"This country is too wonderful for words. It is the place--the only
way to live. I wish you could see it and I wish you loved it as I do.
Won't you bring Tibi and the boys and stay here? Oh, Oh, there is
nothing to say."
Gonado 1910.
"I get up at 5 and see the sunrise and generally take the things in
before everything gets astir. We have breakfast at 6, 6:30 and start
our marches at 7. It was so cold one night I got up at 4:30 and made
up the camp fire. My face is dark brick and painful but I think I had
too much cold cream fry and I have stopped. The heat of the sun is
great. Wednesday we crossed the 'Painted Desert' which was even more
beautiful than the canion and camped at a kind of oasis on a little
lake and were able to have a swim--though the desert was full of
rattle snakes and the lake full of lizards."
"I walked off and got lost almost 4 hours. They had the whole troop
out looking for me, and the trumpeters blowing for over an hour.
There was no moon and I had decided to spend the night where I was by
a cactus, when I saw a light in the dim distance and finally Captain
McCoy found me. It gave me a vivid sense of how misleading the
flatness of the desert can be. When Captain McCoy found me he could
not see me ten feet away and I think it was chiefly the white dog he
had with him that found me. I had had to take off both shoes and
stockings about two hours before as the mud was so heavy I could not
raise my feet and it was raining part of the time. Every place where
the Indians live in their natural mud huts it is clean and
inoffensive. As soon as there is a sign of a real house, or what you
call civilization, there is dirt, smells, refuse heaps and flies--and
of all the sights in my life, bar none, the washstand in Mr. Hubble's
store, with wet newspaper, stagnant slop jar, dirty tooth brush,
filthy basin, sloppy soap--all humming with flies--is the worst I
have ever seen and the most stomach turning. There is some freak from
Boston in a checkered suit and goggles who walks around with some
ideas for Indian betterment. I think they have reached the highest
pitch in the fact that they do not scalp him! I had coffee, oatmeal
and bacon all out of one bowl. I drink water that looks like bean
soup and never use a fork and a spoon at the same meal. Sand and
cinders or charcoal flavor everything, and I have fished olives out
of the sand where they had fallen and eaten them with perfect
satisfaction. Materially this certainly is the way to live.
Spiritually some shifting might improve it."
Back from the trip and into civilization, Nelka again was restless
and discontented with her surroundings. Again she longed for Europe
and especially Russia.
Her little dog Tibi became of primary importance in Nelka's life.
Despite her love for animals, Nelka admits that up to that time she
had no special attachment or deep affection for dogs. Dogs were just
something you had around you; they were part of everyday life, but
that was about all. But with Tibi, Nelka's affection for her grew and
grew, and they became unusually attached to each other. Like all dogs
who are constantly with a person, they develop a great maturity and
intelligence. Tibi did just that. She was a very highly developed
animal, as I remember her well.
The winter of 1910-1911 Nelka spent again with her aunt Martha in
Washington. Her aunt had a large house and was in the social whirl of
the capital. Dinners, balls, the White House, the Embassies--but all
this meant little to Nelka and she felt the futility of all that
activity, its artificiality and uselessness. Irritated and longing
for a change she once again returned to Russia, and once again went
back to the Kaufman community.
Her feeling for dogs and animals in general was becoming more and
more pronounced--thanks in part to her close association with Tibi.
In one of her letters to her aunt Susie written in 1911, she writes:
St. Petersburg 1911.
"I do not love humanity in the mass. I don't admire it. I feel sorry
for the unenlightened and suffering but I think there are only a few
in the world who 'vindicate,' as Uncle Herbert says, their right to
exist. If there was for one moment in my heart what I feel for dogs,
cats, horses and animals in general, I would be a real sister of
charity. It is a perfectly distinct expansion and impulse and a real
longing to help and joy in it that I do not feel in the face of
suffering humanity. You can explain it any way. If all these crippled
numberless that I have seen all these days had been maimed dogs, I
don't know what I would have done. There is something in human nature
that is so contemptible and poor that I can't feel the same way."
St. Petersburg 1911.
