Sweden once again. Perhaps it was because Leo Negrelli, bom-
barded by Göring with press clippings proving the damage that
the Nazi party had suffered because of its sellout of the South
Tyrol, had come to Venice to see them. He offered to speed u p
the outstanding matters and warmly approved of plans that
Göring now outlined to stand as a Nazi candidate for the Ger-
man Reichstag. In a letter on November , however, Göring
once again voiced ill-concealed anger at the Italian government’s
failure to enter any agreement with him. “To date,” he wrote,
“we alone have kept our promises to the letter, incurring a lot of
unpleasantness in the process.” Possibly hinting at his imminent
departure, he concluded: “For other reasons too this is becom-
ing urgent!!!!!!”
On December , , Carin sat in their room upstairs
alone, because Hermann had gone off for “important confer-
ences” (or so he had told her). The skies above Venice had
opened and the rains lashed down on gray lagoons and canals as
far as the eye could see. Life in this hotel was not dull, she
reflected among the guests was composer Franz Lehár, and
they got all the opera tickets they could use. When tenor Rafaelli
Giuseppe sang, they both wept like children, and returned to
their hotel existence to listen to an American, a Mrs. Steel,
loudly boasting of her life in Chicago and of the automobiles
owned by her husband, herself, her daughter and her son. “We
never walk a step,” she exclaimed. Another guest was the former
queen of Spain, a frail, pale-skinned creature with jet-black hair;
surrounded by her fawning exiled retinue. She had had to pawn
her pearls, and she handed out signed photographs in return
for little favors.
But Carin too was living a fantasy herself, here in the
Grand Hotel Britannia. “Have I told you about our meetings