1021 Port Operating Coy., R.E. C.M.F.

Dearest Heart, We’ve got another little dog who’s come to live with us, she’s charming and whereas Candy is the nicest of golden dogs, this is the nicest of green ones.  She’s oldish, about two hundred years, and she has one paw up and looks sympatetica. She’s sitting down and has silly ears. She’s bronze and sits on a pale marble slab and her size is about seven inches from tip of nose to tip of tail and the slab is about five by two. You’ll love her. We found each other in a dim and dusty corner of a crowded sculptor’s shop near the Ponte Umberto, hard by the Albergo dell’Orso. The shop had sculptings and folios of artist’s drawings and pictures and a few swords and the owners were two brothers, but Guardy shall hear of this and you’ll see then.  But the Carissima little Cane is one of us.  She only cost 150 lire and I paid 100 = 5/-. If I can pack her I’ll send her home, or I may carry her about with me. She’s one of Daddy’s things, like the Lion candlesticks and Napoleon by Holland Rose and the Cambridge Shakespeares and you.  But you must love her. Its the nicest Ricordo di Roma, and so cheap.

What a time I’ve had since I saw you last!  I’ve flocked with John Trevor and with la signorina Gamerra in the evenings or afternoons.

I wrote to you on Tuesday, now its Friday and I fly back tomorrow at noon. On Wednesday morning we carrozzad down to St. Peters and walked around and then went into the Audience with the Pope. That must be a Thing. It was rather moving; the state and pomp and splendour of the great Hall and his scarlet and gold chair and the gentlemen-at-arms and the Swiss Guards, and he so delicate and intellectual and kind; clothed in white watered silk, and speaking in broken English and then letting soldiers surge round him, and patient and smiling.  Then we went extravagant and had lunch at the Albergo dell’Orso, been an inn since the thirteenth century: Rare food and good wine and a fine atmosphere, but very expensive. However we’ll write it off, and it was only a recce for when you come.  After we pottered and then in the evening I went to La Wally, John Trevor went too and we met and drank cognac-and-vermouths in the intervals, its by Catalani and is splendidly choral. Its a Tyrolean setting and has some fine arias and grand choruses, it was very well done, I loved it and was thrilled.  John came back to the Boston for dinner with me the opera is five thirty to nine and they serve dinner up till nine thirty here, and we talked and yarned the evening away.

Yesterday I went off alone in the morning; to the Castello St. Angelo, a lovely place and very history-article full. Then to the Vatican again to see il Papa because I liked the look of him, lunch alone at the Orso and then furbished up in the hotel and to the Palace for tea with tea Gamerra famiglia.  (I had been taken over the Palace on Tuesday, did I say so?) Then I escorted Miss Gamerra to the Opera for Barbiere di Seviglia, a tremendously successful performance, Gobbi, in superb voice, sang Figaro with verve and splendour and Bertozzini was enchanting as Rosina.  Like you, sweet and swift and living. John, from his box drank with us in the intervals and we took Miss G. (dear but dull and Yarnoldish) home and then drank coffee and talked in a little cafe.  Today we went round the Vatican gardens and the Pope’s palace and saw the Chambers of Raphael and the SIXTEEN CHAPEL.  It was staggering, I bought you two books, like the Raphael chambers on the Michelangelo work there, its enormous and incredible, we saw it although it was closed, and private rooms as well, because I made friends with a Swiss Guard and he took us round.

I stopped typing, it is after 3AM! John came for dinner in the middle of this & we talked & got onto Backgammon. He’s an enthusiast too, so we went off to his hotel & played till 3o/c, in celebration of the last day of my holiday. I learned some grand moves, & shall shatter Peter on my return tomorrow. But the Sixteen chapel & the splendour of the Vatican have to be seen, & you shall see them. So nice a Swiss Guard he was.

I’ve left out an awful lot. But you will all bit by bit. The wonder of art I’ve seen. I have purposely ignored the Ancient Rome, because that’ll keep till you come. I may potter around tomorrow morning, I don’t leave until noon. I met Col Oram in his hotel this evening. He is very friendly & has a Captaincy for me in another company at Bari!! But it’s not definite & I was tepid. He means well, but its not easy for him, as promotions are not on a group basis, but on a theatre of operations basis! However, forget it for now. I’ve had a splendid holiday, & I’m ready to go back to violent work- & your mail of this week. The flight should be interesting, Rome from the air, & the north west coast unfolding below us. The Gamerra family are such good friends & so fond & John Trevor is attached firmly. So am I to dear you.

I do love you.    Ever. . . David