You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Monday, 7 September 96
My dear ones,
Our last experience deserves a thorough report and the homey comfort that I first1 found here is not unfavorable for writing. That's because this traveling in Italy is not so completely without difficulties as one might expect. Venice is nothing but joy and agreeable qualities but from there on, one finds little towns without any comfort or big cities with all their disadvantages. One misses most of that [which] one has gotten used to and that is pleasant. One has talked oneself into believing that everything must be inexpensive but nevertheless it costs money. The railroad travels are magnificent—unending tunnels, bad railroad cars, smoke to choke. The food is mostly wonderful but things to which one is not habituated. One suffers thirst, terrible thirst that appears in attacks and one spoils one's stomach in fighting against the thirst. The novelty and beauty of art and nature compensates richly for everything but as far as art is concerned, there comes a moment in which one swims in things which resemble each other, believes it must be such, can no longer reach an ecstasy when churches, madonnas, the weeping over Christ become quite indifferent and one finds that one desires something else, one doesn't quite know what. We soon reach Florence. The town presses down on one and overpowers one. The memorials