The Backward Look
By MARY HOLLAND jE all the aphorisms to do with travelling 'It is better to travel than arrive' always seems to me one of the most pointless. Granted that arrival can be awful, with the inevitable resent- ment against any new place looming up. the pro- cess of getting there is likely to be even worse. No, the only real pleasure to be got from honest to goodness travelling as opposed to just flopping on a foreign beach is in departure, and the joys and virtues of almost every country are better savoured in retrospect. They are savoured best of all in another foreign country where the com- paratively unappreciated delights of the place just left shine out brilliantly against the absolutely repellent shortcomings of the country where one has just arrived. jE all the aphorisms to do with travelling 'It is better to travel than arrive' always seems to me one of the most pointless. Granted that arrival can be awful, with the inevitable resent- ment against any new place looming up. the pro- cess of getting there is likely to be even worse. No, the only real pleasure to be got from honest to goodness travelling as opposed to just flopping on a foreign beach is in departure, and the joys and virtues of almost every country are better savoured in retrospect. They are savoured best of all in another foreign country where the com- paratively unappreciated delights of the place just left shine out brilliantly against the absolutely repellent shortcomings of the country where one has just arrived.
Writing in Paris, I even find it in my heart to feel woozily sentimental about Denmark, with the kind of sentimental approval usually reserved for people with whom one feels a real com- munion of spirit as long as one only meets them a few times a year late at night. It's taken France to bring it out, though. Admittedly my first visit to Denmark wasn't in the most auspicious of circumstances, being restricted by the huffs c/os atmosphere of a press trip, but against this I did approach it with the most ardent attitudes of approval. I was one of the converted, eager to go through the ritual of actually visiting the country as a process of confirmation. By the time I've been in France a week I have no doubt that I'll sign my declaration of faith in Denmark. Once again I feel just great about the Danes' inherent decency, their lack of pretension, their build- ing a nice cosy little country in which nice sen- sible people can live nicely side by side. Bulb' for them, say I, that they don't have any pleasure- gilded holiday resorts (even after our press trip which 'was an effort to promote a not very promising one) because it is within the foresee- able grasp of nearly every Dane to have a holiday home of his own where his children can gorge on Danish rye bread, butter from 'red Danish. cows,' and Danish bacon. Even on a few days acquaintance it is obvious that this is a people who wouldn't let their Jews get massacred be- cause ordinary people just don't let Jews get massacred, and quite right too. Just as it's quite right that cigarettes should cost six bob for twenty because the tax is probably going to build blocks of flats where unmarried mothers can live with their children. Even drinking beer in Den- mark is a constructive social act because of the two largest breweries one gives a percentage of the profits to subsidise the arts and the other to aid the sciences.
Seen from France, Denmark presents a rosy
'I like you too, but I feel were too ephemeral
to bother.'
picture. In Denmark all I could think of was a remark I've heard attributed to Heine (though I've never been able to check it when I've wanted to use it before): 'He was a well-meaning man and as I shook his hand a shudder ran down my spine.' By the end of a few days I was frantic to leave these goody-goddies and get back to a world world where capital cities have hatchet faces and motives to match.
In the same way, by the end of next week when ,I'm back in London, Paris will probably be swiftly reinstated as a city of gaiety and wit, not only the most beautiful but the most sensitive place in Europe. Right now she looks like a hard- faced hitch and it is difficult to know which is more maddening: her metallic display of Well used attractions or my own pathetic grati- tude when, like all bitches, she can; and does, unbend to draw another unlikely visitor into the circle of her charm.
I don't deny there is pleasure to be had in travel but it appears when the exhaustion, the discomfort, the irritations peculiar to each individual place are well behind one. I've always suspected that this is one of the main satisfac- tions of a roving correspondent's life, the recur- ring feeling as, the plane takes off that that's another fly- or poverty- or tourist- or journalist- infested country out of the way for a while. And with departure a blessed affection and under- standing blossoms. For example Jordan, which seemed feckless and touchy to a fault, becomes a haven of age-old grace and ease as one crosses the. Mandelbaum Gate to the brash aggression of the new Jerusalem. Israel emerges as a brave land fit for incorruptible heroes when one lands in Rome. And Italy can only be valued at her true and priceless worth when viewed from the full horror of the Northern Lights.
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