4832. "Have you been looking
at the art?" Mussolini asked me." Yes," I replied. "And what did you think,"
he inquired. "Well, I thought there were a few good things in the Palazzo
and..." He cut me off abruptly by raising his hand up as if he did not
have time to listen to half-hearted praise.
4833. "You're from New York
aren't you? Sit down and have some coffee." The Italians always know if you are
from New York. I don't know why. A chair appeared and also a cup of coffee, or
perhaps they had been there all along, I don't know.
4834. I sat down, sipped my coffee
and after a moment he launched into a dissertation, which I thought he might.
He said, "You New Yorkers are always disappointed by the modern art that
you see here in Rome. And I know why.
4835. We have good artists; I'm
sure that you can see that. But here in Rome, there is no section of the city
devoted to the important art of contemporary life. We have a gallery in this
part, and a gallery in that part, but it is impossible to go from one to
another and "see" shows as you say."
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