further away. I like Denmark. I am very much interested in the
country, the people, the language. I think the difference between
countries, the national characteristics so curious. This is such a
beautiful place. It grows upon me more and more. The park is lovely
with deer, hares and pheasants all around."
Paris, 1904.
"I go to the dispensaire every morning. I have got so much into it
that I cannot get out. I enjoy it so much that I only remember once
in a great while that I am be doing a little good in it as well.
This war makes me feel terribly unhappy for many reasons, I cannot
explain. I have an unreasoning longing to be in Russia and doing
something. It seems such a useless ridiculous war and so much loss.
I cannot understand the way people view things. The loss of life and
suffering just make me sick. I see no dignity or sense in anything
but quiet and peace. The more importance one attaches to a question,
the more pitiful and absurd it seems. What matters externally?"
Paris 1904.
"I feel old and addled. I am still dispensing with rage and interest.
I was given a number of girls to give an illustration lesson in
bandaging this morning. We have had a number of interesting cases
lately. I shall be sorry to leave them."
(She was 26 years old, working at the French dispensary.)
Paris 1904.
"I have always before undertaken too much and accomplished less. I do
not think it is what one studies but the way one studies anything
which amounts to anything. As I have often said before, I have more
faith in what I think in spite of myself, in the preferences that I
discover in myself, than in those things which I consciously
investigate. About the affections, I don't know. The affections I
have seem stable enough to me and I feel an ultimate capacity for a
larger order."
After completing her Red Cross studies in Paris and receiving a
diploma which granted her the status of an apprentice nurse, Nelka
made arrangements to go to Russia. This was not an easy undertaking.
Nelka had few connections in Russia; her knowledge of the language
was limited, her knowledge as a nurse likewise limited, and it took a
great deal of determination to carry her plan through.
The war at the moment was coming to an end with the defeat of Russia
and a revolutionary movement was afoot. The front thousands of miles
away made transportation of the wounded lengthy and difficult, and,
long after the hostilities had come to an end, a steady stream of
wounded continued to arrive in the capital.
It was a trying and difficult time for Nelka. She was deeply upset
by the tragic events of the lost war and the grumblings of the
revolution.
She got in touch with some friends in Russia to help make necessary
arrangements. A friend of her mother's, Mr. Pletnioff, made all
preliminary arrangements to have her accepted in the Kaufman
community of sisters under the leadership of Baroness Ixkull, a very
cultivated and capable person.
Also the Bakhmeteffs were at that time in St. Petersburg and they too
helped make arrangements. Despite the fact that Nelka was then 26
years old, she did not feel that she should travel alone and was
trying to find someone who was going to Russia from Paris. A friend
who was to go had to put off her trip and so recommended Nelka to a
friend of hers, a Madame Sivers, with whom she went and with whom
later she became quite a friend.
When she arrived she went at first to stay with Mr. and Mrs.
Bakhmeteff.
Early in 1905 she wrote from St. Petersburg, upon her arrival:
"Yesterday already I saw Madame Hitrovo, Veta, Rurik and Veta's son"
(my grandmother, my mother and my uncle).
This was the first time that I saw Nelka. The Bakhmeteffs gave a
luncheon at the Hotel de France where they were staying to meet
Nelka. As it was a family affair with no outsiders, my mother took
me along. I was then about seven years old. A child of seven is not
generally impressed by a grown up person, but Nelka made a tremendous
impression on me when I first saw her: an impression which never left
me throughout life. From that day on she meant something to me, and
that something grew and grew in my feelings for her with time and
years.
The Russian Red Cross had a number of sister "Communities" who were
managed by ladies of the Russian society. The one Nelka joined was
the Kaufman community under the able management of Baroness Ixkull.
Nelka wrote from St. Petersburg in 1905:
"Baroness Ixkull seems an awfully clever, energetic and altogether
charming person. I think although the Bakhmeteffs highly approve,
they are afraid she is just on the edge of being a little 'advanced,'
which to such arch conservatives as they, seems all wrong. The
extremes are very great. You see Pletnioff is somewhat liberal, but
nothing in the sense that the word is used abroad and Mr. Bakhmeteff
is for the strictest adherence to middle age regime. Between the two
I must find the just milieu. Anyway everyone is in a certain sense
conservative just now. For the moment I can only tell you of my
delight at being here. I suppose the Constitution had to come but
surely autocracy is the only ideal Government and I am sorry that the
nation was not equal to it."
