New York, December 18, 1984

  Dear Donald—

  Thank you so much for your letter. I’m answering at once so that you will have some responses—even if unsatisfactory ones—to yr Neapolitan questions. [. . .]

  The frescoes at the Liceo are described as follows in the Guida Rosa (Touring Club Italiano guide)—my translation:

  ex-Oratorio dei Nobili, at one time part of the complex of the adjacent Church of the GESÙ NUOVO, and now gymnasium of the Liceo ‘A. Genovesi’: two vast rooms, the first frescoed with SAINTS AND ALLEGORIES by Giovanni Lanfranco, the decoration being arranged around a central group of the NATIVITY by Giovanni Battósta Caracciolo; the second is painted with SCENES OF THE LIFE OF MARY by an unknown painter of the 18th century.

  Gesù Nuovo, by the way, simply designates the fact that the church was consecrated after the first “church of Gesù” at Naples (a very ancient edifice, now enclosed within the university). “A Genovesi” is the name of the person who is being honoured by a liceo in his name (like “Martin Luther King High School”). Lanfranco and “Battistiello” Carraciolo are two of the finest Neapolitan 17th century painters—well represented at the show we saw.

  Delighted to think all this will be commemorated in Japanese. [. . .] The first set of frescoes are of course mixed classical and Christian scenes. The church you and I went into in the evening is San Pietro a Maiella (the St Peter in this case deriving from a mountain in southern Italy called the Maiella) and is the church adjoining and belonging to the Conservatory of Music (Beethoven glowering, as well he might, in courtyard).

  [. . .]

  Word processor, not for us. My only hope of getting anything “right” is to have to correct it myself rather than by machine. The threat of an eraser “concentrates one’s mind wonderfully”.

  Schubert—what a miracle—unbearable—beautiful.

  We look forward to Jan 15. Francis may “have” to go to Paris for a week at New Year—to see a huge Diderot show, about which he may write. Otherwise—we are here, eagerly waiting our reunion.

  With all affection—Shirley.

  Tokyo, June 16, 1985

  Dear Shirley,

  It has been just a week since I returned to Tokyo. I’m now not only re-established in my Tokyo domicile but have resumed the rather hectic life here that contrasts so with my New York life. For you Capri is the quiet part of your year; for me New York is much quieter than Tokyo!

  Everything went smoothly in Rome thanks to your kind help. The Hotel d’Inghilterre, which to the end seems not to have heard from my travel agent, had the room which you secured for me. [. . .] The next morning, with your instructions in hand, I set out sightseeing. I normally have the capacity to get lost no matter how carefully I am directed, but your instructions were a miracle of clarity. I looked in the Pantheon and inspected Raphael’s tomb, then went on to the Church of San Luigi dei Francisi. What a superb church! The Caravaggio chapel was of course magnificent. As I write I’m looking at a postcard of the painting to the left, “Vocasione di S. Matteo”. It seems to me a more memorable picture than any in the Caravaggio show I saw in New York. What a painter! Shuffling my postcards, I see now one of “Madonna dei pellegrini” which I saw at the Chiesa di S-Agostino. Another superb painting in an unforgettable church. I thought that I knew Rome fairly well, though my knowledge is restricted to the years 1950–1953, but I think it is likely I have never visited either church. Is it possible? Or could I have forgotten?

  I visited also the Biblioteca Angelica, murmuring the password which you taught me, and was delighted. I think that during my next visit to Italy I must spend more time in Rome, though I enjoy the sensation of “discovering” Naples under your aegis, and the perfection of a place like Lucca is hard to match.

  Emboldened by my success in seeing the various sites you guided me to, I managed on my own to walk to Castel San Angelo. That building always stirs me both by itself and by its associations with Tosca, and beyond that with the sad stories of the many men who were imprisoned there. I can’t remember if I have told you of my friend in England, Mrs Dickins, who translated the letters of Settembrini, who spent much of his life in prison. She never found a publisher, perhaps because she was always sure that her work would be rejected.

