ITALY
And now enter Uncle George! Uncle George should have at least a brief roll of drums and a moment in the spotlight, and you'll soon see why.
He has very, very blue eyes, with a dangerous twinkle that skips a heat beat. the twinkle is also an invitation to share an excruciating joke. He has a quick sense of the ridiculous and always sees some hidden joke. Not only his blue eyes, and this, of course, you notice too: his nose is covered with blue and red veins. He is the eldest of the family, my Mother's eldest brother, — the Black Sheep. His charm is indescribable and irresistable. After three marriages, two divorces and several scandals, he is now in Italy. He has a world of friends. He is married to aunt Mary, whom you will meet later.
So it is Uncle George who now comes from Italy to help his little sister Nell. He knows her and loves her. He waves away the advice of her family who tell her she must take up her life again, see her old friends and be part of her life there.
Mother weeps and weeps. "Never, she says, "never!"
Uncle George tells her of Italy. She must start a new life. A whole new life lies ahead of her. Mother leaves her sick bed; life stirs and a vista opens. So, here is what happens: the New York house is closed; furniture goes into storage. Donald, whose education is important, is entered into a prep school. My education is, as you might say, shelved. Uncle George tells Mother that Italy is the seat of art and history; I will soon learn all I need. So, Mother and four children, the faithful Janet, grim with disapproval, but loyal, and a Scottish maid, all sail on The Cedric, White Star Line, for Italy.
Do you understand what Europe, ITALY means? Well, for one thing, it takes three weeks by ship to get there. It might
as well be the moon, but far more romantic. Can you imagine the thrill, the shivers of excitement for a little family, who
had never been farther than Maine or Vermont? and to Mother, a clergyman's widow, whose life had been church work in her
husband's parish. this little band, two grim Scottish maids, and Mother, covered head to foot in black crepe. I don't suppose that Bobs, the baby, was dressed in black, but she did have a black hair ribbon, and Stu had a black band on his arm. We step down the gangplank; here we are, coming from a young, undeveloped country. We come, naive with wonder, the clergyman's widow and family.
And here is Italy: Italy, with its ancient smell, it's ancient past, a hovering smell of coffee — voices, song, laughter and sun. The ship smelled of rubber; everyone was seasick; the curtain is lifting.
We arrive in Florence. We are met by Aunt Mary 's chauffeur and car. We drive up and up on cobbled roads, past stone walls and wysteria and always the Italian sun, until we are at Villa Bel Riposo. Think of blue, the Italian sky; think of blue beyond description; think of Cypress trees, slim and black against the blue, a Botticello landscape and the valley below of olive groves, silver in the sunlight, where Aunt Mary's Contadini pick the ripe olives. Here are logias of wysteria and an ancient villa peopled by families for centuries: the faint smell of incense as the white-gloved servants come to wait on us.
Here I will tell a story, a story told to me; its impression remains when I think of Villa Bel Riposo. It is a cruel story and true. When Aunt Mary bought the Villa, she employed an architect to make some changes. He came upon the face of a wall that he could not account for. It must have a space behind it. The wall was unsealed, revealing a small room. In the room behind a waist-high wall, there was a girl's skeleton. Four feet away from the wall was a stand on which lay the skeleton of a baby. Here was a cruel past and we felt very far away from New England.
Before we say anything and through all that followed, it can never be said that Aunt Mary flinched from Duty. She accepted her husband's family; since she loved her husband, she would do her duty by his family. She did not understand the Scottish maids, nor did she understand the children. She disliked children.
Two women could not have been more different than Mother and Mary. Aunt Mary, disciplined, conventional, grim and strong. She had her plans for Mother, but Mother is not tuned to grief, Grief destroys her; she is wildly intolerant. She has lived through scalding sorrows and she has, as you might say, had it! She does not fit the role Aunt Mary has prepared for her. She will have none of Aunt Mary's advice. So, suddenly, no more crepe! Off with the widow's weeds, not gradually, not bit by bit, changing gradually to gray, not waiting a conventional year. So off go the respectable black dresses, the small black bonnet and the crepe veil.
Mother goes to Campolmi, the famous designer in Florence and orders a wardrobe. An icy atmosphere grows in the Villa. Aunt Mary's discipline keeps her silent, but her disapproval is a frost-killing frost. We take an appartamento in a pallazo in Florence. My sister and I go to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and Mother (and her new wardrobe) goes to town.
