In the midst of all this, Nelka finally agreed to marry me. Perhaps the Revolution, the circumstances, the constant danger which we were all facing all of the time, helped her make her decision. But decide she did and so one day early in September 1918 we went to Tsarskoe Selo, an hour by train from Petrograd where an old aunt of mine lived. We were married in a church there with just a handful of friends in attendance. Nelka wore a white sister's uniform for her wedding dress. My old aunt who was very fond of Nelka took off a gold bracelet she wore and put it on Nelka's arm. Nelka never took it off throughout her life.
Some friends of ours let us use their empty apartment for our honeymoon. We had a 5 pound can of British bully beef and subsisted on that until it was used up. We then returned to Petrograd and moved into one room of a tiny flat where a Polish woman, Mrs. Kelpsh, lived who had worked in Nelka's hospital in Kovno. This was in a back yard of a small side street. She registered Nelka under her maiden name and me not at all. If seen, I was just supposed to be a boy-friend visiting.
However, things were getting more and more dangerous, and we had to invent something if we were to save ourselves.
Earlier, before our marriage, when things were not so bad and we were all seeking ways of getting out of Russia, I had applied for a foreign passport to go abroad. At first some people were being let out before the Bolsheviks clamped down on everybody.
Now, this application at the Foreign Office or Commissariat was a dangerous identity of myself and a disclosure, especially when I was being searched for because of my connection with the British Mission.
Nelka knew this situation and one day unknown to me she went to the Commissariat. There she very naively inquired about the application of Michael Moukhanoff. The girl looked up and brought out my file, looked it over and said that no decision had been made yet. Nelka then asked when one could hope to have an answer. The girl said she did not know but could go and find out. If Nelka would wait she would go and inquire. She left the room and Nelka then did a very desperate thing. She picked up the file from the table, walked quickly out of the room, down the corridor and then faster down the steps and into the street where she mixed into the crowd. A dangerous thing to do, but my file was gone, even though my position became that way only more illegal and perhaps even more dangerous. But Nelka as usual did the decided thing with courage and determination.
Like many others we were now trying to escape. Like always in such cases, there are people who for a price were getting people out of town and over the Finish border. It was very dangerous work for them—dangerous for the people trying to leave and also expensive. We established contact with one such person who turned out to be a very decent fellow, and he agreed to try and get us out. He had peasants along the border whom he knew and who were helping him. These he had to pay and quite highly for it was all dangerous work for them also. He warned us that he could not tell when he would be ready to move us and that we should be ready to go on a moment's notice. Therefore, we prepared what we thought we could take with us and waited.
In the meantime my father had succeeded to get some false papers through his Jewish friend in Moscow and with these he and my mother managed to get over the Finnish border into Finland by train. They were by now in Stockholm and getting ready to sail to America.
By this time also, Nelka and I were living in another house, in a closed apartment in a house where some very close friends of ours lived. Nelka was registered there under a false passport in the name of Emilia Sarapp. I was not known, unless as a boy friend.
The food situation had become absolutely desperate. There just was none. Some mornings I would go to the outskirts of the city where peasants would come in their sleighs selling milk. People fought to get a quart of this watery stuff.
We also had some frozen potatoes. When frozen, potatoes are pink and sweet and slimy. These we ate without butter or even salt which was not available. The watery milk sometimes helped. Once in a while we got a loaf of black bread with a mixture of straw. I saw people cut off chunks of meat from a dead horse lying in the street and carry it home for their dinner.
So we packed some clothes and valuables and waited. Before leaving, we wanted once more to see my old aunt in Tsarskoe and we went there to say goodbye. We spent the day with her and were returning to Petrograd before dark, for a curfew was sometimes imposed and it was not safe to be around in the dark.
As we were hurrying through the crowded station, someone slipped up to the side of Nelka. It was our friend from the house we lived in. She whispered to Nelka: "Do not return home. A raid took place and they have an ambush waiting for you." Having said that, she slipped away into the crowd.
