FROM AN ITALIAN JOURNAL
He was, however, very happy these days; had got over a bad
illness and was just publishing a new book* in the States; there was a
lot of work ahead of him. He talked about his writing with a mingled
anxiety and enthusiasm, as
if
he were just starting out on his career;
though very frail, he gave the appearance of a young writer speculating
dreamily on all the books he is going to write. I should have caught on
sooner, but didn't until we went into Fiesole to have a drink: he had
always suffered from a bad case of being Gertrude Stein's half-noticed
elder brother, and now that she was dead probably felt liberated to
go on with his own career. His resentment of her shone through every–
thing he said. Talking about their childhood in Europe, when they had
been trundled around by a father "who didn't think we could get any
kind of decent education in America," he remembered most how Ger–
trude had always lorded it over him. "But you know," he said simply,
"she was the kind who always took herself for granted. I never could."
And one saw that she had dominated the situation when they had de–
cided to make their lives in Europe. "She always took what she wanted!
She could always talk her way into anything! Why,"-discussing her
pioneer collection of modern paintings-"she never even
liked
Picasso
at first! Couldn't see
him
at all.
I
had to convince her. And then she
caught on and got 'em for practically nothing." After all those years,
the bitterness rankled, keeping him young. How often, I wonder, has
he been approached only as a lead to his famous sister, and this by
people who haven't the slightest knowledge of his interests? It must
be this, added to his long uncertainty about himself, which lends that
strangely overemphatic quality to his interest in "facts." Facts-the
masculine domain of elder brothers humbly and grimly toiling away at
real
things, like aesthetics and psychology, where Gertrude, the mother
of them all, took the young geniuses under her wing and, always the
last of the feminists, did as she pleased-even to putting the English
language in her lap like a doll, and making it babble out of her in–
scrutable naturalness and humor.
She always did as she pleased.
Strange
to see him now, at his age, going back and back to the old childhood
struggle. They had transferred the cultural rivalry in that prosperous
Jewish family to Europe and worked it in and out of the expatriate
life, making of Paris and Florence new outposts for an old ambition.
Rome, Oct. 28-Berenson. I had missed him in Settignano, but
went to see him today at his hotel just off Trinita dei Monti. It was very
*
Appreciation: Painting, Poetry and Prose.
Crown Publishers, New York. 1947.
557
