76
ELIZABETH HARDWICK
passionate convictions, their quirks of taste. In the working house–
hold there was a noticeable number of non-Italians: a Scotch
chauffeur and steady, fair-faced people gave the air of a punctual
and neat reliability. Berenson was an intellectual first and, secondly,
a person leading a rich and elaborate social life. No doubt, particu–
larly when he was older, some of his habits and needs were sug–
gested by the successful customs of the comfortable, non-intellec–
tual world. He lived with the silky regularity and pleasurable con–
centration of energies that are at once opulent and sacrificial-the
prudence of the sensual. He knew the grace of the steady rounds,
the ritual and faithful observance of a kind of liturgical year with
its feasts and fastings, its seasonal pilgrimages to Rome and Venice,
the stately moves from the winter at Settignano to the summer in
the vale of Vallombrosa. He had his morning privacy for work and
his afternoon walks. This constancy, rich people seem to think,
keeps the bones oiled, provides activity and change without en–
couraging the hazards or assaults of the unexpected, the wayfarer's
disappointments, the explorer's disillusions. Beautiful things, sweet
experiences may, like the sudden fluttering of a butterfly on the
window pane, appear without warning, but organization, foresight
and routine will prevent sleepless nights and throbbing temples. (In
his
Sketch for a Self-Portrait,
Berenson cites the fact of heavy drink–
ing in America as one of his reasons for leaving.) No matter, he was
still the host to all the sufferings of an unusual, gifted nature. There
is, it seems, always a hole in the wall where the cold wind can enter.
In Italy, looking about, we remembered Dylan Thomas saying
after some complaint of ours about America, "You needn't live in
that bloody country, America! You could go somewhere else, you
know." The possibility of escape never entirely deserts the greedy
dreams of the "self-employed." It flares up and dies down, like
malaria; it is a disease arrested, not cured; a question without an
answer. The thought that one might himself settle far, far away
gives a kind of engrossing sub-plot to one's travels. And the Ameri–
cans who have made the choice, those colonies with their stoves
turned high in the winter, provide the occasional, rushing visitor,
