron grill. There were no chairs. The mother asked … Read more
Le message est arrivé un mercredi après-midi, pendant que je réparais un robinet qui fuyait dans l’appartement que je partageais avec ma petite amie, Chloé. On était ensemble depuis trois ans, et on vivait sous le même toit depuis deux. Le SMS était tombé comme une faux. « Marc, je dois être honnête. Je suis … Read more
In 1935, as Britain celebrated King George V's Silver Jubilee with bunting and street parties, the King reportedly confided something extraordinary to his prime minister. He told Stanley Baldwin that after his death, his son would ruin himself within twelve months. That son was the Prince of Wales, the heir apparent, a man who drew … Read more
In March 1965, a woman walked into a room at the London Clinic in central London. She moved with the straight-backed confidence of someone raised to believe that bloodlines determine destiny. That woman was Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, Duchess of Kent, a granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and a granddaughter of … Read more