Mussolini, this is in fact a tragic reflection on the relationship
that existed between them as this, the most harrowing period of
their life, began. Injured in his vanity, Göring evidently con-
cealed his failure from her: In her letters home, she described in
touching detail his (nonexistent) visits to the Italian dictator. It
is worth noting that when Göring sanctioned the publication of
some of these letters after her death, all such embarrassing em-
broideries on the truth were scrupulously removed.
In fact, his mission to Italy was an ignominious failure
the certain origin of his barely concealed later contempt for
the Italian Fascists, of his decision to slink away from the political
scene for the following three years, and of his slide into the total
oblivion offered by morphine. The mission had started promis-
ingly enough. In Innsbruck, the owner of the hotel waived his
bill as a contribution to the Nazi cause, and recommended to
them the Hotel Britannia, situated right on the Grand Canal in
Venice.
For a week they vacationed there. Carin was in transports
of joy at being “in Venice,” as she put it, “en route for Rome.”
She found herself cruising the canals in a gondola while silken
threads of romantic music drifted around the ancient buildings.
The whole canal [she wrote to her mother] was
thronged with gondolas, each decked out with a
different-colored lantern, and there was singing eve-
rywhere. Soothing, surging oh God, how romantic
it all was! On many of the gondolas there were casta-
nets, and virtually all of them had a guitar... When-
ever we see something as beautiful as this, we think,
“Why can’t Mama see this?”For a few days he browsed around the art galleries as he had as a
boy thirteen years before, admiring the paintings at Sienna and