We still go back to the Villa for Aunt Mary's receptions. Aunt Mary and Uncle George's "At Home"s are famous; the rich, the famous and the respectable strive for invitations to these receptions. Mother and I always go, but Mother, it seems, has a gift for liking the "Wrong People". It's all the poor and struggling young artists whom she befriends; it is the drifters and the wanderers who somehow got invited to Aunt Mary's receptions who become her friends. At the receptions, there are raised eyebrows, not only at her dashing clothes but at her dashing gaity, for her spirits are high and she is not interested in Aunt Mary's set. Mother is not resentful. She is hilarious over Aunt Mary's friends: "Fuddy-duddies" she calls them, in gales of laughter at them.
But even at our Florentine apartment, life has its complications. Janet and Annie find Italy a horror. "Yon dirty art!" and Janet whisks Bob away from the frankness of the marble statues. It is no use for Uncle George to explain to a tearful Annie that Italians only mean to be polite when they compliment you on the street. "A pinch", he explains, "is a gesture of friendliness." But Annie leaves; she returns to her God-fearing Highlands.
And now we go to Venice. There we will spend the summer. Theis is not the Venice of tourists. We step from the train, not into a taxi but into a Gondola. it is night. the water is black patton leather, with silver lights slipping across it. We have taken the top floor of the Hotel Regina and our balconies look down onto the Grande Canale. This is the Venice of small, dark canals, the silent dip of gondola poles into black water: the Venice of Thomas Mann, "Death in Venice", the Lido.
Mother engages a Gondola and Umberto, the gondolier. Umberto has a smile of very white teeth and a small mustache. He wears a white sailor uniform with a red sash and a wide-brimmed hat with ribbons. He understands Mother and her sense of adventure. Each morning he arrives with new plans. We glide along dark Piccoli Canals, the little alleys of water and under the over-hanging buildings. We explore islands and picnic in the lagoon. We feed the pigeons at the Piazza of San Marco and sit at small tables in Floran's Cafe to drink sweet syrups. This is the summer Mother wants only to be with her children. So our life is a happy family life.
In the morning we go in our gondola to the cabana we have rented for the summer, There, Umberto leaves us while he markets for fresh eggs and green figs with a drop of honey dripping from their stems. He buys her proscouitos and Mother has her chaffing dish. We swim in the Adriatic. We lie in the sun. and then at the end of the afternoon, after sea and sun, we go to the Excelcior Hotel where there is a roller skating rink and an orchestra. Here, ladies with dresses to their ankles and with enormous hats, swing by, accompanied by officers. Here is what you might call the "Beau Monde" of Venice. Here is the Duc D'Abruzzi in white naval uniform. We long to meet him but we never do, We glide along on our skates, accompanied by violins playing, "I Love You Only", "Come Hero Mine". Waiters rush about with hot chocolate and cakes. Then, at sunset, we drift home to our hotel.
After dinner, Umberto comes with the gondola and we gather around a float with many other gondolas to listen to Italian tenors' heart-rending tones of La Donne Mobile and "Bella Figura del Amor.
And all this is sufficient romance for me.
ROME
(Before reading this chapter, read SCHOOL IN GENEVA for proper sequence)
If School in Geneva comes back in gales of laughter, Rome remains, and ever will, a hidden orchestra: Background music forever playing; nightingales forever singing… Romance in he soft Italian air, awakening in the morning with a dreamy lingering of last night's Ball. And the surge of today! Open Sesame!
But first, here is our situation: Mother, having done her duty (and failed), now carefree, happily takes Uncle George's advice. We are living in the Hotel Imperial, Cia Veneto. Mother has taken a floor —hotel "suites are not enough. For we must have a nursery for Janet and the baby. Baby is now known as "Bobs" and is becoming a personality. Stu stilll has his moments when he likjes to revert to Janet and a bit of cosseting — and to get away from Winter and me. Of course we must have a salon for entertaining. Mother plans happily, and naturally, a bedroom each. If this sounds affluent, it's not. At home we can be considered Church Mice; In Italy, our dollars go far and Mother has a happy disregard for money.
