Altre tre.

Just one more

Capri fall

Learning by doing

This fruit kills me.

It's so Baloo.

On Capri I learned – the hard way – that when pealing it you need to be careful so the microscopic prickles (or are they called thorns?) don't move over to your fingers.

Dolce far niente

Home again in Stockholm I am getting used to the overwhelming presence of ”the people of reality” (verklighetens folk).

This nation is indeed a big fat realm of reality, not always ideal for us dream...sters.

I went to Capri, l'Isola del Sogno, fearing, hoping I would dream awake every hour and not be able to work a minute.

Ulla Bjerne told me as much in the foreword to Förförare (1920):

I want to firmly dissuade anyone from going to Italy to work. During the three months I spent in Rome I made desperate attempts at putting down some of my impressions on paper. Impossible. Doing nothing was in the air. Everything was new, wonderful and soaked with sunshine.

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In addition, according to Suetonius, when the emperor Augustus came to Capri he coined the name Apragopolis – specifically for Anacapri if I remember correctly – meaning city-of-do-nothings.

Well, if this was idle country it had nothing to do with me. The minute I came to the island I had lots of energy. Rarely have I felt so happy to work, writing this blog in particular.

Instead of doing sweet nothing I got even more caught up in my obsession with Ulla Bjerne, this very singular woman, who also happens to be my relative.

My age-old plans for a film or a book about Ulla have been extended. There is now a blog in continous progress. At least this one's happening and will continue to be. We'll see about the rest.

Death

The main attraction of our last day on Capri was the non Roman Catholic cemetery founded in 1878 ”for all non-catholics irrespective of race or religion”.

At the site – not far from Capri town, but quite a long walk from Anacapri – some of the island's most famous foreign inhabitants are burried; Norman Douglas, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen and Gracie Fields to name a few.

Leaving Capri tomorrow will be like dying a little. Jumping on the train to Bologna in Naples will most likely revive us.

I had meant to report on the letters from Italo Tavolato to Ulla Bjerne today, and write more about her book Förförare (”Seducers”), among other things, but all that will have to wait until I am back in Stockholm. (Internet access again on Friday pm.)

You see, I have been busy with the sun, buying dried figs (just to lose them an hour later at the lunch restaurant in Marina Picola), having afternoon coffee and chiche (lemon flavored almond paste cookies) near the Piazzetta, and gasping at another sunset from the top of la Foresteria at the Villa San Michele.

Full last day image report here.

Italian Escapades, part 6

The last part of Ulla Bjerne's story from her youth, read in Swedish by herself on Finnish radio 1957, transcribed and translated by me.

The painting, from 1920, is by Milivoj Uzelac.

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Italian Escapades

6.

In March I was back on Capri and after some time Therese joined me. When she heard that I was going back home to Sweden to spend the summer with my parents in Norrland she had me vow to come visit her in Finland. That could probably be arranged, I said and promised to show up.

When, on my way home in May, I stopped in Paris I completely forgot about both Therese and Finland. Already the first evening at Café Rotonde I met the Serbian painter Milivoj Uzelac, a handsome man with sooty black fringe and dark passionate eyes, and a talented artist at that.

Uzelac had already spent a long time in Paris on a state grant but he was now out of money so he could buy neither canvas nor paint. I sent a telegram to my new publisher K O Bonnier and asked for an advance payment of 2 000 kronor. And, in those days, I got it.

Uzelac right away started painting two brilliant portraits of me, one of which is now part of the collection of the national museum of Agram and the other one, which I was given, I later donated to Karl Otto Bonnier, hence it is to be found at Manilla.

During our daily time together it became more and more clear that Serbia was the place to go for me during fall, not Finland. So I wrote a larking letter to Therese and told her that I had met a Serbian painter who very much appealed to me. After my visit to Norrland I would go straight to Serbia.

It appeared my soul was no longer possible to save. The Serb liked wine as much as I did.

Finally I made it home to Norrland. All summer I stayed out at sea on an island where my parents had rented a villa. As i had now switched from the sunny land of the grape to the barren abode of the pine cone I worked diligently on a serious book entitled ”Sinners”.