  And, of course, I must thank you again for Capri. I remember best the moonrise as we sat dining near the Natural Arch, swimming between the Faraglioni, lunch by the water with fish swarming in the clear water and, of course, the dinners at the fabled Gemma’s. I can understand enough Italian to have been able to follow your conversation with the man who made Xerox copies for you: you said that Capri was a paradise, and he agreed. So do I.

  In a week or so I shall be making a trip in order to write an article for the NY Times. I was given complete freedom and I suppose I could write without going to the Inland Sea again, but it is a good occasion. I may have told you, but a Kabuki theatre about 200 years old has been perfectly restored and there are to be performances there beginning on the 26th of June. It may be uncomfortable sitting Japanese style through a whole morning and afternoon (no artificial lighting, I gather), But it will be worth it, even if I can’t find a place in my article for the play.

  All my best wishes to you and Francis. Yours, Donald

  Capri, June 29, 1985

  Dear Donald—

  [. . .]

  Donald, you are the most delightful person in the world to propose excursions to (and in so many other ways). You not only do the things suggested, but you actually enjoy them—surely you must yourself have had those reports, from your own visitors, of the difficulties encountered in following your proposals, or the disappointing nature of the monuments when finally reached over a multiplicity of obstacles . . . You, instead, seem to find the destination with perfect ease, and to find nothing anti-climactic about, say, Caravaggio’s series on San Matteo. John Pope-Hennessy did in fact try to pry those pictures loose from San Luigi dei F. for the Metropolitan’s Caravaggio show—I thought this rather outrageous, and was relieved when the loan was refused. Magnificent, aren’t they? And so “involved”, in the old use of that word, so complex in the composition and execution. As to the Metrop. Exhibition, I do think that Flagellation tremendous—the brute enjoyment of the floggers, the reduction and passivity of the victim. In the exhibition that came to Washington, having opened at the Royal Academy, some years ago (the adapted and in a sense enlarged version of which you saw last year at Capodimonte), the great Naples picture, “The Seven Works of Charity”, was included and it is now at the Capodimonte show of Caravaggio which closes today. But it had been travelling for years, is of immense value in all senses, and was so long unseen at Naples that the Beni Culturali would not lend it again for the Metropolitan Caravaggio show this year. You will see it when you next come to Naples.

  How splendid that you went into Sant-Agostino, and into the Angelica library. The moment of entering that library is one which never fails to astonish and delight, a sensation of discovery, I think. And then—that you went to Castel Sant-Angelo all in that morning—what a wonderful place. Those upper rooms, decorated by Perin del Vaga for Pope Paul III, seem to me a sort of splendid dream. One comes out on to the terrace afterwards in a daze of pleasure.

  [. . .]

  I wonder what became of the manuscript of Mrs. Dickins’ Settembrini letters?

  [. . .]

  At the Arco Naturale I have told them of your writing from Tokyo to “remember best” the moonrise on the evening of our dinner there. This evening Francis and I hope to see it again. Will you ever forget that sudden red apparition, and the silence that fell on the diners in those moments? One of the beauties of Capri is as you say that, while swimming in its sea, one can look up and see the Faraglioni or the limestone cliffs or the Monte Solaro right overhead. Enough to make a Xerox operator feel he is in paradise. I have so many things to tell you of life since then—but when we meet would like especially to describe a little our days visiting the Ville Vesuviane recently. Good heavens. Naples is always turning on not just something more or something unexpected but a positive Vesuvius of erupting astonishments and pleasures. [. . .]

  We look forward to the Inland Sea results, and the Kabuki report. And to hearing from you when you have time—and of course to seeing you as soon as possible. Thank you for your beautiful box, on which Francis’s eye at once fell, and which he too enjoys handling for its sympathetic “feel” and fineness. And for the as yet intact Panforte, which we will open on F’s birthday next week. He was extremely sorry to miss you here, and has enjoyed hearing about it all, and thinking that you’ll visit Capri again before long.

  With warm affection from us both—Shirley.

