CORRESPONDENCErnLetter From Romernby Andrei NavrozovrnNothing Better to DornI have always wanted to spend some timernin Rome, for a whole rosary of personalrnreasons. As with much else in a person’srnprivate life, to recount these in print is tornexpose oneself to public ridicule. Yes,rnRome is a wonderful city. Yes, the foodrnis good.rnBut then in England, where I live, thernnew Labour government came in to finishrnwhat the Tories started. And sincernanother famous fact about Rome is that itrnhas already fallen, I figured that overrnhere my chances of being buried underrnthe Eurorubble were encouraginglyrnsmaller. So I moved. Days are now passingrnlike centuries outside my window, tornthe ringing of church bells and the flashingrnof Japanese cameras.rnThe paramount joy in all this is a newfoundrnsuperficiality. On my terrace, inrnthe suggestively Decembrist sunshine, Irnhave been reading a collection of Russianrnmemoirs from the 1830’s. How peoplernknew and valued their cities in thoserndays —Petersburg, Moscow —how wellrnthey described every facade, every littlernbridge they had known since childhood!rnAnd of course we have all read suchrnmemoirs of London, of Paris, of Vienna,rneven of New York or San Francisco, writtenrnby the natural or adoptive children ofrnthose cities with the same tenderness, thernsame observant devotion.rnThis, alas, is no longer possible. Tornknow a great city like London or Romernnowadays, to know it by heart and inrndepth and over the span of a lifetime, isrnto sustain an emotional injury that wouldrnrender a sensible man all but mute withrnindignation and shame. Only a giddyrnforeigner, a pliant, impressionable, superficialrnstranger, is ignorant enough notrnto taste the anti-oxidizing agent in hisrnbottle of bubbly prosecco; nor has he metrnenough cranky old-timers to acquirerntheir inevitable bitterness. Lie knowsrnnothing of the way things used to be 50,rn20, even ten years back. To him, everythingrnis the real thing.rn”The knowledge that the world is ending,”rnwrote a Russian writer in the 1920’s,rn”is what distinguishes an individual fromrna philistine.” In retrospect I am beginningrnto think that this leave of absencernfrom London, a place which during thernlast 13 years I had learned to use and tornlove like the great library it is, was really arnconvoluted means of getting a fewrnmonths’ respite from living the life of anrnindividual.rnOf all the countries I have ever visited,rnItaly is the only place where one can livernlike a philistine without wearing trainers,rnreading the International Herald Tribune,rnor degenerating into an animal inrnother ways. One look in the dining roomrnof a middle-of-the-road hotel anywherernin Europe will remind us that, at the momentrnof pouring anemic, bluish milkrnover their bowls of high-fiber cereal,rnmiddle-class Swedish, French, or Belgianrnfamilies look exactly alike; that is tornsay, they look American. They are readyrnfor life in the United States of Europe,rnwhere everything will be “better andrnmore frm,” as their predecessors in interestrnused to sing, not always tunefully,rnaboard eastbound cattle trains.rnBy contrast, in Italy, philistine life isrnpossessed of an aesthetic so richly ritualizedrnthat a Roman pharmacy owner on arnweek’s skiing holiday with his family inrnCortina d’Ampezzo will be mistaken forrna serious nobleman among serious noblemen.rnNeither he nor his wife will gornskiing, of course; hauteur, like couture,rnwill not be ruffled by rude Teutonicrnwinds; instead, they will join the carefullyrntimed round of cocktails and promenadesrnthat exhibit their exquisite, almostrnhypochondriac idleness, his languid wit,rnand her new furs to fine advantage.rnAdmittedly the weight of tradition isrnresponsible. The Italian bourgeois hadrnbegun to promenade when the aristocracyrnstill fenced and boxed. Now that thernmiddle classes of the world have united,rnunder the colors of Benetton, in Americanismrn—sport, most conspicuously, andrnall the attendant trappings of the sportingrnlife—the Italian is the odd man out. Hisrnvision of the active life may be centeredrnon the English country house of a centuryrnago, but unlike Ralph Lauren he neverrnran and sweated to get there in onerngeneration. To the contrary, the Italianrnsimply promenaded until every bourgeoisrnaround him turned gentilhomme,rnand now he promenades among themrnlike a great aristocratic original. None ofrnwhich, incidentally, has deterred Benettonrnfrom selling the Brooklyn Bridge tornBrooklyn, or at least Brooklyn Heights.rnApart from tradition, which has savedrnthe Italians from the embarrassment ofrnending up like everyone else, anotherrnpowerful characteristic that humanizesrntheir middle class is a kind of seriousness,rna seriousness which at times resemblesrncheerfulness and at times cheerful resignation.rnI have already alluded to the imagernof life which the Americanist set allrnover the world holds up as a banner ofrnprogress, and I allude to it again in thisrnconnection. The familiar strangeness ofrnseeing, on the No. 22 bus in central London,rna young woman wearing a track suitrnor a Walkman is explained by the conjecturernthat she does not enjoy being onrnthe No. 22, indeed that riding it is only arntransitory phase of her existence, and thatrnshe would gladly swap this for a run inrnthe park or an evening at the local discotheque.rnLooking around, one mayrnnote that just about everyone else on thernbus, including the driver and the conductor,rnshares her anxiety and her sensernof displacement.rnWhat is it with people? From the exodusrnof the Jews from Egypt to a Sotheby’srndrinks party, everybody wants to be somewhere,rnif not something, else. You arerntalking to an old stupid woman with arnglass of champagne in her tremblingrnhand, you think you are being polite as arnboy scout, you suppose the woman isrngrateful for the attention, but no! Yourncatch her eyeing the door through whichrna famous used-car salesman is entering,rnand before you can murmur somethingrnsuitable (“Madam, is it not time, nowrnthat you are in the frosty autumn of yourrnlife, to be thinking of higher things?”)rnshe is off like a shot. And for the stupidrnold woman of the parable, read “everyman,”rnread baker and banker, newspaperrneditor and lover, bootblack and writer.rnA scene of this kind, which is routinernin New York, Rockford, or Paris, is almostrnunobservablc in Rome and hilariouslyrninconceivable in a provincial townrnof Italy. Of course I would not say underrnoath that there are no waitresses herernwho are actually critically acclaimed ac-rnMAY 1998/41rnrnrn