Robert Memories of Europe in 1947

I had left the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich after Christmas of l947 simply because I had run out of funds and had to return to the U. S. That was very sad for me but unavoidable. One does not argue with money, especially when it makes it's presence known negatively. I surveyed the time and place and wondered if I could see something of Italy before I returned to America. It was a lonely trip to Paris for Christmas holiday with friends, then even more solitary to go by train to Rome and then stretch out my funds still farther to Florence. I remember what a lonely time it was to be exploring such grandeur all by myself, the days being richer in magnificence than I could bear all by myself, the nights being even more solitary. I felt I was accumulating more impressions than I could safely bear alone.

Then Florence on a very cold snowy day with everything at low ebb on that early January day. The city was only beginning to recover from the great War and such things as fuel or heat mostly unknown. I found the Ponte Vecchio and was warmed by the still resonating story of the bridge being spared because neither the German Army or the U.S. forces could bear to destroy the bridge where Dante had first seen his beloved Beatricce. It thrilled me to my heart that stone could be saved from bombardment by the power of a story of Love. So I stood on the bridge and defied the snowy cold with the warmth of a mere
story.

But another story defied the cold and taught me yet another proof of miracle.

With no other human in sight on the bridge I heard a thin voice ask me - in near perfect English - "Mister will you hire me as your guide?" It was a little, thin teenage Jewish boy shivering silently beside me, and of course I could not refuse him.

His story came pouring out of him: in the terrible night two years before, word circulated the Jewish community that the German soldiers were gathering up every Jewish person of any age to be killed in the half day remaining before the Allies broke into the southern edge of the city. Thin rumor had it that any child small enough to be wedged through the iron rods of the ornate gate before the Vatican might survive. My thin companion was the youngest of his family and barely -BARELY- fitted between the medieval bars of that ancient gate. He fell to the ground on the other side of those few inches of safety and lived by the mercy of PiusXII for the next two years. He never saw or heard of his family again.

By the time he was finishing his story we were eating a thin meal of spaghetti (I, with tomato sauce to help), he refusing my demand that he also was to have more than bare spaghetti. He argued only that he was not used to such things.

I had almost no money at that point in my trip but the boy took matters in his hands and led me down the row of jeweler's shops that jut out precariously from the two sides of the famous bridge. He announced in his imperial voice that "His American master wished to see the gems - but only the best!" I was turning a couple of coins in my pocket trying to convince myself that I had at least had two coins to rub together as I looked over tray after tray of cut diamonds, rubies, star gems, etc. The boy knew exactly the right moment to announce - with disdain- "None of these are worthy of my American master" and lead us off to the next shop.

If the fantasy of the cash that the gem merchants lost to the rich American still reverberates around the stalls of that famous bridge, their counterpart still ring in my head of the fact that I have so much as looked at such priceless gems.

I did go music shopping and still treasure some of the Italian Baroque music I took away.

The boy left, ( though I will never forget him), I searched out Western Union to get my accumulated mail, staggered away reading the telegram that my Father had suddenly died. Enough is too much and I could not manage anything more than the train ride through the Gothard tunnel back to Zurick to find some friends I could talk with.

But the story is not yet finished: in Zurich I found a letter waiting for me from "Benny" another of the fateful carriers who guides me into the next step of my life, with some fistfulls of American money and a note telling me to return to school and finish the year. It was in the time following this that I had my private time with Dr, Jung and also met my English friend - and
her two adopted sons - both profound events of my life.