"Michael Moorcock - An Evening at Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

The chauffeur beside him, Mussolini himself had taken the wheel. I was by now
used to his wild, extravagant driving. Tonight, he seemed determined to shake
off the fleet of secret service cars which immediately began to follow us and
indeed he was successful with most of them. It was a game he liked to
entertain himself with sometimes in those days, though gradually all these
pleasures were denied him. He hardly picked up the violin now, whereas, like
Sherlock Holmes, he had once played it every single evening for his own solace
and to allow his mind to range over all his many problems.

At first he knew exactly where he was going. "Professor, I was thinking about
your house. You need a bigger one. That place is far too cramped for you. It
was never intended to be lived in."

Although he had never spoken of it before, I remembered that this was where he
had once met and made love to the woman who, in my case, preferred to satisfy
her lusts on the leather furniture at the Villa Valentino. I was still uneasy
about the situation, even though Margherita had not been invited tonight, in
spite of her attempting to be my escorte. I had learned enough not to take
unexpected guests to state receptions. It could prove embarrassing for all. It
was becoming obvious, in fact, that my association with La Scarfatti had made
me more enemies than friends. She was not liked by the old Fascists and her
influence over the Chief was thought to be excessive. I was still surprised,
however, that she had not been invited, since Hermann Goering was one of her
personal friends and usually Mussolini liked to pepper his receptions with
such contacts. It had been clear from her recent mood that things were not
going her way. I believe Ferucci was a sworn enemy. Some old affair between
them, I guessed.

In spite of the little house being only half a mile from the reception, it
took us over an hour to get there. So obsessed had Mussolini become with
outrunning his own guards that he was thorougly lost. He did not have a
native's knowledge of Rome and her maze of streets. Eventually, he told me,
most of the old, mediaeval mess would be torn down and replaced with
monumental modern buildings in the new Fascist style. He would show me the
model that had been built a year or two ago. Some of the building plans had
been put back, because of problems with land ownership and so on, but the new
understanding with the Vatican City was going to help that situation. He would
leave a Rome behind him which would make the Rome of ancient times seem only a
prefiguring for the glories to come.



He laughed at his own audacity and sometimes, as now, it seemed there were at
least two Mussolinis -- one was the boyish, self--mocking idealist who had
come out of poverty in the poorest region of Italy to save his people -- the
other was the sophisticated modern politician, forced through historical
realities to take hard, painful decisions on behalf of his people. But few
visionaries make good politicians and few good politicians have much in the
way of original vision. That is the unextinguishable irony of the world. When