ITALY TODAY:
Otto, Max Carl
ITALY TODAY: LAND OF SILENCE AND SUSPICION By MAX CARL OTTO THE RE is n best time to arrive in Venice and it is at night. Then one gets the full value of the fascination end romance of this...
...ITALY TODAY: LAND OF SILENCE AND SUSPICION By MAX CARL OTTO THE RE is n best time to arrive in Venice and it is at night...
...We only knew that added to other objections we had a new one to consider...
...You don't have to waste a minute...
...I tell you it's the honey," said his wife...
...It appears to be fading fast...
...The government in its more obvious function seems to have turned detective...
...This we were unable to do...
...hut a traveler through the country, and one born and bred under sterner skies, is little qualified to pass judgment on Italian human nature...
...On the way we had some five days in Milan...
...There are many dreams with not half the airy quality...
...It has been copied and reproduced, but some subtle quality which Leonardo da Vinci gave it always escapes...
...And feeling Ours not to reason why...
...The Italy one goes to see, rich in historic associations and art, shines through the clouding experiences that cannot be avoided...
...The Italians, as everyone knows, are not taciturn by nature...
...from the gondolier as he nears an intersection, It is difficult to believe that one is coming from a real station and going to a real hotel...
...The surprising thing is that Americans are as well liked as they are...
...If they judged by the standards or in the spirit of Americans, we'd rate very low...
...All right, lead on Macduff...
...Doubtless, many visitors to Italy are not disturbed by this silence...
...Such views...
...Its buildings, its business, its crowds are so full of color and drama that it sometimes seems as if it were all a make-believe—a gigantic movie, perhaps, staged by a producer lavish of room, time, and expense...
...Guards in the galleries of Italy are notoriously rude (there are charming exceptions), but nowhere else can one so thoroughly catch the spirit of renaissance art...
...White birches in early leaf...
...As the gondola glides smoothly down one myslery-haunt_ _ ed canal after another, the dark, dripping walls on either side, lights dim and few, no sound but the scarcely audible splash of the long oar and an occasional musical ban...
...Quite the contrary...
...see if I'm afraid...
...As a result no casual visitor can report anything worth considering on the present mental state of'Italy...
...The natural difficulties in the way of becoming acquainted with a foreign country are greatly increased by the fact that no Italian can be persuaded to discuss conditions...
...Then one gets the full value of the fascination end romance of this unique city...
...And to be there when the pale almond blossoms are at their height, when the Judas trees are covered with purple bloom, and great bowers of wisteria trees perfume the air, is to forget many disagreeable aspects...
...In extenuation it is said that great improvement has been made in cleanliness, in railway service, in industrial and agricultural productivity...
...But, after nil, Venice is like that anyhow...
...For us a little hamlet near Bolzano is on the list...
...It may well be...
...replied her husband, "I'm glad of that...
...The countryside does seem better tilled than it was fifteen years ago (though it is foolish to trust one's memory in such matters), and it may be a fact that trains keep better time and that Italians are more disturbed by dirt...
...Italy is said to be playing the serious game of empire these days, but many who know her temperament refuse to take this seriously...
...My dear, it isn't a picture or a bust, it's a statue...
...Again: "Isn't this the town where we have to see a picture or a bust or something called David...
...enormous patches of crocusses...
...Not the stuff of which imperialists are made...
...Taken as a whole, what one sees of American tourists explains every disparaging thing one has heard about them...
...Italy, they tell you, is a nation of children, full of laughter and song, irresponsible, without sense of shame, violent in passion, fickle in purpose...
...In Italy we began to meet with American tourists in numbers and unavoidably to catch snatches of their conversation* "It's perfectly simple," we heard a dowager announce to her meek lord, "Every picture has a number on it, and the guide book tells what numbers to look for...
...Now and then a touch of humor...
...Nor is it safe for a foreigner to ask questions too pointedly or persistently...
...A husband was disturbed by a rash which was making its appearance on his body...
...Nor are they affected by the atmosphere of suspicion which has become a pronounced characteristic of the Italian scene...
...One should like to learn in particular whether high-minded Italians look upon the present government as essentially expressive of Italian genius or as an aberration the consequences of which will bring more evil than good to Italy and to mankind...
...Ours but to pack and fly...
...Every time I eat honey, I break out...
...It lacks the mystical character of the great shrine at Cologne, everything being clean cut and defined...
...The question remains whether any social arrangement based upon force and permeated by distrust does not cost more than it is worth...
...Who can remember that he has been shamelessly cheated in a shop that day when he sits on the bank of the Arno which Dante knew, watching the golden light creep up the numerous towers "of Florence as the sun goes down behind the purple Apennines...
...There were several explanations for the advance of the lira, the favorite being that as tourists reach a certain number it becomes of advantage to Italy to give less and less commodity for foreign money...
...The famous Last Supper one gees to look at is very dim...
...Besides, Europeans are more generous in their judgment of human beings than we are...
...In a way, indeed, all Italy seems like that, "even now with soldiers "forever at your elbow and solemn youths in black shirts forever peering at you from unexpected corners...
...It is partly due, no doubt, to those who live a longer time abroad and with whom Europeans become better acquainted...
...A well-known American artist, who had gone to Italy with joyous anticipation, could stand this obtrusive scrutiny only a few weeks...
...green hillside pastures dropping away into blue abysses...
...There is much to support this diagnosis...
...But for this time we had to leave it, our little engine puffing its way toward the Brenner Pass, over the Alps...
...It is quite impossible for a person living in America, where he may chatter as he pleases about anything, to imagine the situation in Italy...
...I don't understand the language here, any more than I did there, but I breathe again...
...We turned northward to the land of the Dolomites...
...We were not sure...
...And that is a pity, for one would like to get some idea of what the men one meets think of the imperialistic schemes which at least seem in operation...
...The cathedral grows more impressive with every visit...
...They are loud, vulgar in their display of money,, and crude...
...Arriving in Switzerland, he wrote: "Thank God I'm out of Italy...
...And very soon the picture itself will be gone too...
...But there is a warmth in its vast interior, a glory in its stained-glass windows, which works strangely on one's spirit...
...Even when none of these, they are apt to be insensitive to the feelings of their hosts...
...They go about in self-sufficient groups indifferent to the social milieu in which they move...
...Doubtless if one could lengthen the stay of weeks into months and balance smaller out-of-the-way places against the great tourist centers, much of the disagreeable would wear off...
...Yet indistinct as it is, no other treatment of the subject which we saw appeared to us to approach it in power...
...I thought it was them damn bed-bugs...
...and in the distance the towering peaks with their crowns of snow...
...You might be alone with an Italian in a cave, or in any aeroplane or submarine, but the ears of the government are evidently thought to be omnipresent...
...One may dislike being watched as a suspicious person by a youth of high-school age, armed with a rifle, but it is easier to bear if it is possible to turn one's back and admire slender cypress trees...
...In Bolzano (so called since Italy acquired part of the Tyrol) we climbed the mountains and walked under the spell of the Dolomite crags...
...They have been taught, however, to be silent on one subject...
...There are some places one plans to return to, if fortune ever permits...
...one would like to know how they feel about the occupation of the Tyrolian territory, and what effect upon Italian character they anticipate from the policy of aggression which imperialistic plans make inevitable...
...Gee...
...And as the bank gave iewer and fewer lira for the dollar, gradually increasing expenses, we concluded, with others we heard of, to cut short our stay in favor of a country in which we might feel more at home...
Vol. 19 • August 1927 • No. 8
