My Italian Journey: Thursday 21 May 21: Day Ten: Venice

I should confess that I’m writing this “diary” 15 days after the day I’m writing about. It’s easier, I find, to remember days when I moved from A to B or when something particular happened—like giving a talk. Our days in Venice were mostly delightful and have merged into each other—but in response to Nietzsche’s question of whether I would be willing to live them again and again forever, the answer has to be no. How many days—or even hours—in our life would we be willing to live again and again forever? Probably none. This morning I read these words in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis: “And I tell you, Venice may well be beautiful, I wouldn’t deny it, but I don’t feel at ease there. I feel provisional, displaced … a bit as though I’m abroad.” They are said by a young Jewish woman from Ferrara in 1938. She is attending university in Venice. Despite being British and not speaking Italian, I do feel at ease in Venice, although I don’t like that my presence is helping to destroy the…