大象传媒

Autumn still enveloped Rome, although a night-frost had presaged winter. Along the wide road running beside the rushing Tiber the beeches were fluttering their golden leaves to the ground. But those which retained all their russet glory framed the tawny river with many more shades of yellow-brown. They underlined the 'ochre-ness' of this city.

In the Protestant Cemetery hard by the Porta Ostiensis the gardeners were sweeping the narrow paths free of fallen leaves. In this quiet place I fulfilled the mission entrusted to me by James, my best friend. I laid a simple branch of olive upon the flat stone marking the grave of Percy Shelley and another upon that of, perhaps, a greater poet - John Keats. Keats' grave lies a little apart, his friend, Severn, buried beside him.

On this day I crossed the Tiber and climbed the long hill called Janiculum where a colossal Garibaldi sits astride his colossal horse. Below, all Rome stretched away like a giant chart. My eye could not travel in any direction without being halted by buildings and ruins whose names I knew so well - from books. The splendour of the city, as seen from this point, was unforgettable and I saw it under unforgettable conditions. The sky was leaden-grey but as I stood there the sun pierced through momentarily, and a sheet of gold rushed across the city - an odd, oblique light which gave a startling rotundity to domes which, a moment before, had appeared one-dimensional. For a few moments Rome lay thus revealed. Then the light faded, the spires and columns sank back into colourless anonymity.

More than ever I wished my wife Minna could share this vision. I told her so, adding: 'When I can find a coin - difficult in these days of one-lira notes - I will throw it into the Trevi Fountain. It must be difficult for you, in war-torn and bombed England, to imagine a city untouched by war. But is not the whole art of living to make the most of any situation in which we find ourselves? James would give his ears to be in my shoes.'

Minna's response redoubled my sense of wonder. Where else would I have found a woman who could write: 'I stand by your side when you view Rome from the Janiculum and together we wonder what caused the huge crack in the parapet where we rest in the shade of the palm. Together, we laugh at the incongruity when noticing that the Church of the Trinity (Spanish Place) is flanked by buildings boasting "English Tea Rooms" and "A.C. Petersen, Speditions & Lagerhaus" respectively. And we wonder what has become of the business of that adventurous Dane? I am sure that Mr. Petersen is a Dane.

'In the Vatican Museum we stop by "The Nile" and I remind you of the same group by Queen Louise's Bridge in Copenhagen... and that lovely group in Glyptotheket, the "Water-Mother" by Karl Nielsen sculpted in a very similar way but oh! even more beautifully. Yes, I have studied the photographs in your book-present industriously and with much pleasure, trying to see what you saw and, who knows, sometimes succeeding.'

I folded her letter and, suddenly, the nonsense of war brought dimness to my eyes. How much I owed to my Italian and German 'enemies' - to one Italian and one German. In 1935 I was 21, on my way to climb in the Dolomites. I was alone. In Trento's bus-station an Italian waiter from the hotel where I had spent the night, came rushing through the rain to return my wallet. I had left it in my bedroom. It contained all my money. Without it, I would have had to return to England. A few days later, in a mountain refuge, a German climber, despairing of understanding me, saw a young girl laughing at the pair of us. He invited her to join us because she spoke English and German. She was Minna, a Dane. Two years later we married.

And now... where was that Italian, that German ? I owed them a debt of happiness I never could repay - and they would never know that I was in their debt.

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