"How can you keep your faith in humanity? I think it is all so weak
and not beautiful, and life as it goes somehow such an outrageous
fizzle. Why are there such beautiful things, conceptions,
possibilities only to be ruined by fatal microbes this human
nature puts into it? Life only in yearning; Death to crown
realization; peace only in oblivion. What for? And even the power of
renounciation has to be fought for."
She was working at that time in the Kaufman community but was to go
to Montenegro for a hospital reorganization. This did not come about.
She wrote:
St. Petersburg 1911.
"I am undergoing the greatest disappointment at this moment. I was to
be sent to Montenegro to establish a Red Cross sisterhood and
overhaul the hospital, and to be given five sisters to take with me I
as the head--so interesting--and in the part of the world which has
always attracted me to the utmost, ever since I was in Sofia. And
after it was all arranged and I was simply reveling in every detail,
Baroness Ixkull decided that it was simply impossible to take Tibi."
St. Petersburg 1911.
"One doesn't love anything any more, religion, country, art. The only
thing is to have one's interest outside of oneself--and to be very
busy. I can hardly believe, at least I wonder, at myself being able
to do so many things I dislike--getting up every day so early, no
walks with Tibi, sleeping between five and six hours, often only
four, and yet I enjoy everything--ice cream is a festival, a moment
to sew a treat, and bed heaven."
"But oh, all these sick people--so depressing and gives one such an
impression of superfluity of the human species. Everything,
everything so beautiful except humanity--and not only man
himself--dirty and unenchanting--but the instrument of hideousness
all around."
Again Nelka was showing the restlessness because of the attachments
to the two sides of the ocean--Russia and America--and the
impossibility to satisfy entirely one or the other, or both. From
Russia she wrote:
St. Petersburg 1911.
"I wish I could be in America and eliminate from my personal horizon
the people and things which make me boil over in spite of myself.
Dear Poodie, I wish you could really know what I feel and mean. I
think if in recent years you had been in contact with the peace and
simplicity of Europe in general, you would see what makes me shrivel
with most Americans, because I am not above and beyond it as you are.
America may stand for freedom, but it has an unimancipated soul and
there is a perpetual affectation, a caution, a suspicion, a lack of
independence that does simply petrify life and crush feeling. You may
say it is a small world, I don't know, but it is everywhere I meet."
St. Petersburg 1911.
"I have at last decided that my life must remain unsettled,
undecided; it is too late to settle it except by sheer will, and that
is too stupid. Real ties exist in different centers--one must obey
both; it is utterly indifferent to me what external aspect my life
takes, because it is also too late."
(She was then 32 years old)
St. Petersburg 1911.
"I hope to be in America at intervals and often. You and Pats are
more to me than anything else and I have the greatest love for
Poodihaven (Cazenovia), but I cannot associate with outsiders
sufficiently to fill my life. I want to beat them all and I don't
want to hear them talk."
At this time, I think, she was going through a very difficult period
of uncertainty in her life, which is reflected in her letters written
at that time:
"If I did not care for Americans and if I did not have a great deal
of sentiment and associations, ties and memories in America, it would
be so easy to leave it alone and not think about it. But I know I am
both. I know how strongly attached I am to both sides and I only
deplore the difference among people in the world. But when I think of
even those others that I care for, I know that we are strangers. My
heart does not beat with any puritanical sentiment--so there. If I
am attracted to some puritanical offspring--some representative of
the progressing (?) new world, it is like being in love with a marble
statue."
"I don't know why I write all this, but how impossible life is. I
think it really is a most devilish arrangement. No peace except in
utter renounciation. And must one struggle through a peppery sequence
of years just to know this?"
"Baroness Ixkull is going to give me perfectly new sisters to train
and I am going to make them march like pokers, copy every record each
time they make a spot and count all the linen every two weeks. As
they will not have been in any other ward, they cannot make any
comparisons or complain."
