here, just where we are now, to the Triton Fountain and wet my handkerchief and cooled my face. I loved that fountain! They were my favorite thing about Rome, the fountains. Now of course I worry about the waste of water.”
“Is it waste? It seems to have been going on for a long time. I think the Romans have no shortage of water.”
“Yes, it’s been going on for a long time, but once it was really practical. People needed those fountains for water to drink and wash from. Now they’re merely ornamental.”
It occurs to him that in all the time he has been in Rome he has never once worried about the waste of water implied in his beloved fountains. And the fact that she does marks between them a very great difference. He doesn’t like what she’s making him feel; her concern seems willed, dishonest, and she is spoiling his pleasure for an idea he doesn’t think she can really believe in.
They risk their lives crossing the Piazza Barberini to stand by the fountain. The sun is at its height; they shield their eyes, but even so they look away, down to the ground from time to time, to rest them.
“Neptune, the sea god,” she says, looking up, continuing to shield her eyes from the sun. Refreshing, she thinks, refreshed, the sun is never a problem for Neptune; he’s always cooled by the water. Then she notices that in fact he isn’t drinking from the shell at his lips, but blowing into it: he’s making music. And the music, made of water, falls back down on him to refresh him again and again. She notices, too, that his hair, drenched, falls down his back stick straight, and this is unusual; usually the gods are curly headed. If she were in Berkeley, she thinks, someone would be making a point of that, a political point. Was Bernini trying to suggest a primitivism, is it an acknowledgment of the aboriginal presence destroyed by colonialism? That is the kind of thing people in Berkeley would say. And although she loves her home, she’s glad to be away from it.
Surrounding the god is a circle of dolphins. She wants to say—why is she so defensive— On one vacation my sons and I went to a place in Hawaii where you can swim with dolphins. Real dolphins , she wants to say, not stone ones . She dips her hand in the cooling water; she doesn’t want to be unpleasant. Or she does and doesn’t like it in herself; hopes she can keep it hidden; hopes she can keep from saying what she feels. To say what you feel, she’s learned, is a luxury; you can only afford it if you’ve built up a balance of trust. She didn’t know it when she was young, but she knows it now. It’s often better not to say what you feel.
They walk uphill on the Via Barberini. He points to a statue in an arch, flanked by two other statues. “This is meant to be Moses,” he says. “It’s a failure, obviously, but the artist’s failure was unusually public. It’s called the Acqua Felice. The ‘happy water.’ The pope, who was actually a peasant, commissioned it as a monument to himself, but he thought calling it the Acqua Felice rather than naming it after himself was a sign of modesty. Moses is holding the tablets, except that he shouldn’t have been given them yet when he brought the water into the desert, which is what is supposed to be commemorated. The proportions as you can see are all wrong. He’s stocky, like an overage, out-of-shape wrestler.”
He is doing it now, the kind of talking she dislikes in foreign cities: the tone of the tourist guide has entered, the art historian. She always dislikes commentary on the beautiful. What can you say—after you say, Oh yes, that’s wonderful —that isn’t diminishing, that isn’t more about you and your wanting to be praised than it is about the beautiful thing you’ve seen. Language, she thinks, should at such moments be banned. Pointing can be allowed: nodding, gestures with the chin. Perhaps jumping up and down. But words, she thinks: People should be fined for speaking in the
“Is it waste? It seems to have been going on for a long time. I think the Romans have no shortage of water.”
“Yes, it’s been going on for a long time, but once it was really practical. People needed those fountains for water to drink and wash from. Now they’re merely ornamental.”
It occurs to him that in all the time he has been in Rome he has never once worried about the waste of water implied in his beloved fountains. And the fact that she does marks between them a very great difference. He doesn’t like what she’s making him feel; her concern seems willed, dishonest, and she is spoiling his pleasure for an idea he doesn’t think she can really believe in.
They risk their lives crossing the Piazza Barberini to stand by the fountain. The sun is at its height; they shield their eyes, but even so they look away, down to the ground from time to time, to rest them.
“Neptune, the sea god,” she says, looking up, continuing to shield her eyes from the sun. Refreshing, she thinks, refreshed, the sun is never a problem for Neptune; he’s always cooled by the water. Then she notices that in fact he isn’t drinking from the shell at his lips, but blowing into it: he’s making music. And the music, made of water, falls back down on him to refresh him again and again. She notices, too, that his hair, drenched, falls down his back stick straight, and this is unusual; usually the gods are curly headed. If she were in Berkeley, she thinks, someone would be making a point of that, a political point. Was Bernini trying to suggest a primitivism, is it an acknowledgment of the aboriginal presence destroyed by colonialism? That is the kind of thing people in Berkeley would say. And although she loves her home, she’s glad to be away from it.
Surrounding the god is a circle of dolphins. She wants to say—why is she so defensive— On one vacation my sons and I went to a place in Hawaii where you can swim with dolphins. Real dolphins , she wants to say, not stone ones . She dips her hand in the cooling water; she doesn’t want to be unpleasant. Or she does and doesn’t like it in herself; hopes she can keep it hidden; hopes she can keep from saying what she feels. To say what you feel, she’s learned, is a luxury; you can only afford it if you’ve built up a balance of trust. She didn’t know it when she was young, but she knows it now. It’s often better not to say what you feel.
They walk uphill on the Via Barberini. He points to a statue in an arch, flanked by two other statues. “This is meant to be Moses,” he says. “It’s a failure, obviously, but the artist’s failure was unusually public. It’s called the Acqua Felice. The ‘happy water.’ The pope, who was actually a peasant, commissioned it as a monument to himself, but he thought calling it the Acqua Felice rather than naming it after himself was a sign of modesty. Moses is holding the tablets, except that he shouldn’t have been given them yet when he brought the water into the desert, which is what is supposed to be commemorated. The proportions as you can see are all wrong. He’s stocky, like an overage, out-of-shape wrestler.”
He is doing it now, the kind of talking she dislikes in foreign cities: the tone of the tourist guide has entered, the art historian. She always dislikes commentary on the beautiful. What can you say—after you say, Oh yes, that’s wonderful —that isn’t diminishing, that isn’t more about you and your wanting to be praised than it is about the beautiful thing you’ve seen. Language, she thinks, should at such moments be banned. Pointing can be allowed: nodding, gestures with the chin. Perhaps jumping up and down. But words, she thinks: People should be fined for speaking in the
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