POLICEMAN: "_Forse l' avremo oramai"_ (Perhaps we shall have it
presently.)
We did not have it at all that Sunday, possibly because it was the day
after the assassination of the King of Portugal, and the flags were at
half-mast everywhere. So we went, such of us as liked, to the parapet
overlooking the Piazza del Popolo, and commanding one of those prospects
of Rome which are equally incomparable from every elevation. I, for my
part, made the dizzying circuit of the brief drive on foot in the dark
shadows of the roofing ilexes (if they are ilexes), and then strolled
back and forth on the paths set thick with plinths bearing the heads of
the innumerable national great - the poets, historians, artists,
scientists, politicians, heroes - from the ancient Roman to the modern
Italian times. I particularly looked up the poets of the last hundred
years, because I had written about them in one of my many forgotten
books, till I fancied a growing consciousness in them at this encounter
with an admirer; they, at least, seemed to remember my book. Then I went
off to the cafe overlooking them in their different alleys, and had tea
next a man who was taking lemon instead of milk in his. Here I was beset
with an impassioned longing to know whether he was a Russian or
American, since the English always take milk in their tea, but I could
not ask, and when I had suffered my question as long as I could in his
presence I escaped from it, if you can call it escaping, to the more
poignant question of what it would be like to come, Sunday after Sunday,
to the Pincio, in the life-long voluntary exile of some Americans I
knew, who meant to spend the rest of their years under the spell of
Rome.
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