All the while Milivoj wrote and told me about his coming exhibition and sent me reproductions of his paintings. He was very successful and sold everything. ”So when you come to Agram we can roll around in dinars”, he wrote. It all sounded splendid and I was burning with impatience to transport myself there as soon as possible.

Therese, who seemed upset by my new plans, also wrote to remind me of my vow and said that she counted on my visiting Finland before I disappeared down in Serbia. On thinking it over I came to the conclusion that I might as well take a little jump over the Baltic. However, more then three days I was not going to sacrifice to Finland.

And as soon as I had had my passport settled for the trip to Serbia and money for my ”Sinners” I took a small suitcase and leaped over.

As I mentioned, I had set aside three days for the visit to Finland. This automn it will be 36 years since I came to live in this country.

Therese sure had a remarkable intuition. And the way she, despite certain difficulties, finally managed to bring the two of us together, well, it is all such a peculiar story with its grotesque, subtle and humorous elements that each time I think about it I am taken by the wondrous enigma of life and destiny.

Wuthering

Heights.

Italian Escapades, part 4

Part four of six of Ulla's radio broadcast account from her youth on Finnish radio, from 1957.

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Italian Escapades

4.

Sardinia back then was a fairly unknown and wild country, rarely visited by tourists. In order to help me with my trip my friend Italo Tavolato on Capri had given me a letter of recommendation, among others to Grazia Deledda. However, now there's no time for my adventures in the Sardinian mountain villages with their primitive and superstitious inhabitants. Because now my Destiny approaches, in November 1920 on Sicily and in Taormina.

I came to Taormina aroundt the end of November and decided to stay over the winter months to write about my Sardinian journey about which I had made notes on the island. While I oriented myself and looked for a room I put up at San Domenico where I right away met Georg and Hanna Pauli in company with Karl-Otto and Lisen Bonnier who were on a trip to Italy. Their old friend F U Wrangel was also present but he stayed at a pension.

This way I got acquianted with my new publisher Bonnier would take over my books since Olle Dahlberg had made a grandiose bankrupty the past year. However, I still knew nothing about these changes.

After a few days I found a room which I thought suited me both when it came to price and location. It was at the top of a towerlike house where the owner had a small antiques shop on the ground floor. The room had a lovely view over the sea and a big stove gave a sense of homelike atmosphere considering the approaching rainy season. In addition electric light was included.

A lively old Sicilian woman with a weather-beaten face and bushy hair cleaned for me and every morning as she groaningly had climbed the stairs she greeted me happily: ”Brava signorina, brava!”

That was indeed a refreshing morning greeting but as much as she busied herself with the furnace the smouldering smoke kept breaking in and the window had to be kept open in order not to suffocate. Finally we came up with the splendid idea to let a chimney-sweep examine the flue. It was found to be stuffed with bird nests.

As far as the electric light was concerned it was out of order every half hour in all of Taormina so running rushlights came in use most of the time. And it sure did rain. All the time and every day, so my room was a damp dump.

I had found a small trattoria where I had my meals with signora Gallina who always had cauliflower on the menu. So I mostly had cavolfiore, wine, and gorgonzola to live through the day.

Asterisk

I put an asterisk by Hotel Molaro in the text below and I will tell you why. (Isn't the
asterisk a lovely old-fashioned way of cross-referencing btw? I hadn't thought about its meaning, little star in latin: asteriscum).

When I first visited Capri 4-5 years ago I had brought an image of a private palace where Ulla Bjerne had stayed in the 1920's. Some good friends of her, an Italian family, had lent her the place, it was empty so she could use it however long she wanted.

I also had a copy of a postcard with a Hotel Molaro on it, hoping to be able to detect the same on the island. In vain, I thought, since I hadn't been able to find a hotel with that name.

When arriving in Anacapri for a two day visit from Sorrento I didn't know where to stay so I used my Naples guide book (Första klass – 1 kl – Reseguider), which had only one hotel to recommend in the village: the Hotel San Michele (as opposed to some ten in Capri town).

Hotel San Michele sounded like a nice place with great views of the sea and close to San Michele, which was an advantage since the museum was my main objective of the Anacapri visit. The guide book said: ”A hotel from the late 19th century with an appealing, old-fashioned atmosphere.”

