A Chill in the Air Read online

  Fascists, who are extremely resentful of any suggestion that Italy is becoming a “vassal state” of Germany, point triumphantly to this measure – and to the forts that are being built on the Brenner – as a proof that Italian policy still maintains its independence. Surely, however, it is a proof of exactly the contrary: a sop to Germany for disregarding this “minority” alone.

  JULY 15TH

  Yesterday, in the train, an unpleasant conversation with S., the head of a small private bank in Rome – a man who goes about a good deal in the “smart” cosmopolitan set, and who was just back from England. Starting by deploring the expulsion of foreigners from the Tyrol, he began – very cautiously at first – to attack the Fascist régime: lack of freedom, grim prospects ahead financially, general discontent, comparisons with England, etc. etc. I agreed with his sentiments and yet felt uncomfortable – there was something wrong. Then, as he went on, I realized that everything he was deploring in the present world was the good side: the revolutionary, vital, idealistic element. Everything he wished to preserve (and admired in England, for instance) was based on the rule of money – and the power which money brings. Peace and war, the Jewish question, the social question, the situation in China, every subject under the sun, was seen only in its relation to vested interests. So complete, so whole-hearted was his preoccupation that after an hour’s conversation I began to wonder whether I had not been incredibly naïve in believing there was any other governing motive in human life. I thought of people like Max, Olaf, Macmurray7 and felt the forces up against them to be terrifyingly, overwhelmingly strong. They seem to belong to a whole different planet.

  And yet – to undervalue the power of idealism (even mistaken idealism?) is surely also a mistake. Sometimes it is the apparently naïve who are the realists.

  VENICE, JULY 16TH

  It is curious – the unanimity with which everyone here refuses to believe in the possibility of war. I don’t mean only the general public, who don’t know the facts, but also people who do. Everyone I have seen in the last few days (S., the banker; Volpi’s daughter, who had just been talking to Balbo; General R., William Phillips, representing the diplomatic opinion in Rome) all agree that there won’t (some say “can’t”) be war. I do not get the impression this is merely wishful thinking. I expect that they are entirely right in saying that Mussolini intends to avoid war – knows, indeed, that though he might swing his country into it, there would be a revolution within a few months. But this may be a miscalculation:

  1) of Mussolini’s capacity to act as a moderating influence on Hitler;

  2) of the amount which (as Fascists believe) can be obtained from the democracies by the present system of unceasing tension.

  Venice is empty of tourists. Even Germans have stopped coming – because of the large German debt to Italy. (Even payments to the Italian workmen in Germany take six or seven months to reach their families, being paid not in cash but through “clearing”). “Eh, signora, la politica!” says the gondolier in a tone of disgust. “Well, so long as there’s no war!” says the hairdresser. “Better tighten your belt a bit than be killed.”

  Today I have seen here – under the arcade of the Doges’ Palaces – the first and only air-raid shelter for the general public that I have yet seen in Italy.

  ROME, JULY 17TH

  William Phillips tells me that his naval and air attachés, both just back from a tour in the North, saw no traces of preparations for immediate war anywhere – not even in the great steel factories. Of course, it is possible that Mussolini, after all, intends to keep out even if Germany comes in, but it does not now seem to me likely. Perhaps not even possible.

  Meanwhile there seems to be a complete muddle going on in the Tyrol. Several people (including two American families) who produced a doctor’s certificate have been allowed to stay on. Bastianini, whom Phillips went to see about it at the F.O. (in Ciano’s absence) said that the order (of expelling foreigners) came as a complete surprise to him too – and that he has no idea what it’s all about. It is all very odd. It does not hang together. For instance, the British Minister to the Vatican, D’Arcy Osborne, who had engaged rooms at Carezza (Karersee) for the summer, wrote after the decree cancelling them. He immediately received a letter from the hotel manager begging him to come all the same and enclosing a special permit from the Prefect of the province! This does not fit in with the theory that they want to get rid of all foreign observers (D.O. is not known as pro-Fascist).

  JULY 18TH

  Had a long talk after dinner with a young University law student – an intelligent, enthusiastic, sensitive, imprudent young man – who is just about to prepare his tesi di laurea – and whose greatest ambition is one day to be a member of the International Court at the Hague. He went to his professor, as is the custom, to discuss what theme he should choose. “I think,” he said, “I should like to discuss – from a purely judicial point of view, of course – the question of the difference between rights and aspirations.” “Oh!” said the professor, “Well – I think perhaps I shouldn’t raise that point just now.” “Well, then, I had thought of non-intervention as a possible subject?” “Well, perhaps not that either.” “Or the judicial position of the participants in non-declared wars?” “No, no, certainly not.” “Or the clause rebus sic stantibus in relation to Article 10 of the Covenant?” “Good God, no!” The theme is not yet chosen.

  A very little questioning was enough to produce the information that the young man belongs to a small but ardent group of university students, determined to find out what is being thought, felt and taught in other countries. He told me how he had smuggled in one of Croce’s articles (on dictatorship – published in The New Republic) and of how he and his friends sat up at night copying it, to hand on to other people.