Now we were in a desperate fix, and we knew it. The first thing was to get off the streets. We quickly thought it over and then called the apartment of some friends of mine, who we knew were not there, but where an old governess was still remaining. We just said we would come over. People understood and asked no questions. We went there, explained what had happened and spent the night.
We were in a critical situation. We had no money, except a little on hand, no belongings of any kind, except the clothes on us, and in greater danger of getting caught. So first of all, we went to the man who was to take us over the border and explained the situation. He especially understood how very dangerous it was particularly for me, with all the points which were against me. He said he had nothing arranged for the moment, except one possibility which was not too certain and not too safe. He had a peasant coming to see him that day and that he could send me with him, but not both, for this was not to sure a way. He suggested that we better accept this proposition that I be got out of the way at once and over the border and that with the next safer possibility he could move Nelka, I to be waiting just over the border. Nelka explained that we had no money but that she thought that she could get some from some one she knew. We all discussed the situation together for a while, but saw that there was not much choice. In the meantime, the peasant arrived and the man went to talk to him. Finally, it was decided that Nelka remain with our friends under the name of Emilia Sarapp and that I go with the peasant, and wait at the border.
It was all very bad. Finally we had to say goodbye, both realizing the danger but having little choice. It was quite a heartbreaking separation—I leaving into the unknown with a bandit looking individual, of whom we knew nothing, Nelka remaining in the city with the uncertainty of finding any money.
I will not go into the details of my trip, except to say that it was not easy nor safe, but I finally late that night reached the Finnish border and crossing the stream separating the two countries in the woods and deep snow, arrived at a small Finnish peasant hut.
I explained the situation to him and that I would like to stay with him for a few days until my wife could join me. He readily agreed for he knew and participated in this business of people escaping and was receiving a number of them at all times. He was also engaged in contraband dealings and a number of his agents kept coming and going through his hut, moving goods over the border. I had just a little money and arranged to have him keep me. I gave a note to the peasant who brought me over and he promised to get it to Nelka when he returned to Petrograd. Then I waited. Practically every night people came over the border and most of them stopped at the hut. It was quite an active spot. One or two of the parties who were all coming through the services of the same man, brought me notes from Nelka. Once or twice I crossed the border back into Russia and went about five miles to the nearest village hoping that perhaps Nelka was coming through with the next party as she wrote she hoped to. This perhaps was dangerous and risky on my part, but nervousness just kept me from sitting still.
Then the unforeseen happened. At that time the Finnish people were having a revolution of their own. There were Red Finns and White Finns fighting each other all over the country. The front was fluid with small units moving back and forth, here and there, occupying this or that area or this or that village. There is where misfortune struck me. A Red Finnish patrol took possession of the area and I was caught by the Red patrol.
This has nothing to do with this story I am now writing about Nelka, so I will not go into this complicated and lengthy matter of how I managed to escape from the Finnish Reds. This is a long story. Suffice it to say, that I managed to get away.
But it was not possible any more for me to remain on Finnish ground and I crossed in the night back into Russia. Having no money I was obliged to walk and walked about 30 miles to Petrograd. I finally made it, but I did not know where to look for Nelka so I went to our man. He told me that Nelka was to come and see him that morning at about eleven, and so I waited. Nelka arrived on time. When she saw me she went into an absolute fury, for my having come back. I always said that she was in such a fury with me that for about 48 hours I never even had a chance to try to tell her why I was back.
Finally I got it over to her, and while we were happy to be together again, our position was just as desperate, if not worse, and we were back where we had started. We knew that we better do something fast. However, while Nelka had managed to get some money, there was not enough to pay the man to get us over.
So I made a suggestion. In as much as I had crossed the border twice and knew the way pretty well, I suggested that we go on our own without any guide or assistance. We explained this to our man who was very nice about it and said that if we wanted to take the risk it was up to us.
However, there was little choice so we decided. We paid him for my first trip and had a little money left. Through some black market dealer we managed to get a loaf of black bread and with nothing else but the clothes on our backs, we started out. Nelka wore a sisters uniform black dress, a heavy cloth coat, a fur cap and black leather high boots—like riding boots. I wore a military field uniform without insignia, like most of all the population wore at that time. While adequate, none of this was too warm for long stays in the cold, but we had nothing else. It was the end of December.
