Hitler, Mussolini, and Me: A Sort of Triography

In 1938 Hitler visits Italy. An expatriate Irish art historian is obliged to guide Mussolini and his guest around the galleries. Half fascinated, half repelled, he watches the tyrants, wrestling with the uneasy conviction that he ought to use the opportunity to “do something” about them yet lacking the zeal that might transform misgivings into action.

Thirty years later, his daughter comes across a compromising clipping showing her father with the dictators. Exposed as a collaborator, the na...