Looking through my papers the other day, I came upon a curious, forgotten, and obsolete document — an agreement with a publisher for a book, which, when completed, was to be entitled A Wanderer in Germany. Circumstances alter cases, indeed. I remember, when this project was afoot, being – not a little excited by it – if only for the Vermeers I was to see again. But now? In a world where there are too many books, let me remove anxiety by saying at once that this one will never be added to the present congestion. The Kaiser may be thanked for that mercy at any rate. I like my inquisitive travelling to be done under pleasanter conditions than are probable in Berlin and Heidelberg, Dresden and Cologne, for some years to come. Peace no doubt will nominally be brooding over those cities ere very long, but I cannot see an Englishman feeling comfortable either in the street or the bier-halle. As for myself, I could not make the attempt. Too much has happened.
From meditating upon that country where few of us are likely to go for enjoyment again, I turned to thinking about the places whither, directly the dove unlocks Europe, we shall, as soon as possible, hasten, and whither our thoughts often take refuge even now; and for my own part, chief of these is Italy. Latterly Italy has been drawing me as never before. Italy as a whole rather than any particular spot; anywhere, so long as it is in Italy, and smells like Italy, and feels like Italy. However, long one's life (and of course when it comes travel the two words, long and life, fall apart instantly and are the frostiest strangers), there is no time really to know Italy. That is understood. And perhaps that is why Italy makes such an appeal. It is always new. One thinks Italy hard, envisaging every characteristic, anticipating every thrill; and then voyaging there again it is all fresh. Not that Italy has not its formulæ as France has, but in Italy the formulæ have prismatic edges.
It is the Italian pictures also that I most desire to see again, and I have been wondering to what extent they have been placed in safety. Letters in The Times recently informed us that the chief movable Venetian treasures are not exposed to Austrian bombs. The stones of Venice, yes, but not the paintings. But what of Fra Angelico's frescoes in that chapel at Padua? and what of Mantegna's frescoes in that other Padovan chapel? Can they be protected? And Giorgione's altar-piece in the foot-hill village church, which also is far too near the sea and the raiders – has that been moved?
Further inland, I imagine, little has been done. The Brera at Milan, for example, and the galleries of Florence, probably are as they were; and if only it were fair to travel for pleasure in war time, how good to go and see. For the grapes are being picked now too, and the sun grows every day more golden, and . . . But Italy under war one could not visit except as a worker. Nor does one like to think of rural Italy under war at all. If war there must be, it should be confined to the modern cities; the soldiers should all come from Milan and Turin.
None the less, I was glad when, the other day, Italy declared war on Germany, because that means that the sands of the Lido will, for a while at any rate, be rid of Teutonic contours; and the sands of the Lido enter into my terrestrial paradise. For too long have the Germans considered Venice a suburb of Berlin, while, of course, it has been in daily communication with Trieste for years. But leave the Austrians aside: although it is true that they have been bombing the city of their delight from the skies, owing to the presence of an arsenal there, it is not the Austrians whom one passionately dislikes. It is the Germans who bathe at the Lido that have always been the real blot – not the Austrian trippers. Both, however, will, I suppose, now be eliminated, and for a summer or so Venice will belong to Italy, and the Allies, and the Neutrals, of whom ourselves and Americans come first. May peace come before the next bathing season is over! – E. V. Lucas.