Here we see this very distinct adherence to the principles of the
Russian government of the autocratic regime, the adherence to which
seemed only natural and acceptable to Nelka in her idea of a
patriotic Russian.
St. Petersburg 1905.
"Tomorrow it will be one week that I am in the hospital and I am
getting quite accustomed to it. It is certainly a very complete
change of habits in every way, but the essentials are all right.
Over and above everything is the joy of at last being able to do, if
only a little, for the poor soldiers who have suffered so much and
who are so good and patient. I shall never cease to regret that I
did not get here at the beginning of the war. This is a perfectly
beautiful hospital, quite large and everything perfect. The soldiers
are so well provided for that I should think that some of them would
almost hate to leave; but oh, Poodie, it is so terrible to see them,
many so young, without arms or legs and one whose head was almost
blown off, so grateful to have a new glass eye put in him the other
day. Soon they are going to make him a nose. On Thursday there was
the opening of a new ward and the service and benediction were very
impressive. The Queen of Greece came and I was presented to her."
"There are four sisters in a room but the rooms are large with two
big windows and they are very nice. Sister Belskaya speaks every
language and has helped me a great deal. I am managing to get on
somehow with Russian but the other night when I had a conversation
with a Sister Swetlova on subjects that were not absolutely
elementary it was awfully funny. While the ward is being settled, 5
of us are being sent to the big city hospital where all the sisters
have been for a time to learn all kinds of things, but it is to be, I
think, only for a few days. O, Poodie, I cannot describe it to you.
The hospital itself is all right enough, but the poor people! There
are 3,000 there. We are in the surgical section for women. It is very
various and valuable experience as you learn everything in a short
while, but I would not care to prolong it."
During the summer of 1906 Nelka went with some of the wounded to
Finland where the convalescents were sent to recuperate in the
country. She was then in her second year working with the wounded and
was hoping to be able to return to America before too long.
Politics were very much of importance at that time in Russia which
had just emerged from an attempted revolution and certain political
changes had taken place. A new parliamentary system had been formed
but did not last and was breaking up. Nelka wrote in 1906 from
Finland:
"I cannot say what a feeling of relief and thankfulness I had when
the Duma (Parliament) was dispersed. I cannot see that any solution
is anywhere in view. No one seems to have the least assurance of what
will happen. I feel so stirred up I really almost wish I was a man
and could enter into the question and do something."
"Poodie, Poodie, do you realize that I am almost an old lady of 28.
It seems so funny for that is really honorable--60 is young beside
it. I wish you could see the sky here. Such sunsets I have never
seen--every day different and the colors on the lake unimaginable. I
simply go flying to the roof, I don't know how many times and look
and look and look."
Finland 1906.
"But believe me liberalism abroad is quite different from here and
there is so much bad in it here. I don't think there is much hope
for Russia. I don't believe we have that in the character to maintain
a nation."
"What a terrible thing the attempt to kill Stolypin. The people here
really are out of their minds. The ones that think that these
murders are for an 'idea.' O, Poodie, I have learned so much since I
have been here."
"One sister, Sister Pavlova, is very nice--an aristocrat of correct
views and a great satisfaction. She was two years at the War in a
contagious hospital."
Finland 1906.
"I have the apothecary now and put up ten or fifteen prescriptions a
day. I find it quite agitating for a novice and am simply calculating
and recalculating over and over again. I am also in charge now of the
operating room and surgical dressings, and do massage and night duty
as before. This is just while we are here. When we go back to
Petersburg I will have the ward duty alone as before."
"I am on night duty after a very strenuous day--assisted the doctor
with the instruments and material for 25 dressings, put up eight
prescriptions myself, dressed the wounds of five Finns, spent some
time in the ward, went over the soldier's money accounts, did an hour
massage, slept one hour and tomorrow morning I am going to take the
temperatures at 6 A.M., at seven put up a bottle of digitalis, at
eight get into clean clothes, prepare the surgical dressing room for
two dressings, give the instruments and material, and at half past
eight or quarter to nine start with two soldiers for Petersburg--one
who is to be operated and the other who has been so ill for a week
that they think it best to take him back as quickly as possible.