So we are in Rome — Rome at the turn of the Century. And Rome, all Europe, lives in the intoxication of Life: luxury, frivolity, happy security, war is a laughable impossibility. This is Life at a climax, before "the lights go out alll over Europe".
A time that is gone…a time that will never come back. Excruciatingly superficial, perhaps, but conscious of the pulse of History, Music, and Art. And Love - Tosca's world: Vissi d'Arte et d'Amor". a lovely tome, I have to say.
For me, Rome is the glitter of crystal chandeliers over the ballroom floor. I am Aladdin. Dazzle. Rome is violins and the waltz! this is what I feell about the Waltz: It's a man's dance, a girl need only feel fragile, yielding - airborne! - in the commanding arms that guide and whirl her —whirl and whirl — then the masterful reverse and off and away, and away!
Rome in the early morning and the compagnia, (Compagnia is gone now; it's all new buildings and developments) but now there is the compagnia, wind in your face, horses wild with morning freshness —thud, thud, rhythm of horse hooves, for I must keep up! My Cavalry Officer is a mad rider. (Here I must insert the stern instructions before I am allowed this morning ride: "Promise", instructs Mother "that you will ride, and under no pretext or circumstance will you get off your horse!". This does not mean Mother suspects my companion of Evil Intent. Mother is simply conforming to custom.
And here I must extol the European canny system of the Duenna Chaperonage. You will have to believe what this does for a girl — at least in her own eyes. The importance of having her favour sought and the sense of Forbidden Fruit in every encounter is a subtle thing for an American girl, used to the casual rough of boy-girl relationship —very heady stuff.
We go to the Races. The Races and high fashion go together. The dresses are "creations" of famous designers —Worth and Doucet; hats, and I'm not exaggerating, are five or six feet around the rim. Men are dressed in the quiet top hat and pin stripes — no one so impressive as the correctly-turned Male. The Steeple Chase — Cavalry Officers are world-famous horsemen, fearless and skilled. We are romantic about every horse and rider. There is the early morning Hunt Meet: pink coats of the Hunt Club; horses all nerves —side-stepping in the small steps of dancers in a frenzy. And the riders! Never is a woman more at advantage than when erect, slim, severely groomed, in hat and ascot, on her side saddle, the folds of her long step, touching the toe of her boot on the stirrup. Imperious as well as feminine, she leans to speak to her horse.
The Tea Time Hour at the Excelsior Hotel: the room is filled with lights and music; glitter and violins. Princess Yousopoff, whose husband would soon attempt the murder of Rasputin, is surrounded by admirers. the Contessa di Something-or-Other extends a careless arm for the kiss of homage(How foreign men know the art of making a woman feel regal!) and she turns to speak across her shoulder too another admirer. European women are imperious with an insolence I long to copy. I long to be imperious. These women are not spoiled. they are trained and disceplined and controlled. Huband's eyes wander, and not only their eyes! Wives accept Mistresses and scandal and notoriety, these imperious women remain proud; they have their own power.
But theirs is not my world: "Decadent", "Dangerous" are words unknown to me. Life is in rainbow colours, "the stuff that dreams are made of"; "I swing the world - a trinket at my wrist". And love? Yes, I know love. Love is a possession; it is something you accept and hold. There is a sweet essence in the acceptance of this love. (Tu es bella", he whispers, "Seducente. And beyond the open window are the stars in the warm Roman night. This is heady stuff at eighteen, but of course it's love. Love is romance, always candlelight and glamour. "Love is daylight; love is giving. What do you know of love?" "You mean - Love", I answer. "Not now, sometime. Perhaps. I have nothing to give now." But all the same there's a special essence in a love that is not felt, not given but received. Romance has its own sweet intoxication. And what are those Calvin clergy and their eyes that follow me? I know they follow me. Deep, buried but not stifled, here and very much alive is my father's Hell Damnation.
We go to stand in the Coliseum by moonlight. Here in this space, ancient beyond imagination, a thin veil of silver mists floats in the dark. Here is the Coliseum, unearthly beauty, where face to face Faith and Depravity met in combat. Here is Cruelty, Nero, blood lust, the roar of the crowd. Was I awed? I'm afraid it is the warm, ungloved hand that I am conscious of, for it has found mine in the dark.
