We read the following letter in a podcast, but it merits being shared in writing. Worth a read I think.
From The Arts-Sciences-Lettres, Illustrated Review - Official Publication of the International Union of Decorative Arts. 10/10/1928. Translated by Renato.
"The article we published in our last issue, "Rudolph Valentino", has resulted in many letters that show how much interest is attached to the artist's memory. M. Jean de Bord de Labotaria, poet..from the French region of Bretania, writes: "Rudy is immortal and unforgettable in all his kindness, with his whole heart, all of his grace was the result of the unalterable charm of his survival. I know how much he will be loved forever. "
We reproduce here the letter we published in our last issue.
"To the memory of Rudolph Valentino", is a letter that was sent to the editor of the magazine... LA RENAISSANCE. Here follows:
Dear Editor,
I ask you if it is possible to print the following in memory of Rudolph Valentino. I want to talk to you about the man whose name I did not even know, when the following happened to me.
Neither had he heard about the people he would save when news of the misery of these people reached him. This story moved his great and generous heart.
Our great Russian tragedy (that is, the 1917 revolution) separated us from my old mother and my nine-year-old daughter during the nightmare of the November evacuation.
Is not possible here to tell all that happened and I’ll try to be brief. So it happened that they, my mother and daughter had to stay and I had to leave. When I was able to organize myself, my only goal in life was to try to get them out of Russia.
I went to Sophia and I had no money. I had to work and send food (because there was starvation going on, with millions dying in Russia) and I hoped that a miracle would save my mother and my child.
As there was more work in Serbia I went there. Having been a nurse during the war, I kept a diary from 1914 until I arrived in Constantinople.
I was desperate and in despair I wrote to a gentleman I knew in America and asked him if he believed that it would be possible to sell my manuscript to a publisher because Mr. U.W. Choulgume, who read it, told me it might be of some interest.
By selling my manuscript and with this money I could get back my little family. This was my fixed idea, I only dreamed of dollars but I did not have much hope. The answer came back to me from my friend, alas, there was nothing to do.
This gentleman I knew in America had no connections in the world of the press. But he had been told about a man, adding that he is a very good being and that he went to visit him. And this man he was talking about was Rudolph Valentino.
My friend told me that he found the way to have my manuscript translated into English along with the letter in which I told about my misfortune. In this letter I asked my friend to send the money, whenever sold my manuscript, to my mother, that may seem naive, but believe me, I had faith in a miracle, remembering that there they were starving.
And the miracle was accomplished.
He said that Rudolph Valentino meditated for a moment, asked to be left with the letter, and told the gentleman to return the next day.
And the next day, my friend learned that the money had already been sent to my mother and that Rudolph Valentino was taking steps by someone influential in Italy for the issue of foreign passports.
And this man who did not know us, had simply, humanly, without explanation, without hesitation, the very same day, did everything possible to save other people on the other side of the world, only because their misfortune had happened to arrive to him, by chance, and touched his noble heart.
Finally the day came when I received a telegram: we leave, that same day towards the border and at last I had the meeting with my mother and my daughter after three years of separation.
And even greater miracle, the day before I left, I received money and a letter written by an unknown hand and thus conceived: "I beg you to accept this money. Your mother and child, after so much suffering, will certainly need care and overeating. They must not be in need. Rudolph Valentino.”
My American friend wrote to me about the result of his contact, saying to me: "If you knew what a man he is. When I told him that such an act so chivalrous in our century of frantic selfishness was to be shouted on the roofs, he said to me vivaciously, 'I beg you, not a word!", it is a condition that he asked, he did not want to make anything of this claim."
The first days when, after three years of separation, we were together again, thanks to the infinite goodness of the one who God called at his side, we wrote to him in America.
Time passed, we came to France. Last winter we were living in Colombes. Rudolph Valentino came to France, and that winter, three times he found a way to spend a few moments to see the people he had saved and rejoice with them in their happiness.
Good, intelligent, subtle, innately delicate, and so natural in each of his words as in each of his movements, this is how he appeared to us.
As I told him he was so great to bring happiness and we owed him our joy, he replied, "You must not now, later, when I am dead tell about this." And he added in a half serious tone, half laughing, "I do not think I will live a long time." Did he feel that before one year he would go to the other world?
Now nobody can say anymore that he wanted to advertise himself. Now, that for a year, when all kinds of nonsense, absurdities have been written about him and only God knows what will be told about his life in the future... that these lines make his true personality understood, and I mean a being of a rare beauty of soul and a rare delicacy of feeling. His memory is sacred to my family. On August 23rd, one year ago, he died. May these words, issued from a soul forever grateful, serve him as crown on the distant tomb where he rests; his soul knows that until the end of our life, I and those who he saved, we will never stop blessing his name.