  PS: If my directions are lucid, as you kindly say, it’s because I try to imagine myself following them and thus reduce all concepts to infantile possibilities susceptible of realisation by a directionless person like myself. Neither F nor I has innate sense of “place”.

  Tokyo, July 29, 1985

  Dear Shirley,

  I was very pleased to receive your letter, the delightful contents of which were presaged by the beautiful postage stamps on the envelope. I was also much interested in the article from the Italian newspaper which brought me a new word, yamatologo, a variation no doubt on the more familiar Japanologue. The book you said you had not heard of, the collection of essays dedicated to Ivan Morris, was based on a plan he had to devote a whole book in English to one chapter of The Tale of Genji, the chapter being the one called “Ukifune”. I remember that he asked me to participate, but the period was so remote from what I was working on then (though close to what I’m working on now) that I declined. Ivan planned to make a literal (as literal as one can make a translation from Japanese into English) version and also one into his usual elegant style; but all that he left at the time of his death was the literal one, and the editor (a former student, now the director of the Asia House Gallery) decided for reasons not known to me not to include it in the book.

  [. . .]

  Next month a Japanese group of singers are to perform Mascagni’s opera Iris. I know one aria, recorded by Gigli a long time ago, but I have never taken it seriously if only because two of the principal characters are known as Osaka and Kyoto. Surely somebody could have told poor Mascagni that people and cities don’t necessarily have the same names. It’s something to look forward to—the Japanese performing a work of japonaiserie, trying to act as quaintly as possible while roaring out verismo arias.

  Your mention of Mr Casaubon in your letter reminded me that I had a copy of Adam Bede which I had bought for the plane but not yet read. I have started it. I find George Eliot a most impressive writer. This is certainly no startling discovery. But the last two English 19th century novels I read (The Egoist of George Meredith and Barchester Towers) made me wonder if Japanese literature hadn’t disqualified me as an appreciator of late Victorian fiction. But George Eliot has reassured me. I have also read recently with enormous interest the diaries of Alice James.

  My best to you and Francis. Yours, Donald

  Tokyo, June 23, 1986

  Dear Shirley and Francis,

  I have been meaning to write you ever since my return to Tokyo last Sunday, but I have been stopped by a curious problem: I still have not found the answer to the entirely reasonable question Shirley asked about where enemy aliens were kept during the war. I have received various answers, such as, “They were all exchanged with Japanese who had been living abroad,” or “They continued to live where they were but under police surveillance.” Recently a man promised to ask someone who was formerly in the military police and knows about such matters, but I’m still waiting for a reply. One place is sometimes named, Karuizawa in the mountains. I know that some foreigners, notably Germans, spent the war years there, and perhaps enemy aliens also resided in that remote town. I used to know a Belgian priest who was interned, and he certainly could provide an answer, but I don’t know where he is at present. Anyway, I haven’t forgotten. I shall write again as soon as I retain some information.

  So many pleasant things happened from the time I met you in Capri. After that I went, as you know, to Milan where I stayed with my friends. I saw the famous churches in the city (including San Eustorgio), the Brera, the small but excellent Poldi Pezzoli Museum, and the Charterhouse at Pavia. Best of all, perhaps, was a performance at La Scala of Pélleas et Mélisande conducted by Abbado. The only outstanding singer was the American Frederika von Stade, but I have never before been so moved by the flow of the music. The sets were also excellent, especially one that depicted the interior of the well into which the lovers look, their heads just showing above the parapet looking down.

  The week in Egypt was superb despite the incredible heat in Upper Egypt (45 degrees in the shade, 57 degrees in the sun). Unlike my dreary experience in Finland, the people at the Japanese embassy did everything humanly possible to make the stay memorable, and they certainly succeeded.

  And now back to Tokyo, which seems the antithesis of exotic. There are many requests for lectures, all highly paid and difficult to refuse. There are equal numbers of requests for manuscripts, and I really will have to think up ways of saying no.