  We talked about the Risorgimento leaders: Mazzini, Cavour. “Yes,” he said, “but they were so busy freeing Italians from the Austrians that they never had time to conceive that real freedom is a quality in oneself!” I quoted Cavour’s “We have created Italy; now we must create Italians.” “Yes,” he said bitterly, “and since then they’ve ‘created’ an Empire, and still there aren’t any Italians!”

  He told me, too, of a group of communist students at the University, with whom the young liberals, while not wholly sharing their views, are in touch – sharing with them a common indignation and a common thirst for news. But the communists are very careful. They do not even, he told me (not without a certain babyish ‘secret-society’ pride), know each other’s names. Each one only knows one other member, to whom he passes on news and orders, and he in turn hands them on to one other. Meanwhile, they and the liberals agree in believing that war – if it does come – will give them their chance. “To those of us who survive,” the boy added grimly, looking quite absurdly young. I wish I could convey his odd mixture of childish pride at belonging to “the minority”, of real intelligence, and of something very sincere and tragic. It’s the tragic impression that has remained with me.

  There is a general tightening up of rules (presumably due to the Germans) about any form of importation – from news and books to material objects. A friend in the North, who used to receive foreign papers, writes that Le Temps, Le Figaro and Le Jour are now all held up; the only one which he still gets is the Journal de Genève. Recently we had obtained (with great difficulty, and only by proving that it would be paid for with money already abroad) an importation permit for an American tractor. The permit was already in our hands when suddenly, a few days ago, a telegram came saying that the permit was revoked and must be returned immediately. Antonio went next day to the Ministry of Agriculture, and was told that this measure was a “reprisal” for “outrageous” duties recently placed on Italian silks in America, and that seventy other permits for tractors were stopped at the same time as ours. William Phillips, who has been going into the matter, says that the duty in question is, on the contrary, a very small one, and limited only to a small number of printed silks
of exclusively Italian design. This (what I told him about the tractors) is the first he has heard of “reprisals”. And so it goes on.

  JULY 19TH

  This morning an American journalist, just back from a tour in the Tyrol, brought back the following report to the American Ambassador.

  1) German subjects are to move to Germany, but will be allowed three months in which to do so.

  2) Italian subjects of Austrian origin are to move either to Germany or to other Italian provinces, but are nominally to be allowed two years in which to do so, in the case of owners of property, and one year in the case of non-landowners. In actual practice, however, those who own no property will have to go much sooner, as all employers, hotel-keepers, etc., are being instructed to refuse employment to such persons, who will at the same time be told that good work and good pay are waiting for them on the same side of the frontier. Presumably this is the aspect to which Sig. Gayda refers when he says that the “voluntary exodus… will be assisted by the two Governments both at the point of departure and of arrival!”

  LA FOCE, JULY 20TH

  Have just been to tea with some charming anti-Fascist neighbours, the Braccis. They – and, they say, all their friends – are very pessimistic about the prospects of war and regard the optimism of Fascist circles as either propaganda or wishful thinking. Contessa Bracci, who has two sons of twenty-two and nineteen, is particularly depressed. “It would be bad enough,” she says, “if they were going to fight for something that they believe in. But to know that they will be fighting for what they hate and despise…” There was much discussion as to whether Italy, at the last moment, could and would wriggle out, but the rumour now current is that Hitler will take steps to prevent this by starting the conflagration in Tunis (with the manufactured murder of some Italians there) and only afterwards seizing Danzig.

  JULY 21ST

  The measures for the agricultural development of Sicily, announced yesterday, have my greatest sympathy. I only hope they will be extended later (as is doubtless intended) to Calabria and other regions of the South, where enormous tracts of property are held by absentee landlords. The apathy and cupidity of these landowners and the consequent misery of the peasants has been a disgrace for centuries. Enormous tracts of potentially fertile land lie fallow or are given up to pasture; moreover, being let out to middlemen, who in their turn rent the land to other smaller middlemen, the shepherd or peasant who is at the bottom of the long ladder leads a life that is close to starvation. In Calabria, a few years ago, whole families were living in wretched reed huts. On inquiring whether these were temporary habitations used only during harvest-time, the reply was that they were lived in all the year round; the peasants were forbidden by the landowners to put up any more permanent building, since this would give them, after a certain number of years, squatters’ rights – i.e. a claim to the land on which they had built; and this was against the interests both of landowners and middlemen. The great plain of Sybaris, renowned in classical days for its fabulous riches, was in this condition but has since been taken over by the government and put under cultivation. Now the same is to be done for Sicily. The scheme comprises the building of 20,000 farms and an extensive system of road-building and irrigation. The social reform implied is one of great importance, since it is stated that if the landowners refuse or declare themselves unable to undertake the work (for which, in addition to the part carried out exclusively by the State, special loans will be granted) their land will be confiscated. When the landowners are prepared to collaborate in the new work the whole or part of the land will ‘eventually’ be returned to them; when they refuse to collaborate they will be expropriated. This is the first application on a large scale of the expropriation of property, which has already been applied in a few cases in other agricultural districts.