Neither of them can sit up. Don't you think that is an undertaking? I
am going to take the train back immediately after delivering them at
the hospital and hope to get back by 5 or 6 o'clock and have a grand
rest up for Monday."
"Is life so full of resource or is the resource all in one's
imagination and state of mind. It seems to me there is so much, so
much, and yet the most sometimes seems just to suffer being 'suffered
out' by the effect of certain moral efforts."
Finland 1906.
"This whole life is something so complete and so different and I feel
now so much at home in it. Had I been different I might not have
needed what this experience has given me, but as it is, you will find
a great deal more of me and have a great deal more of me than before
I left. I know myself too well and know too well the unstableness of
my moral interior to say that I may not need again some time."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"I often wonder now, since this life here in the hospital is so
different from everything which has opened such new vistas, if there
are an indefinite number of experiences which each would offer new
points of view. For there it would seem that one must abstain from
any general conclusions upon the things of the world, owing to one's
limited experience. I am awfully glad to be thrown in this
association with the soldiers. This is quite a revelation. They are
in comparison with other people just like charts for little children
to read, as compared with some hazy book. Then there are all degrees
of awakening. It is most interesting. I sometimes think that human
beings are as different from each other as things of a different
species."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"I told her (Baroness Ixkull) that I thought of leaving in August, if
possible. She is so urgent about my staying altogether in the
community that it makes it very hard to leave. At last I seem to have
found something where I am thought to be very useful and I have
fitting qualities, but alas so far from Poodie and Pats that it is
not possible. At least it is a thing I know I am prepared for now and
that is always open to me as a vent for energy, an occasion for
helping and regulator of the nervous system. If there is war again I
think nothing will hold me, but otherwise I am going to try to make
my character a possible one so that it will be a more peaceful member
of the family with you and Pats."
"No matter what I do later this year will have a lasting benefit. I
don't know what it is. I never seem to get enough of life. I know the
feeling that satisfies for I have had it a few times. Perhaps it is
youth, perhaps it is egotism, but anyway it is something that makes
one wish one had five lives to live at once. I am laboring through a
very interesting book on the Evolution of matter which demands a
great deal of concentration of a brain as uninformed in matters of
science as mine. I refuse to think and accept things in 'terms' which
when it gets to the point of the disassociation of atoms becomes
difficult not to do. I wish I had a really active brain that would
give me the results I want without requiring such an immense amount
of will which I can't command."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"My plans seem unable to take any definite shape for the moment. I
cannot leave my soldiers that I have had from the beginning and it is
uncertain yet when they will be in a condition to leave. I wish I
were a few years younger. I want to do so much."
(She was then 28 years old.)
St. Petersburg 1906.
"It is now seven A.M. I am just finishing night service but I feel
quite lively just because I know it is ending. Yesterday the
'sidelkas' (apprentices) received the cross. After they graduate they
can take cases and be paid about $20 a month. This course is only one
year. The sisters' course is two years but of course their work is
always free."
In Russia all nursing was considered to be a vocation and as such
could therefore not be paid. All sisters received their maintenance
and clothing from the community but no pay.
St. Petersburg 1906.
"I have just received your letter telling me of Trenar's death."
(Trenar was a borsoi dog which Nelka had and left in Cazenovia. This
was before she had her poodle Tibi.) "Mrs. Lockman wrote me some time
ago that he was very sick with distemper but had not written me
since. Useless to say how I feel. Everyone does not feel the appeal
of a dog's affection in the same degree, and with me it is as strong
as anything I know. Trenar in his devotion was exceptional, and not
to have been with him when he was sick--I simply can't think of it. I
didn't do anything that I should have with him. It was wrong to
leave him. I love dogs and Trenar was something very special. I
didn't do what I should with him and in every way I am perfectly
miserable about it, but it is useless of it--that is all. I know you
feel sorry for the way I feel, but how I feel you can't know and it
must seem out of place to you. Anyway I feel it and I reproach
myself. I just wish I could have been with him. I will never forget
his attachment--dear little Trenar."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"But I don't suppose you can conceive how I feel the autocracy, the
Emperor. I don't care what I think; I feel autocracy and the Emperor
simply not a human being to me. I read this and thought you would
like it: 'Sow an act and you reap habit; sow a habit and you reap a
character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.'"