Early in the morning we took a train in the direction of the Finnish border. Trains ran as far as the border, but we got off two stations earlier, at the same one I used the first time. From that station we proceeded on foot down a country road towards a village I knew some five miles away. We reached there in the early afternoon and stopped at a hut where I also had been on my first trip. The peasant woman gave us some soup and we were resting and warming up, when suddenly a bunch of red soldiers entered the yard. The woman whisked us quickly into an empty room in the back of the house and told us to remain quiet. We could hear the men come in and ask her if she had seen any refugees around. (It is to be noted that there were constantly people trying to escape all along the border and the Reds were always searching them out. At one time as many as 100 to 150 were getting over the border daily. All along the border within five miles people were shot on sight.)
We heard the woman say she had seen no one. One of the men asked about her house and asked what was in that room, meaning the one we were in. The woman answered, "Oh, I keep my chicken there." The men did not insist and left. It was a close call. After the men left, the woman suggested that we better leave too, for it was too risky for her to have us there. We got by once, but it might not happen again so we also decided that we better leave. The soldiers had gone in the direction of the station, and, as we were to continue further, we got out on to the road and started for the next village, a distance of nearly seven miles through the woods. I also knew that village and some of the peasants. From there the path through the woods led to the Finnish border, some five miles away.
It was getting late and was not a good time to be out at dark for at night the Reds put out patrols. I hoped however to reach the village before nightfall and so we hurried along. The road was well rolled down—the going was not hard and we made good time.
It was just getting dark but a moon was coming up when we reached the village. The first hut was the one I had been to before and I knew the peasants there, who were some of the peasants working for our man. We entered and a woman rushed up to us crying and urging us to get out. She was weeping and finally managed to explain that her husband had just been arrested by the Reds and taken away on suspicion that he was helping the refugees. She practically pushed us out of the house.
So here we were, out on the road facing a dilemma. Any moment now the night Red patrol would be out on the road. Another one would be out at the village we came from. Before us lay the path towards the Finnish border, but it crossed a wide field before entering the woods. I knew the way well but with the full moon out you could see a great distance, like in the day, on the bright snow and I was afraid to be spotted crossing that field.
I told Nelka I was afraid to risk this trip towards the border as it was so light. But we had little choice, for the patrols would be out any minute now and we could not remain on the road. With no other choice left we retreated into the woods, off the road and settled under some thick pine trees for the night, right in the snow. It was Xmas eve.
We survived the night and even slept a little. It was also evident that Nelka was developing some kind of flu and was running a temperature. I used to joke that she melted the snow around us because of that. Luckily there was no wind. The snow was deep and we dug out a hollow. The temperature was probably about ten or fifteen above. Remember we had no covers—just our clothes. We ate some of our remaining black bread. We were tired from so much walking and so we slept.
By morning it was obvious that Nelka was ill and had a temperature. We had to act quick and invent something, so we went back to the village and I entered the same hut again. The woman had quieted down and did not push us out. We also found there another couple who turned out to be an officer with his wife trying to get out as we did, so we decided to stick together. The woman suggested that we go by sleigh to the next village and try to cross from there. So we hired a sleigh and started out—this time the four of us with the driver. It was now fairly safe to move along the roads by day with the night patrols off.
We drove to the next village about ten miles away. When we came to the village, our driver said he wanted to stop at the tavern which was located at the entrance to the village. He went in while we waited in the sleigh. When he came out a soldier followed him onto the porch. He looked at us suspiciously and then asked the peasant where we were coming from. The peasant named a village to the east. The soldier then suddenly said: "Why your horse is turned the wrong way, wait a minute," and he stepped back into the tavern.
