Nelka Part 6

"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 b.u.mps 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--b.a.l.l.s, dinners, the White House, the Emba.s.sies--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 b.u.mpy 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 b.u.mps 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 gla.s.s of tea and at night a gla.s.s 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, sc.r.a.pe 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 ma.s.ses 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 s...o...b..tous 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 st.i.tch. 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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.see' 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."

Nelka joined the division of sisters at Adrianople and took part in the fighting to take that city. This probably was much the most difficult and dangerous time she ever encountered. They were working in the very front lines, in the mud and dirt and under heavy sh.e.l.l fire. At one time when the sh.e.l.ls were falling both in front and behind their tents, and it was impossible to move the wounded, Nelka realized that perhaps she would not come out alive. She wrote several short goodbye notes, one of which was written to my mother, which I reproduce here. I am grateful to think that at that critical moment she remembered me.

Kara Youssouff. 29 February 1913.

"Dearest Veta: We are under fire--the projectiles are going over our heads, one just fell on the other side of our tents, and the ground is torn up before our eyes. Perhaps we may miraculously escape--if not, goodbye.

Perhaps some one may pick this up and send it. I send you much, much love--give my love to my friends in Petersburg, it is terrible for the poor wounded. Love to Max. Nelka."

Here is a letter from Aunt Susie Blow to Nelka in 1913:

"Nothing I can say suggests what I feel. The picture of you with those awful bombs bursting above you, before you, to right and left of you and the other picture of you plunging knee deep in mud and battling with mud and rain, as you made your way from tent to tent will never leave me. And what pictures of horror must move in ghastly procession in your mind. You have always wanted first hand experience. Now you have had such experience of famine, of war, of religious enthusiasm, of patriotic devotion. How will it all affect the necessary routine of life?"

Sofia 1913.

"I know I have written since the fall of Adrianople and I think I sent you a word from there. Did I tell you that the Consulate was in several places shattered by sh.e.l.ls? What I noticed the most was the air of proprietorship of the soldiers in the town and how one felt the immediate transformation of the Turkish town into a Bulgarian one."

Sofia 1913.

"I do not know what I think about the Turks. I only know that I abhor the 'Young Turks' (political party). In general I suppose they are more civilized than the Bulgars. I do not care for them as a nation, but I wish nevertheless that the war would continue until they get to the very door of Constantinople. About occupying the city itself I do not know, because it is so complicated. Of course I wish it might belong to one of the Balkan states and I simply can't endure the mixing in of 'powers.' Powers--by what I would like to know, except size and force alone. I wish they would fight it out and take Constantinople and be done with it and the whole Balkan peninsula as well. I hate threats and tyranny based on the power to destroy if they want. Either gobble it up or leave it alone, but not dictate!!!"

"It is very strange, but it seems to me that everything that makes for terrestrial power makes for spiritual defeat."

"I am crazy to go to Tchatalja but a definite attack does not seem imminent."

"I am well and, as result of feeding on air and no sleep, had to move the b.u.t.tons of my ap.r.o.n which had become tight. I can speak quite a little Bulgarian."