St. Petersburg 1906.
"For the last two weeks I have been all the time on duty with the
operated cases. This last week I was on night duty every night except
last night when I had to sleep to be on duty today. I am so tired of
fussing with myself; it makes me so angry not to be a perfect
machine. The things to do are all the same--the way to be is the
same, and yet there is so much thinking, choosing, deciding,
worrying. So few things matter, and so much should not have a
moment's consideration. Nine tenths of all the shackling
considerations should simply never rise to consciousness."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"On Xmas there was a big tree for all the soldiers who could walk and
then there were a lot of little trees all arranged with presents for
each room where the soldiers could not leave their beds. It was said
in the morning that nothing would be done on Xmas--no dressings,
nothing, and I never worked so hard! As there were no dressings in
the operating room I had to do quite a number somehow or other in
bed, and then it was my day to keep the ward in the afternoon."
St. Petersburg 1906.
"I am beginning to think that the 'esprit' of the sisters here, that
is most of them, is far too liberal. I get perfectly outdone with the
papers some of the sisters bring into the ward, and I quickly lay
hands upon everyone I find. There is no stemming the tide but I shall
do what I can wherever I am, for it is too stupid. The soldiers are
too uneducated."
"You say in your letter that you understand that my father's country
should be dear to me and yet you think that my mother's country might
also mean something. What I feel, understand and see in America does
not mean anything. I cannot feel as they do. What I care for most in
the world is you and Pats--that does not need to be said. As a
country, for ideas, general point of view, etc. etc., Russia and
Russians are more sympathetic and comprehensible. It is so different.
But that is as far as country goes. The real tie, as I said before,
is you and Pats."
Finally after a stay of over two years in Russia, Nelka started back
for America. But she took a round about way this time traveling first
through Russia to the Crimea and from there by boat.
Written on the train between Kharkoff and Sebastopol 1907.
"I am on my way to the Crimea--and then continue by boat to Naples. I
expect to get to Paris by the 12th or 15th and to sail at the end of
the month. What a place Moscow is. O, it is so beautiful--so old and
real Russia, so solid and so unforeign. It was fearfully cold but I
was out all the time and only had my nose frozen once. I hate, loath
and detest every foreign influence in Russia and every evidence that
there is a world outside. The Kremlin is certainly thorough in itself
and I love it. I am palpitating at the thought of seeing you so soon.
It seems to me I am just living in gulps. I feel somehow that the
privileges I have had ought to be put to something now. How will I
even put my whole self into one thing? Everything has splendid
possibilities but it is always the fearful alternative and its
possibilities. Anyway I have stopped waiting. I know there is nothing
to wait for. I can hardly believe that I have had this year--that I
have been in Russia and that it is done. Baroness Ixkull tried to
keep me to send me to the famine--but the famine will have to wait. I
shall be so glad to get to Yalta. My head is so tired and I shall be
able to clear up my thoughts--I can hardly write. My head is popping
off and my hand is cold and the train shakes. Always your old Nelka."
(29 years old)
But back in America she once again was restless. Social life had no
appeal for her. There was something much more genuine in Russia or
even in Europe--something much more alive, much less artificial. Her
aunt Martha Wadsworth tried to interest her in other things, take her
mind off the brooding dissatisfaction which Nelka was showing.
In 1910 General Oliver, then Secretary of War, and a personal friend
of Mrs. Wadsworth, decided to undertake a reconnaissance trip through
New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, partly to do some surveying and mapping
of the area and partly to test a compressed fodder for horses
invented by Captain Shiverick, also a friend of Mrs. Wadsworth.
General Oliver invited Mrs. Wadsworth to take the trip with him and
she in turn asked Nelka to come along.
