Page 57 - Life of Gertrude Bell

The years from 1894 to 1897 were quiet by Gertrude’s standards.
She travelled between Redcar and London and at either end
bicycled between engagements. She also spent a lot of time in
Switzerland where she tried her hand at mountain climbing and
soon became addicted to it; and she returned to the antiquities of
Italy.
Her diary provides the main clues to her movements at this
time though a few letters survive to help us trace her journeys
and impressions. There was a journey through France to Switzer­
land and Italy in 1894 with Mary Talbot, Gertrude sleeping little
for she dreamt of printer’s proofs: ‘a nightmare of proofs woke
me’; her Safar Narneh was nearing publication. ‘There was a hard
frost on the ground, and winter takes all the colour out of
Switzerland, but after Lucerne we got into beautiful hilly country,
lakes and snow peaks.’ Then Milan and Santa Maria delle Grazie
where she saw Leonardo’s luist Supper, ‘very old and battered,
peeling from the walls of the desolate old room ... The peaceful
figure of the Christ, with sorrow lying heavy on the eyelids,
stands out with wonderful saintliness between the two agitated
groups of apostles pressing hither and thither, wondering,
questioning, plotting, protesting.’ Bologna: ‘Oh, Bologna is a
heavenly place—all the streets are arcaded, and you walk through
long vaulted aisles, and see down vistas of columned courtyards
and long, arched streets, pink and yellow with stucco and rich
with carving.’ Florence, where the sun shone on Giotto’s tower
and on the figures of the Baptistry gates, and she watched a
‘stormy gorgeous sunset... and the long Arno valley growing
darker and darker all except its gleaming river’, and saw