Smiles of Rome (eBook)

ANCIENT ROMEThe Palatine Hill , The Roman Forum , Circus Maximus Theater of Marcellus , Ostia Antica , The Pantheon Hadrian's Tomb , Hadrian's Villa , The Colosseum Elizabeth Bowen , Georgina Masson , Ovid , Jane Alison Marguerite Yourcenar , Christopher Woodward The melancholy of the antique world seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, all of whom more or less imply that beyond the dark void lies immortality. But for the ancients that 'black hole' is infinity itself, their dreams loom and vanish against a background of immutable ebony. No crying out, no convulsions--nothing but the fixity of the pensive gaze. . . . --Flaubert ELIZABETH BOWEN 1899--1973 Elizabeth Bowen grew up in Dublin, Bowen's Court in County Cork, and London. A prolific novelist--The Last September, The House in Paris, The Death of the Heart--who wrote in air-raid shelters during the blitz, she traveled the world. When she arrived in Rome, commissioned to write the city's portrait, she confessed a 'monstrous' ignorance and confusion as she tried to find her way around. But getting lost was never a waste of time. 'Among Rome's splendours is its unexpectedness. . . . If one cannot enjoy this, one enjoys nothing.' Eventually, she walked the city into her head, as she put it, and 'kept it there.' The elegant proof is A Time in Rome, excerpted here, one of the most popular books ever written about the city she called 'my darling, my darling, my darling,' when the time came to say good-bye. From A Time in Rome THE PALATINE hill People I met in Rome legitimately wanted to know what I was doing.--Writing something?--Not while I was here.--No, really?--Pity to stay indoors.--Sightseeing, simply?--Partly.--Ah, gathering background for a novel to be set in Rome!--No.--No? look at Henry James.--Yes.--Then a travel book: where was I going next?--I was staying here.--Then, something in the way of a gay guide-book?--I was afraid I should be no help to anyone else.--Then it would have to be a book of impressions: but why Rome?--What was the matter with Rome?--It was not Greece.--I supposed not.--Did I, for instance, for an instant imagine that Rome was old?--It was not too old.--Not too old for what?--Me.--Then I did not care for antiquity?--Not in the abstract.--What did I see in Rome, then?--Beginning of today.--That made today long!--Today is being a long day. But what did I like about Rome?--It was substantial.--And?--Agreeable.--Once, or now?--Altogether.--Agreeable was hardly the word for history.--Then there must be something in spite of that.--Well, I should not find I got far with the ancient Romans.--No?--No, they would not appeal to me.--Why not, specially?--They were unimaginative.--They were, were they?--Yes, most antipathetic.--I was not looking for friends. I must look out, or Rome would ruin my style. Oh? Oh, yes! Attempts to write about Rome made writers rhetorical, platitudinous, abstract, ornate, theoretical, polysyllabic, pompous, furious. Had this been so in all cases? Too many. Language seldom fails quietly, it fails noisily. So went several conversations, or interrogatories. Curiosity in Rome is a form of courtesy. The questions were disconcerting in being too much to the point, to the point too soon. I was never ready for them, accordingly I may well have sounded recalcitrant, 'clever,' or plain stupid. I had nothing to hide, but also little to show. I could not say what I intended doing, for that was not yet known to myself, at the most I had a notion or suspicion, such as one might form with regard to somebody else if one were to watch their movements...