This was a most unusual, interesting and difficult trip, especially
for women. It lasted six weeks. The first three weeks General Oliver
took part in the trip with a whole squadron of cavalry. Then he left
and the rest of the three weeks only a small party continued through
the Navajo Indian Reservation to the Rainbow Bridge in Utah. This
party consisted of only two officers, several enlisted men, one
Indian guide, Nelka and her aunt. All on horseback and pack mules
carrying supplies. They covered unmapped territory over the most
rough and difficult terrain, which often was dangerous. Even one
horse was lost when it fell over a cliff and had to be shot because
of injuries. They slept on the ground, froze during the cold nights
while the heat of the day was always around a hundred, and on one
occasion reached 139 degrees. A great many very interesting pictures
were taken during this trip. Nelka always remained under the spell of
this trip and the beauty of the untouched wilderness, but at the same
time had some unpleasant impressions of the awesome country. Also it
lasted longer than she had expected and she was anxious to get home.
Only that year her aunt Martha had given Nelka a poodle puppy, Tibi,
which Nelka left with her aunt Susie in Cazenovia. She was worried
about the puppy all during her trip.
Incidentally, this Tibi played a very important, and sad role in the
life of Nelka. The dog, because she was always with Nelka and because
of this close relationship, developed a very high degree of
understanding and companionship with Nelka. This mutual understanding
resulted in a very deep attachment between Nelka and Tibi, and Nelka
certainly developed a very unusual love for this Tibi, whom she
always took with her back and forth between Europe and America and
kept always with her--except on the occasions when she was obliged to
leave her for short periods. I knew Tibi for she also had been left
by Nelka with me and my mother in the country on one or two occasions
when I took care of her.
Here are some of the impressions that Nelka gathered from this
western trip and which she gave in her letters to her aunt Susie:
Utah 1910.
"The Navajo Mountains and the Natural Bridge were, to me, terrible. I
can never give you a complete description of it, but, aside from the
other difficulties and trials, it impressed one as the most godless
place conceivable. I don't see how anyone can keep any religion in
the canyon in which the bridge is--such a mass of turbulent, ruthless
rock, all dark red--hopeless, shapeless chaos. It all looked just as
if there had been a smash up yesterday. No beyond, no nothing,
nothing alive, nothing dead, every step of the way almost impassable
and the feeling that every minute more rock could come smashing down.
On the way there Mr. Whiterill, our guide, fell over with his horse
when it was impossible to keep balance. He got loose, the horse fell
over backwards several times, broke its neck, slid down sheer rock
and fell about 50 feet over a cliff, the sound was awful."
"Mr. Heidekooper and I went down to the bottom of the canyon and lay
back on the rocks with our feet in a pool. I closed my eyes and tried
to forget these crushing walls."
"There was a question of moving the sleeping blankets to get out of a
scorpion patch, but we finally stayed where we were. I refused to
mount my horse firmly and flatly until we got out of the worst part
of the canyon, so I walked 12 miles when I had to pick every step on
sharp stones. On the way back, Pat's horse went head over heels down
another steep place but was not killed. Still a few miles further my
horse slipped going over a huge mass of rock as smooth as an egg and
about the same shape and everyone thought he was about to be hurled
to instant death, when by a miracle he screwed around, got himself up
and caught his footing again. My mental agony had been so great that
I had not a bodily sensation. I took my blanket, rolled up in it and
went to sleep by some trees under some branches and a log. We came
over the rocks where one misstep would have sent the horses to the
bottom. No place even to spread his four feet before the next step.
My heart was in my mouth most of the time. I don't know what
impression you might get from my letter. I have seen the most
beautiful sunsets, but there are more essential elements than these
to live in peace and the limits of what I can do now are very marked.
I am wound up to the last degree. There are lovely Indians here."
Kianis Canyon 1910.
"We arrived here in the rain; the pack train with the lunch miles
behind and a waste of thistles to sit on, but it cleared up soon
after and everything got settled. There are two very nice dogs
along--Kobis and Terry. Terry belongs to Mr. S. and has his ears
cut to the roots. I need not insist upon what I feel for both the
dog and the man."