The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ Italy, had recommended a cool and quiet hotel there, the Albergo dell’ Universo. The house, Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, was situated on the shady side of the Grand Canal, just below the Accademia and the Suspension Bridge. The open stretches of the Giudecca lay not far behind; and a scrap of garden and a clean and open little street made pleasant the approach from back and side. It accommodated few persons in proportion to its size, and fewer still took up their abode there; for it was managed by a lady of good birth and fallen fortunes whose home and patrimony it had been; and her husband, a retired Austrian officer, and two grown-up daughters did not lighten her task. Every year the fortunes sank lower; the upper storey of the house was already falling into decay, and the fine old furniture passing into the brokers’ or private buyers’ hands. It still, however, afforded sufficiently comfortable, and, by reason of its very drawbacks, desirable quarters to Mr. Browning. It perhaps turned the scale in favour of his return to Venice; for the lady whose hospitality he was to enjoy there was as yet unknown to him; and nothing would have induced him to enter, with his eyes open, one of the English-haunted hotels, in which acquaintance, old and new, would daily greet him in the public rooms or jostle him in the corridors.

      He and his sister remained at the Universo for a fortnight; their programme did not this year include a longer stay; but it gave them time to decide that no place could better suit them for an autumn holiday than Venice, or better lend itself to a preparatory sojourn among the Alps; and the plan of their next, and, though they did not know it, many a following summer, was thus sketched out before the homeward journey had begun.

      Mr. Browning did not forget his work, even while resting from it; if indeed he did rest entirely on this occasion. He consulted a Russian lady whom he met at the hotel, on the names he was introducing in ‘Ivan Ivanovitch’. It would be interesting to know what suggestions or corrections she made, and how far they adapted themselves to the rhythm already established, or compelled changes in it; but the one alternative would as little have troubled him as the other. Mrs. Browning told Mr. Prinsep that her husband could never alter the wording of a poem without rewriting it, indeed, practically converting it into another; though he more than once tried to do so at her instigation. But to the end of his life he could at any moment recast a line or passage for the sake of greater correctness, and leave all that was essential in it untouched.

      Seven times more in the eleven years which remained to him, Mr. Browning spent the autumn in Venice. Once also, in 1882, he had proceeded towards it as far as Verona, when the floods which marked the autumn of that year arrested his farther course. Each time he had halted first in some more or less elevated spot, generally suggested by his French friend, Monsieur Dourlans, himself an inveterate wanderer, whose inclinations also tempted him off the beaten track. The places he most enjoyed were Saint-Pierre la Chartreuse, and Gressoney Saint-Jean, where he stayed respectively in 1881 and 1882, 1883 and 1885. Both of these had the drawbacks, and what might easily have been the dangers, of remoteness from the civilized world. But this weighed with him so little, that he remained there in each case till the weather had broken, though there was no sheltered conveyance in which he and his sister could travel down; and on the later occasions at least, circumstances might easily have combined to prevent their departure for an indefinite time. He became, indeed, so attached to Gressoney, with its beautiful outlook upon Monte Rosa, that nothing I believe would have hindered his returning, or at least contemplating a return to it, but the great fatigue to his sister of the mule ride up the mountain, by a path which made walking, wherever possible, the easier course. They did walk down it in the early October of 1885, and completed the hard seven hours’ trudge to San Martino d’Aosta, without an atom of refreshment or a minute’s rest.

      One of the great attractions of Saint-Pierre was the vicinity of the Grande Chartreuse, to which Mr. Browning made frequent expeditions, staying there through the night in order to hear the midnight mass. Miss Browning also once attempted the visit, but was not allowed to enter the monastery. She slept in the adjoining convent.

      The brother and sister were again at the Universo in 1879, 1880, and 1881; but the crash was rapidly approaching, and soon afterwards it came. The old Palazzo passed into other hands, and after a short period of private ownership was consigned to the purposes of an Art Gallery.

      In 1880, however, they had been introduced by Mrs. Story to an American resident, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, and entered into most friendly relations with her; and when, after a year’s interval, they were again contemplating an autumn in Venice, she placed at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, which formed a supplement to her own house — making the offer with a kindly urgency which forbade all thought of declining it. They inhabited these for a second time in 1885, keeping house for themselves in the simple but comfortable foreign manner they both so well enjoyed, only dining and spending the evening with their friend. But when, in 1888, they were going, as they thought, to repeat the arrangement, they found, to their surprise, a little apartment prepared for them under Mrs. Bronson’s own roof. This act of hospitality involved a special kindness on her part, of which Mr. Browning only became aware at the close of a prolonged stay; and a sense of increased gratitude added itself to the affectionate regard with which his hostess had already inspired both his sister and him. So far as he is concerned, the fact need only be indicated. It is fully expressed in the preface to ‘Asolando’.

      During the first and fresher period of Mr. Browning’s visits to Venice, he found a passing attraction in its society. It held an historical element which harmonized well with the decayed magnificence of the city, its old-world repose, and the comparatively simple modes of intercourse still prevailing there. Mrs. Bronson’s ‘salon’ was hospitably open whenever her health allowed; but her natural refinement, and the conservatism which so strongly marks the higher class of Americans, preserved it from the heterogeneous character which Anglo-foreign sociability so often assumes. Very interesting, even important names lent their prestige to her circle; and those of Don Carlos and his family, of Prince and Princess Iturbide, of Prince and Princess Metternich, and of Princess Montenegro, were on the list of her ‘habitues’, and, in the case of the royal Spaniards, of her friends. It need hardly be said that the great English poet, with his fast spreading reputation and his infinite social charm, was kindly welcomed and warmly appreciated amongst them.

      English and American acquaintances also congregated in Venice, or passed through it from London, Florence, and Rome. Those resident in Italy could make their visits coincide with those of Mr. Browning and his sister, or undertake the journey for the sake of seeing them; while the outward conditions of life were such as to render friendly intercourse more satisfactory, and common social civilities less irksome than they could be at home. Mr. Browning was, however, already too advanced in years, too familiar with everything which the world can give, to be long affected by the novelty of these experiences. It was inevitable that the need of rest, though often for the moment forgotten, should assert itself more and more. He gradually declined on the society of a small number of resident or semi-resident friends; and, due exception being made for the hospitalities of his temporary home, became indebted to the kindness of Sir Henry and Lady Layard, of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis of Palazzo Barbaro, and of Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Eden, for most of the social pleasure and comfort of his later residences in Venice.

      Part of a letter to Mrs. FitzGerald gives an insight into the character of his life there: all the stronger that it was written under a temporary depression which it partly serves to explain.

      Albergo dell’ Universo, Venezia, Italia: Sept. 24, ‘81.

      ‘Dear Friend, — On arriving here I found your letter to my great satisfaction — and yesterday brought the ‘Saturday Review’ — for which, many thanks.

      ‘We left our strange but lovely place on the 18th, reaching Chambery at evening, — stayed the next day there, — walking, among other diversions to “Les Charmettes”, the famous abode of Rousseau — kept much as when he left it: I visited it with my wife perhaps twenty-five years ago, and played so much of “Rousseau’s Dream” as could be effected on his antique harpsichord: this time I attempted the same feat, but only two notes or thereabouts СКАЧАТЬ