Long life
Sailing by
Nigel Nicolson
Como Coming suddenly upon the Italian lakes from the geological violence of the Alps or northwards from the suburban awfulness of Milan, one discovers Italy at its most Ital- ian and serene. The string of villages along the four shores of Lake Como (for it is Y- shaped) might almost be Mediterranean, except that each shore is reflected by its mirror-image opposite. I do not know what controls the authorities exercise. The Ital- ians achieve graceful results without apparent effort. If a villa is perched inconveniently on a rocky spur which a new road must penetrate, they do not destroy the villa in making a cutting, but tunnel for 100 metres underneath its kitchen. The lakeside villages are composed of houses of no special architectural distinction, but out- side advertisements are few, no modern buildings of glass and steel obtrude, the sole vertical element is the campanile, and only a narrow range of pastel colours is permitted or desired — which is it? On the water there are ferries criss-crossing the long legs of the lake like Ma/volio's garters, but no noisy speed-boats.
This is where I have been spending the last few days. From classical times onwards the lakes have always been holiday resorts. There was never a convention that these long wet fingers thrust into high mountains were 'horrid' in the sense that until about 1800 we regarded our own Lake District and the Highlands. Virgil praised Como as the loveliest of lakes; both Plinys had villas there. Later the Milanese aristocracy built themselves splendid houses at water-level or raised slightly above it, making of the landing-steps and water-garages advertise- ments of their wealth that elsewhere would be symbolised by porticos and flamboyant statuary. Many of these villas are still pri- vately occupied, others are converted into hotels, while a few, like the famous Villa Carlotta, belong to the State and seem a bit forlorn.
Yet it is not these grand houses that leave an abiding impression so much as the views across the lake as one sits on a ter- race framed by cypresses and suddenly a distant mountain village is spotlighted by a sunbeam, or after dark a planet of unusual brilliance flares in the sky only to be revealed next morning as nothing but a shepherd's bonfire. Below me is the road along which Mussolini fled in 1945 with his mistress Clara Petacci, both - disguised as peasants. They were recognised and mur- dered by the partisans before they reached Switzerland, and their corpses were strung up from the girders of a Milan garage for the derision of the mob.
It is difficult to associate this place with brutality, but one owes a physical debt to it. We should not be transported everywhere in idleness; we must swim and walk and row and climb. There happens to be a 16th- century chapel near where I am staying, perched on a ledge of rock 1,500 feet above the lake, and there is a path leaning to it through olive-groves at first and then upwards across the face of a great cliff It is not a particularly arduous ascent, and at intervals along the path there are small shrines with texts in Latin (still the univer- sal language) to encourage the pilgrim to press on. Determined not to give my com- panions any excuse to call me a povero vec- chio, I made it to the chapeL On its outside wall there is a tablet commemorating a youth of 19 who in 1909 threw himself to his death over the cliff, and we are invited to say a prayer for him. How, on this idyllic spot, could one refuse?
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