"I know, Poodie, that you would like some things here very much--the
simplicity of everything and the independence of people. I think it
is only possible with a recognized aristocracy when people do not
have to explain themselves and are established. I have met a few such
nice people, of course to hardly know them, but one feels one knows
them at once because there is a recognition of being of one world and
one knows beforehand that one shares the same feelings towards most
things. For instance, they may not know me personally but the fact
that Papa was in the service, was Gentillomme de la Chambre (Court
title), was educated at the Lycee, defines a type, defines in a
certain manner his daughter, if only externally. Then knowing that
Mama was American, the whole thing is clear in a natural way. My
wanting to be here is understood--my attachment to America is
understood."
St. Petersburg 1911.
"My life here is so full in one sense that it seems much more than a
few months since I was in America. Life seems very, very short in
comparison with the wide conception of possibilities which gives the
zest to youth. Everything seems so partial and the total is so hard
to realize. To keep tranquility with the increase of perception and
understanding means renounciation as far as I can see. It must be a
great privilege to work and pursue one's greatest convictions--to act
what one feels sure of--this is in many ways adjustment to
circumstances. Please God that there may be some good in it."
"The spirit is everything--nothing else matters. I can never leave
the ward on their hands (new sisters) and I mean every day from 8
until 9 at night and often part of the night, if it is very serious.
I am very well, sleep little, eat little and am flourishing."
So after this additional stage in Russia at the Community, Nelka
returned once again to America, but not for very long. Early in 1912
she was again getting ready to go back to Europe. Writing from
Ashantee in 1912 she said:
"I know it is unrest--I know it all--yet the true picture is that of
going thousands of miles to where I am not needed, and leaving my two
best friends. I long for the work and can't wait. Between now and it,
just think what bumps and jolts and frights and moans. Oh, what is it
all about?"
Nelka spent that winter with her aunt Martha in Washington. It had
been a winter entirely filled with social activities--balls, dinners,
the White House, the Embassies--and Nelka could not stand it any
longer and was seeking some contrast. She certainly achieved the
contrast all right, for as soon as she returned to Russia she was
sent to the outskirts of the Oural Mountains. In that region a famine
had been quite severe and the Government sent out feeding stations
and Red Cross units to take care of the stricken people. Sisters were
established in different villages, sometimes entirely isolated, where
they issued provisions and gave medical care to the peasants. Nelka
spent a whole winter in one of these villages, living in a one-room
hut with a peasant family and sleeping on a wooden bench. What a
contrast after the social life of Washington!
Here is a descriptive letter written from Kalakshinovka, District of
Samara, in 1912:
"I am in a desert of snow, in quiet and peace, and feeding three
villages. I lie on my bed which consists of two wooden benches side
by side--one a little higher than the other. Only thing is that it
is almost inaccessible. Even with the snow it is more roily and bumpy
than the worst sea ever dreamed of being, and all one can do is to
lie with one's eyes closed on some straw in the kind of low sleigh
that bumps along hour after hour over these steppes. I first went to
Sapieva, a tartar village in the District of Bougulma. Now I am
settled and hope to stay here. I was busy last night late giving out
provisions and weighing flour and today I have been trying to
straighten out grievances and see that all receive justly--sometimes
very complicated. Some brother of the official writer of the village,
quarreled with the son of a poor woman when that woman's cow came too
near his premises, and he made his son beat her off. My position in
the matter is whatever the pro's and con's--how dare anyone hurt a
poor famished cow and I am settling it on that line."
"I don't know what I would not do to feed all the poor cows and
horses and sheep that are left. A number of friends in Petersburg
gave me some money to distribute--a little over a hundred dollars. I
gave about 50 in Sapieva and the rest I am going to use to save the
animals. Aside from my pity for them, it will be terrible for the
peasants not to have a horse to work in the fields as soon as the
warm weather comes. Where will they be next year? I can help at least
two or three families. One poor woman when I bought some feed for her
horse and cow simply fell on her knees on the ground. Poodie, really
how far people live from each other and how little one can dream of
this life if one has not been in it. Perhaps other people understand
things more or realize more, but with all I have seen and heard
and read, that is simply being born to something entirely
unknown--besides all the feelings one experiences oneself in being
thus shut off from everything. I have at last attained my own bowl
and spoon. I drink coffee and eat a piece of black bread in the
morning. At 12 a bowl of buckwheat or some kind of grain with a
wooden spoon--a glass of tea and at night a glass of cocoa and black
bread, or as a treat a dish of sour milk. I cook and iron and do
everything myself, but it is very simple."
