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Hotel Berchielli Dear Mr. and Mrs. Berenson, I got your telegram now and this is to ask your pardon, for not coming to you tomorrow. I am so sorry. I am indeed so proud to be invited by you, all the more sorry not being able to come. Yesterday I suddenly made up my mind to go to Rome tomorrow & I arranged everything for it. I go to Rome to see the Pallavicini Collection & to see a new “Botticelli” which Prof. Venturi is to show me. I made appointments with them and I cannot change them now. Besides I stop a few hours tomorrow morning at Pisa to photograph an “Arazzo” & I have written to the Direttore del Museo Civico to let me do that, specifying the time. Since I had lost my money, I came to a conclusion that I have to shorten my stay in Europe by a month. That is the reason I hasten to finish my visit to Rome. So stupid I am, I thought so & decided so only yesterday, I have been so depressed these days that I could not well think. Today I meant to come to you in the afternoon, partly to say good bye & wish good journey to Mrs. Berenson & partly to show to Mr. Berenson my miserable photo of that picture, of which I told. I enclose it here. The picture is in possession of a prete (not the parocco) of the church in Remole near Le Sieci,the church of which I could not remember the name but the church where there is a Botticelli school Crucifiction over the High Altar. I need not say about the picture. Tell me what it is, when I come to you. It is such a nice picture. I love it. Well, I intended to come to you today, but the packing my things took so much time & energy from me. I had to pack those things which have gathered in these five months. I have just finished it, at 8 p.m. I am entirely done for, & I have little energy to come to Settignano in the night. I should telephone to you but how I am scared by telephone Mrs. B. knows too well. And I part tomorrow morning at 7.20. I am to come back on the 25th or near about & then shall go for a month to Abetone above Pistoja. As soon as I come back from Rome, I shall run up to I Tatti. Meanwhile Au Revoir and a wish pleasant journey to Mrs. Berenson. I must see you before I leave Europe. You said you are coming back July 15. -- My memory is so full of your great kindnesses. I must see you again. For the present Au Revoir! My hotel in Rome is Hotel Marini Via del Tritone. If there is anything I can do for you, do tell me -- taking photos, for instance. Anything I can do, I would do with greatest pleasure & (if I may say so) with great pride, for you. Tonight, as always on the eve of my departure, even for a short trip, I am sentimental, & I review in my memory the happy time I passed in your library and in your garden. Because of my uncontrollable timidity I could not bother B.B. with my nonesenses, so much I could wish, but I knew him well through his books. You all treated me so well. Having been treated as a “stranger” always in these three years, I have been and am so susceptible to your intimate treatment of me. Oh I learned much from you. If I come to know something about Botticelli, it is all from you & through your help. If this sense of happy gratitude be to impair, it will be the end of my life. Goodbye, goodbye. Oh, how I love you. Yukio Yashiro |