  It is also significant of a return to the Duce’s policy of a few years ago – of developing the resources of his own country first – and may perhaps be taken as an indication of the difficulties and disappointments encountered in Abyssinia.

  Finally, this particular decision has been taken here as a sign of the Duce’s wish for peace; of his intention to turn back the country’s energies towards constructive and not destructive work. It is, in any case, a highly intelligent step and may possibly be indicative of a wider change of policy.

  It is also possible (reading between the lines of the press comments on this measure, asking: “What countries clearly show that they mean peace, not war? Which are those that genuinely seek the interests of the people?”) that there may be an intention of creating a favourable effect in Russia; for undoubtedly both Italy and Germany are doing all they can to start negotiations of their own with the USSR. But whatever the motive, and however imperfect the execution, the measure is a good one – for the simple reason that each of these measures, in social terms, represents something from which there is no going back. The Southern peasant, once he has lived in a decent house, cultivated his land rationally, and sent his children to school – will not, under any political régime, go back to his house of reeds. The steps which produce a development of human awareness are irrevocable; no adult can become a child again.

  JULY 30TH

  I am now staying with the Sennis – an old-fashioned “black” Roman family8. An American mother and four grown-up sons, two of whom fought in Abyssinia (one still in the regular army, the other in the Breda works in Milan). Their grandfather belonged to the guardia nobile9 and their uncle, who is also here, in the diplomatic service, has been for five years Mussolini’s capo del cerimoniale. The Sennis are all Fascists, but they are Catholics first; where there is a clash between the two Catholicism wins. Moreover they pride themselves on not being cut off from news from abroad. They read assiduously not only the Italian papers and the Osservatore Romano, but The Times, Le Temps and the Journal de Genève; they listen every day to the news from the BBC and Paris PTT. They are intensely anti-German, mildly anti-French and inclined, even now, to like England (Chamberlain’s England). Two of them went to Oxford; all have many English friends. They deplore the “necessity” of the Axis, feel a mild aversion to anti-Semitism and wholeheartedly deplore and condemn (on moral and religious grounds) the Anglo-Franco approach to Russia. Their Catholicism and their aristocratic traditions combine and blind them to the fundamental ungenerosity of their attitude; but they would be profoundly shocked if this was suggested to them. Affectionate and high-principled in their private lives, they one and all totally drop these principles and sentiments as soon as any political issue is discussed – and the word “realistic” is seldom off their lips.

  The son, now employed at the Breda arms factory, described with some humour how the Chinese and Japanese delegations, both seeking armament contracts, happened to arrive in Milan on the same day. The Japanese were received downstairs, in the sala d’onore, with a banquet and speeches; the Chinese were hustled up to a little bare office upstairs. “We did business with both, of course,” he concluded.

  JULY 31ST

  Count Carlo Senni has just been talking about his years with Mussolini, to whom he is whole-heartedly, but not wholly uncritically, loyal. He emphasizes one trait which strikes everyone who has ever worked with Mussolini: his unbounded, almost undisguised, utterly cynical contempt for his own human instruments. Except for his brother Arnaldo (now dead) and perhaps, to a lesser extent, his daughter, there is no human being in the world whom he loves and trusts. He believes in the ability of his son-in-law; he does not trust him. A sentimentalist about “the people” en masse, he is completely cynical about all individuals, and measures them only by the use he can put them to… Yet so great is his personal ascendancy that his underlings – knowing that they themselves will be kicked away as soon as they cease to be useful – still retain their personal devotion to him.

  According to Carlo Senni, one of the few people Mussolini really likes and respects is the King – and these feelings are warmly reciprocated. It’s impossible, he says, t
o see the two men together without feeling how much they like each other. (And this in spite of the fact that the King is said to dislike the German alliance and to have used all his influence, at every point, to avert war.) Moreover, in the last two years the Prince of Piemonte is said to have become on much better terms with Mussolini.

  AUGUST 5TH

  I have just been reading an article on anti-Semitism. The writer of the article woke up every morning to hear the news vendors cry: “Achetez la Lutte – la lutte anti-juive – le réveil anti-juif – l’anti-juif!” On buying the papers, he discovered that the editors made no secret of their intentions: “We shall pass over the evil actions committed by Christians and with the greatest care reveal those committed by Jews.” The papers also contained – after the usual historical attack on the Jews, corruptors of humanity – a list of Jewish usurers, thieves, forgers, traitors, all mentioned by name; an attack on all those who refuse to boycott Jewish goods and shops, or dare to defend them; a touching incident of “patriotic” children of five and six who tore another little girl’s pinafore to pieces and proudly exclaimed “C’est une sale juive”10; and finally an advertisement: “Perinaud, Coiffeur, Prévient sa nombreuse Clientèle que dans son Magasin on ne rase pas les Juifs ni les Teigneux.”11 The writer then proceeds to describe the burning of a synagogue, the destruction of the sacred books and the murder of a Jew by the crowd. He comments: “Anti-Semitism is the meeting-point of all that is most corrupt in a fanatical clergy, all that is most reactionary in the survivors of a feudal aristocracy and all that is most brutal in a revolutionary proletariat.”