"This is part of 'Little Russia' and is much cleaner than 'Great
Russia.' I brought with me a few fleas from Great Russia and have the
greatest sympathy for Tibi for the time she was exposed to flea
companionship. How they bite and jump."
"The Tartars were so clean--the very poorest and none of the disorder
that one sees in Great Russia. There is something absolutely
distinctive about the Tartars and one feels a certain civilization
and settledness that is different from all the other villages I have
seen. Did I tell you how we all slept in a row with the old tartar
and his wife and child?"
"Though I was doing my best to master the tartar tongue, I can
converse more readily here. The Little Russian dialect is very
different from Russian but one can get a long. The Red Cross will
probably be stationed here throughout the famine--until the 'New
Bread,' that is about the end of July--but Baroness Ixkull promised
to replace me as soon as she could get another sister. I hope to get
back to America in July."
Kalakshinovka 1912.
"A peasant walked in today and brought me a present--an apple about
the size of a plum. I wanted to keep it until Easter but we consulted
and decided it would dry up, so I ate it. It is getting late--8
o'clock and the candle is burning low."
Kalakshinovka 1912.
"The days have fallen into a routine. I distribute provisions, go to
see the peasants and they come to see me--sew, mend, scrape mud off
of boots and at last have a little time to write a few letters. In
about a week I hope to go to Alekseievka, a village about 9 miles
off, which is quite a center. There is a fair there every week and I
shall buy some sugar and a little white flour and perhaps if it can
be found, a piece of ham. I am getting awfully hungry. People will
never get anywhere while taste is undeveloped and perception so dull
and imagination so weak. I don't think all people can be taught to
understand, but I do believe that the eye can be trained and the
imagination led into paths which will make them revolt from ugliness,
and that is a tremendous step towards salvation. It seems to me that
'conditional immortality' is the only possible and plausible
doctrine. So much of humanity, whatever it looks like or however
cannily it has devised to exist, has not begun, and why have such a
respect for numbers? I should like to weed out acquaintances just as
I attack occasionally the linen closet--with fire, and have a chance
to breathe. It is all the unborn who sit around and choke the
atmosphere."
Kalakshinovka 1912.
"All the horror of the famine is being realized right now. I will not
write you about it for it is too terrible and heartbreaking--it is
the horses, camels, cows and sheep--worst of all the horses. I will
never forget yesterday as long as I live. I cried all day, I could
not sleep all night. It is simply horrible. I have never so much
realized the problem of existence as here. Everything is so foreign
and so striking, one is simply faced by the question of how to live
and to what end. What I feel more strongly than anything is that the
product of the best education and civilization should be good and
zealous--more near the saint--than that the masses should read or
write. I have faith enough that all will attain in the end if the
type that leads is worthwhile, but the type that leads is not."
Kalaskshinovka 1912.
"I have a whole little house now. The owner comes and cleans up; I
bolt my door and I have a place to keep provisions for almost 900
people. The whole thing is just as interesting as it can be. I went
not long ago to a village of Bashkirs to verify scorbutous and
typhoid--about 15 miles from here; it is strange how entirely
different they are. The Tartars seem the most settled and grown up
and independent, and the Little Russians have more traditions. The
Great Russians are more individual and less distinctive. You can't
imagine the nice feeling of riding right out over the steppes, no
fuss, no get up, with a purpose. The feeling that at the same time
with the wild freedom of it that one is accomplishing something and
working. I can't wait to see you. When I get my Tibi and start again
across the seas, I shall be even glad to see that awful Liberty
lady!"
Kalaskshinovka 1912.
"Your letter enclosing Pata's and the picture of Lutie was the reward
of a walk of six to seven miles with a ton of mud on each boot, a
night on the floor and a return at dawn on a rickety horse horseback.