Aunt Mary has arranged two Audiences, for we must have some name-dropping. Here we meet in separate audiences, Cardinal Rampolgli. He is large and jolly; he speaks English. He teases me after he comes into the room where we meet and finds me standing on a chair to check my appearance. Next was Cardinal Merri del Val: dark, remote, with intense dark eyes. And that's all I remember of these two important men.
But never to be forgotten is the Beatification of Joan of Arc. This is a magnificent pageant of Midieval Splendor in St. Peter's Cathedral. Tier upon tier reaching the roof, crowds waving, and the procession comes: Swiss Guards in uniforms designed by Michelangelo, the Italians of Catholic nobility, dressed in Elizabethan black doublets and hose and ruffs, finally
the Pope, dressed in white, carried shoulder high in his chair, bestowing high blessings on the kneeling multitude.
Should this record have a Love and Interest? Yes, it must, and here is the sweet essence of Love, even if the heart is not given. Hugo. He is twenty three. He is a Cavalry Officer. I wish that he, in all his youth, his fervor, his vulnerability, could step forth and come alive in these words. First Love, and as it turned out, his only love, though not his fault. How can the depth, the innocence of that love relive in words? In spite of the ridge of rules and formalities that surrounded us, we are finally permitted to meet without a chaperone. This merely means that we may wander off - in full view - or at the Dancent that we may sit and talk instead of dance. Talk and talk, for he was allowed to come alone to our apartment in the Hotel Imperial for tea with me in our salon. But Janet of course must be in the adjoining room, with the door open! Ah, but Janet did not speak French, nor could she, or anyone, know the sweetness of this restraint; or the depth and the meaning of our spoken words and even more, the unspoken words. The looks, the waves that said more than words, and the waves of emotion that passed between us in those long, long talks. The morning gallops and his lessons when he taught me the correct position of my hands on the reins. Perhaps there is a special sweetness in this restraint. Never again, later or since, have there been moments of dear communion. You may laugh if you like.
Then, finally, the end - for here I skip a year or two of our friendship until our final departure from Rome. We are to take the night train for Geneva, our first stop on the way to Cherbourge and the voyage home. We are a large group: Mother, family, Janet, maids and luggage. We must have several compartments to accommodate us. Hugo has gotten permission from his Regiment to ride with us as far as the Swiss border. And so we sit - on opposite sides of the compartment - facing one another. Mother has suddenly become very insistent. We watch Mother and she seems to doze. He leans, his hand reaches for mine — Mother is instantly awake. No more of that! So through that long night, face to face, with so much between us, at dawn, we finally reach The Border. Switzerland. so this is goodbye; it is not even arrividerci. Shall we ever return? We are off to a new life in America. I see him standing on the platform, standing very still as the train moves slowly, then faster — and he is gone. Gone. For him it is the end.
"Dechade." Less than a month later comes the answer to my anxious cable: "Dechade", nothing more.
Mario. Mario is older; he is thirty-one. He is titled - an ancient family in Italian history. He has a brilliant mind. He and Umberto, heir to the Italian hrone, are close friends. He is handsome and tender. He asks Mother for my hand in marriage, but his thirty-one and to me, ancient. Our friendship is deep and serious. He talks to me, with wisdom and ideals as no one has ever done before. I will add now that this friendship lasted over thirty years until he died. But before that we met with equal warmth after thirty-five years.
But to go back to our departure from Rome. His farewell was different from Hugo's. He did not come to the train; there was no farewell. But a letter waits at the Metropole Hotel in Geneva, our first stop. His letter asks me to reconsider. He believes that I will change my mind. If I will give him some hope, he will come too Geneva before we leave. My answer is not meant to be frivolous. I write the final refusal, but before the letter goes int the envelope — I had to do it, a compulsion of some kind — I added a postscript: I wrote, "but I am crying as I say this…" A glass of water is near. I sprinkle a drop or two before it goes into the envelope. I don't know why I did that. It was not all frivolity, but I paid for it: a cable came in quick response saying that he was on his way to Geneva and that he believed… So it was all to do over again, all the pain of it.
Italy was romance. Romance finally dies, and when strong, unavoidable Love comes, there is no escape. Sudden. Instantaneous. Love is like that.