  [. . .] Milan struck me as being the most elegant city I have ever visited, though naturally I saw only the best parts. But I’m much more strongly drawn to Naples with its ruined palaces than to the polish of Milan. I haven’t yet decided what to do about the offered job at the University of Naples. If only I could swallow a magic pill and be able to speak and understand Italian! That would decide me, but I am afraid that learning Italian would mean irregular verbs, subjunctives, and all the rest. I feel too old to get involved with la plume de ma tante again.

  Thank you again for the delightful stay in Capri in Naples. I’m afraid that my changes of plan must have proved a nuisance & a hindrance to your work, but I was really pleased to visit your new place in Naples. Yours, Donald

  Capri and Naples, July 20, 1986

  Dear Donald—

  I feel shame at this delay in answering your so kind letter, and your postcard. Our lives since we last saw you have been of the benevolent treadmill kind, and the usual effect—never having repose to writing a letter one really cares about—has not been lacking. [. . .]

  What I regret of your stay is—well, such things as not having managed to take you into our landlords’ villa and down to the sea below. Not getting to the Archaeological Museum, or to San Martino; or to a performance of music. And so on. But we remember so many things with pleasure that perhaps these deficiencies—which we’ll remedy next time—or hope to—are not too glaring? I think your Milan stay was a good one, from your report of it? Yes, how delightful the Poldo-Pezzoli. Alone in Milan on my first visit there, on a wintry day in late 1957, I remember being made really happy there. Seeing that small Guardi for the first time would be enough to make anyone happy, I shld think—the “Laguna Grigia”.

  [. . .]

  I used to think it strange that Milan was for so long the imperial capital and yet had (with some eminent exceptions) so little of Roman monuments in it—as the late empire was a time of much building. Since reading Gibbon, and suffering through the numbers of times that Milan, as capital, was razed by Huns, Goths, etc etc, I’m surprised that anything at all is left. If you haven’t done so, some day you must visit Aosta in its stupendous valley (which leads to the Mont Blanc tunnel more or less directly). The city and its countryside give an overwhelming feeling of the Roman presence—the departures for the Alps, and the returns. It is full of Roman constructions. A beautiful place, which we used to drive through in late autumn going from Florence to Geneva years ago—a wonderful time to see it, as in late Oct the vineyards (terraced high into the mountainsides) are red, and the grapes in that cool place are still being picked.

  I think that anyone who has learned Japanese need have no fear of the Italian subjunctive either past or present.

  There is so much to say and yet it is mostly of a Neapolitan kind—experiences of sights and lights [. . .], and—as at the Arco Naturale—the phenomenon Auden described in this gulf as finding in a vista “an absolute goal.” We have used your Finnish pale wooden “mat” rather extravagantly often, and admired it every time. “Our” woodworker (“falegname”), who has been doing various jobs in our place at Naples, took much pleasure in handling and examining it, and noted the northern woods, blond and seldom “profondi”. [. . .]

  Now we’re at Naples. I even forget what interrupted me as I was writing to you from Capri—it would stun me if I were not interrupted. This evening the gulf is oddly in relief, like an old photograph. A cool wind, after very hot days. This morning we sat out under a tree in the garden—on the park side of the house—and read about the fall of Alexandria to the Moslems. A most thrilling and appalling section of Gibbon, this Mohammedan part, recounted with his customary high style and imperturbable genius.

  On F’s eightieth birthday we were reunited with Graham Greene on Capri—that is, we had the pleasantest time with him we’ve had in many years. [. . .] He would like me to devote my days and years to the Waldheim case,9 but I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life with a snake. I wonder whether there is any interest, or any general understanding of the issues, in this story in Japan? Japanese have had so much of their own trouble in that line, they may not have energy left over for the Viennese variety. Thank you for keeping after my interests in the Japanese prison that would have harboured civilian political prisoners of other nationalities, particularly of belligerent nationals who declared themselves anti-axis. If we could find out where Fosco Maraini was imprisoned, would that not be an answer of a kind? Can I some time ask you a handful of other immediate post-war Japanese questions, as I come to them in my writing? I’d be grateful.