The Human Touch

Anonymous Artist

Shortly After the United States, in the person of its President, decides to send a Jew to Sweden as its envoy, Italy, in the person of Benito Mussolini, sends its Jewish Finance Minister to Washington, to take part in a world economic conference. Guido (Jew) Jung proclaims his race in his name. Not only is he a Jew, but he is the son of German Jews. The Jewish press in America reads much timely symbol in Signor Jung’s selection as representative of Fascist Italy at a period when a neighbor – nation, glorying crudely in its application of generally Fascist principles, is persecuting the very people from whom Guido Jung sprang. Let us be as prosaic as possible and say that no symbol was even remotely intended, that Mussolini simply sent his Finance Minister to Washington because he was a good man and a good finance minister, and not at all because he was a Jewish good man or a Jewish finance minister. The point is that the consciousness of Jung’s Jewishness must intrude into at least the sub-conscious thoughts of those Nazi leaders who seek an ally in Italy. The fact is that Signor Jung is a Jewish Jew, in that he is concerned in Jewish community life and in the cause of Zionism.

A curious story is told in connection with Captain Goering’s visit to Rome, when he conferred with Mussolini and the Pope. It is an apocryphal story, a dubious story. It is a Jewish wishful-thinking story and, generally, I distrust wishful-thinking stories. Signor Jung could tell whether or not it did happen, but even if it did, haute politique would require at least an official denial. This is the story:

When Captain Goering arrived at Rome he was met, according to schedule, by Mussolini, who held an official conference with him. But the greater part of the conference between the emissary of Nazi Germany to the Master of Fascist Italy was not—according to the story—with Mussolini but with Guido Jung, the German-Jew. The Jewish press, in which this story originates, would like to believe that not only did this happen, but that it happened with the intention of proving to Goering that Fascism was not necessarily incompatible with tolerance. And, as Ripley would say, believe it or not!

There Didn’t seem to be anything particularly distinctive about him, except perhaps his beetling eyebrows and his reflective, if not moody, manner. He seemed at the same time slight of stature and broad in the shoulders. We talked about a number of things, over tea and things, principally of my work—which seemed important only to him—and of his work—which seemed important only to me. I suppose that is the ideal basis of good talk. He is a musician and, later at his home, I heard him play some of his compositions. I praised his work. He smiled deprecatingly and told me to take care not to praise heedlessly, that I might be doing more harm than good.

Not to him, but to others, to artists and writers as well as musicians. I asked why, and he answered, in effect: An artist is always struggling toward some goal. He must not pause in that struggle. If you come along and tell him he’s good—and he is so eager to hear that —he may get the idea that he is much closer to his goal than he really is; he may even halt, believing that already he has reached that goal. Maybe, in ten years, I shall have done work that you will have a right to praise, but, not now. I, however, do not run any danger from your praise; it gives me pleasure without doing me harm.

Here, Thought I, is a curious individual. An artist, in the sense of a worker with a vision, and not a pretentious studio artist, a trickster virtuoso over whom ladies gush. I wondered what there was in his nature, or in his experience, that differentiated him thus. And slowly it came out. “You know, I have been in prison. I do not tell this to many Americans because they do not understand the difference between a criminal and a political prisoner the way Europeans do.” I made it plain that I, at least, understood the distinction. And then, without vainglory, he told me the story.

It was in Russia, during the revolution of 1905-06. He was then a high school lad belonging to one of the revolutionary groups. He was about fifteen. He was arrested with two brothers and, like them, sentenced to death. (I could not help at that moment but think of Feodor Dostoyevsky standing before the firing squad, which had just sent its volley into the body of a fellow-revolutionist, and being saved, for Siberian exile, by a last-second reprieve.) The brothers were shot. He was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment. The sentence was reduced to six. The lawyer who saved Mendel Beilis from the charge of ritual murder saved him. Of those six years, four were served in solitary confinement.

Another Man might have gone mad. Our musician friend used those years for self-enrichment. He studied languages. He read. Books, at least, if not companions, were available. The prison library held books so revolutionary that they were prohibited in the world outside. The prison warden, being illiterate, could not tell one book from another. They were the books which the prisoners had been allowed to take along with them when they were arrested.

And so, inside himself, the creator of these simple haunting melodies I had heard on a piano in the Bronx grew. His education had been cut short when he was arrested, but it had been continued in a richer and deeper sense than it could have been continued in any institution of higher learning. But, to him, those six years were six years lost from the development of his special training, for which the routine studies at school and the burning devotion to the revolutionary cause had left little time.

When the gates of the prison closed behind him, he had to begin his special training, but instead of starting as a boy he started as a man, an imponderable advantage the nature of which perhaps he did not realize. And he went south, to Italy, where the sun warmed a little of the frigidness and the loneliness out of him. Today there is but slight trace of those six years. He consists chiefly in the fact that he is still a little shy, and talks very little, and about himself only under the most favorable of circumstances.