Everything is flourishing here, plenty of occasion for meditation and
consideration. I enjoy tremendously the peasants' bath house. One can
climb higher and higher and lie on shelves in different stages of
heat. I got so steamed up I wanted at one moment to open the door and
just fly out into the field without a stitch. When I look out on the
plains here and then think of New York and the subway, my brain
simply stops. This is about as small and poor a village as exists,
yet there is a teacher and all the younger generation read and write,
and the Tartars are really wise owls. I have no more desire to go to
Persia. I am afraid that country is done for. I think Arizona is as
safe as anywhere if they don't irrigate. Still those mission teachers
are a pest. There is something fundamentally wrong with everything I
know!"
Hardly had this episode of the famine finished, that the Red Cross
sent units to Belgorod in the Ukrania where there was a great
concentration of pilgrims for the canonization of St. Josephat. The
Government once again set up feeding stations and hospital units to
take care of the sick and aged and all emergencies arising from the
concentration of many thousands of pilgrims. Once again Nelka was
there and it was of great interest to her.
During all of these absences Nelka kept her little dog Tibi either
with us in the country or with friends in Kasan, the Krapotkins. She
went to pick up Tibi in Kasan from where she wrote in 1913.
"I caught some horrible microbe just before I arrived and had a
terrible grippy cold which kept me in the house and in bed--but it is
over now. I feel rejuvenated 15 years and full of energy. I almost
believe it is climatic. The feeling is so different. Isn't it awful
about the priest being hung in Adrianople? I don't see how the whole
of Europe doesn't stand together to drive the Turks out of Christian
countries."
(This was written just before the start of the Balkan war.)
Nelka returned to St. Petersburg and made preparations to leave for
the Balkans. The Russian Red Cross was sending out units to the
Bulgarian Army. After returning from Kasan, Nelka stayed for a while
at my mother's place in the country. This was a time when I was
preparing for my entry examinations to the Lycee and she wrote about
that to her aunt, who was interested in everything pertaining to
education.
Writing from Poustinka (our country estate) in 1913:
"I am very much hopped up and stirred up and feel very full of life.
I had a very pleasant short stay in Kasan. Enjoyed seeing people very
much--so much youth I have not seen for ages--young people, young
officers, young marriages, and then such delightful old people. The
young officers were just simply waiting for mobilization. About war,
everything is most uncertain. Half the people say it will be
immediately, the other half that it will be avoided--no one can tell
anything. I am going to Adrianople Tuesday. Baroness Ixkull is there
with a large division and I think that just now there will be more to
do than ever. I go first to Sofia."
"Yesterday I went with Veta (my mother) and Max to town. We came back
in the evening and after dinner I had a most delicious sleep on the
sofa by the fire--Max waking me up every few minutes."
"This afternoon I had a fine nap and then gave Max an English
dictation. He is preparing for his examinations for the Lycee. Really
it seems a great deal. Besides all the usual subjects, he has to take
Grammar and Composition in Russian, Latin, German, French, and
English. Ancient History, European History and Russian History
separately, besides Religion. An awful lot, and all the other things.
None of the languages are optional and in two years he has to be
examined in the literature of each."
"He is such a nice boy, 15 years, so boyish and yet so developed and
such a lot of casual culture, just from association with cultured
people--and yet a real country boy, loving the affairs of the estate
and everything to do with the place, and full of fun and mischief. I
am all for education at home until the final years for boys, and
altogether for girls--I think it is more developing."
After this stay with us, she left for Sofia and the war.
Sofia 1913.
"General Tirtoff sent me a 'laisser passee' and a certificate so that
I can't be taken prisoner, and I expect to arrive to where we have
the tents in 2 or 3 days. General Tirtoff, under whose orders I am,
proposed yesterday to send me as head of a hospital which is now
stationed in Servia, but which has to be sent to Duratzo where there
has been a big battle. It will be a tremendous lot of transportation
and, though very interesting, I don't know if I should like it as
much as a small field hospital like Adrianople. Any way it all
depends on what happens at Adrianople."
Sofia 1912.
"I have just come from the Queen. She was ill and could not receive
me before. She was very, very nice--much nicer than I expected and
better looking than her pictures. It is now 3 A.M., and I am to get
up at six."