As I approached the hotel I realized, which you may already have guessed, the Hotel San Michele was formerly called Hotel Molaro and in addition, the Hotel Molaro was identical to the private palace that Ulla stayed in as the only guest.

I like to think that she had the picture above taken right on the terrace that the room I stayed in looked out on.

Now I will add to the fantasy that Italo Tavolato took the picture.

Italian Escapades, part 3

Here is part three of six of Ulla's radio broadcast account on Finnish radio from 1957.

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Italian Escapades

3.

Doctor Munthe had not yet written the Story of San Michele which led to a horrible invasion of old American ladies and other tourist hordes. Asphalt roads did not yet exist, neither buses or cars, chairlifts or similar arrangements.The Monte Solaro hillsides shimmered proudly and majestically and the walk to Anacapri with ever increasing contour lines all the way up to the old Hotel Molaro* from where there is a view over the Gulf of Naples and where the lights at night from Naples like a string of pearl lights bordered all of Posilippo. Those were unforgettable walks.

Since 1920 I have been to Capri seven times and sometimes stayed half a year. When I went the last time 1954 and saw the whole misery I told myself that this is probably the last time I come here.

”Capri nowadays is a waste bin framed with diamonds” an old cultivated Italian put it lately, saddened by the degradation of the island. Of course nature can't be ruined but God save us from all these elderly foreign women who, wearing shorts and with flabby thighs like accordion bellows loaf around on the piazza and pay for a lover, usually an ex chauffeur or a fishing boy who has climbed in life with the help of the distasteful charity of these ladies. Finito signora. At least for those who have lived on Capri before World War I.

This is where I settled at the beginning of April 1920 and stayed well into August. On the island their were plenty of Italian artists who in those days could rent a villa for a few hundred lire a month. The Germans who formerly flooded Capri were now after World War I completely gone. Mostly Neapolitans lived there, oftentimes in splendid private villas.

During all week the island was peaceful, only on Saturdays some Neapolitans would come to stay over the weekend and on Sunday mornings ordinary people would show up and go home again with the evening ferry.

Early mornings were for swimming among the rocks down at Torre Saracena. After the siesta everybody was working until meeting again around eight on the piazza to look at the evening ferry from Naples make the harbor. Later during dinner one would usually sit at the terrace of Café Morgana in the warm starry sky night of the South, drinking coffee or wine.

This is where I wrote a collection of Italian novels during the summer. I called it ”Seducers” (Förförare) and I had already had a few ideas in Rome. The rest I picked up at Capri, for that was an island where strange things always took place.

When the book was finished I stayed a few weeks in Venice but my real goal, which I had aimed for all summer, was Sardinia.

Monter et descendre

We climbed mountains today.

Walking up Monte Solaro in Anacapri in the early morning was easy, it was going down on the other side, through Il Passetiello towards Capri that presented some difficulties.

I could have used some gotes hooves when descending the Passo del Passetielo. I kept thinking to myself, I should continue, it can't be that bad, people have walked here for thousands of years.

Well, it was bad and I may not be able to move out of bed tomorrow.

The problem with us 40somethings is we don't understand we're not young anymore.

I love it!

La messa è finita, andate in pace.

Spending ”a few hours” in a city can present the most cherished moments. Walking on Spaccanapoli, one of the oldest streets in Naples, on a sunny Sunday morning I would suppose is lovely during any season.

The masses were being finished when we entered Santa Chiara and Il Gesù Nuovo after climbing narrow alleys from around Corso Umberto. A group of priests hurried by in the New Jesus, one of them, the youngest, wearing jeans and sneakers under his robe.

Confessions were taking place left and right, the sinners sitting outside the booths, priest inside.

We bought wild strawberry eclairs at Scaturchio on Piazza San Domenico Maggiore before checking out from the hotel to finally take the boat to Capri.

Just reading those words makes my day: Piazza San Domenico Maggiore.

Leaving in less than a month.

Two pictures from my last (first) visit to the Sorrento peninsula and Capri in 2005. This was in November. The marble sculptures at the Villa Cimbrone were wrapped in plastic and the Mediterranean was completely swimmable still. I expect October to be even more of everything.