Our driver whipped up his horse and we went down the road as fast as we could. Looking back we saw several soldiers run out on the porch. One of them lifted his rifle and a shot came over us, but we were well on our way. They had no horses available to follow us so did not pursue and we got away. After a ride of some two miles, we turned sharply to the left and down a narrow lane into the woods. Here the peasant stopped and said the border was only about two miles away and that he would lead us for so much. We agreed. He hid his sleigh and horse in an empty barn and we started out. Soon the lane ended and we were in thick woods. The snow was waste deep and with the fallen logs, the going was extremely difficult. We had to haul the women over the logs and pull them out of the deep snow. Both the women and especially Nelka who was ill, were completely exhausted. It was a painful procession. Finally we came to a clearing in the woods and the peasant turning around, said very calmly, "This is Finland." A very strange feeling of elation and apprehension and a strange feeling of leaving in such a manner one's native land.
We were now not at all sure what kind of Finns we would encounter, but soon we saw two Finnish soldiers and much to my relief I recognized them as being White Finns. They stopped us and then took us to the village to their officer. A young lieutenant was sitting at a table in a small hut. We reported to him and when I mentioned that I was an officer and named my regiment, he rose and saluted. The Finns were very decent and helpful in every way. Despite their own difficulties, they extended help to the numerous refugees coming over, established receiving camps and medical units for the sick. We were taken by sleigh to Terrioky. Nelka as having temperature was taken to the hospital and I to the camp. As soon as possible we communicated with our friends the Wredes in Helsingfors and they immediately took steps to get us out of camp and into their own home. So in a few days we were on our way to Helsingfors where we received the warmest hospitality from the Wredes and remained with them for about six weeks.
We then proceeded by way of Stockholm and Oslo to the United States sailing on the Stavangerfiord for New York early in February of 1919.
Upon our arrival in America we went to Washington where we stayed with Nelka's Aunt and Uncle. Later in the spring we went to Cazenovia to the little house which Nelka's Aunt Susie had left her and spent finally a restful and quiet summer, which was our honeymoon time. We were also regaining our health, which had suffered from the starvation period. Nelka put on some forty pounds and I came back to normal after having been bloated from hunger, like some starved Hindu child.
However, we soon felt that this easy and restful life was not right morally. The Bolsheviks were still in power, wrecking Russia and a civil war was raging between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians: We decided that it was our duty to go back and help. So I went to Washington and offered my services at the Russian mission to join one of the volunteer armies. We first planned to go to Siberia but then decided we would join the army of General Denikin in the South of Russia, and I was given an assignment there.
Before sailing for Europe we went to New Orleans to visit Nelka's cousin and then sailed from there for Liverpool, and then to London and Paris. Once in Paris we were advised that things were not going well in the south with the army of General Denikin and that we better wait before going on. So we stayed in France and I joined the French airplane factory of Louis Breguet near Paris where I worked for about 8 months. Then things got better in the Southern Army and we once again decided to go on to the Army reorganized now by General Wrangel.
Just at that time the Breguet factory received an order for night bombers for the Russian Army and it was arranged that I escort that shipment to the Crimea. So once again I put on the uniform of a Russian lieutenant, Nelka put on the uniform of a Russian Red Cross nurse and we set out.
The planes were boxed and sent to Marseilles where they were loaded on a French freighter, the Saint Basil, and we left for Constantinople. As the planes were bulky but light, the boat was light and high in the water. Because of that the propeller was but halfway in the water and our progress was very slow. It took us 17 days to get to Constantinople. Hardly had we dropped anchor in the Bosphorus as a launch drew up and a French officer came aboard and asked who was in charge of the shipment. He informed me that we could not proceed any further because news had just been received that the Army of General Wrangel had started the evacuation of the Crimea.
So we had to go ashore. The planes, having come from France, were unloaded and left with the French Army of occupation. So, came to an end our trip and our efforts to join the White Russian Army. We landed in Constantinople and in the next few days the evacuated Army of Wrangel started to arrive. Over 140,000 people arrived including the remnants of the army and between 6 and 7 thousand wounded. The plight of these people was terrible. While the wounded were landed and taken care of by the American and British Red Cross, most of the rest were not allowed ashore and were kept on board the ships in the harbour. One boat had 12,000 people aboard.
The day after we had arrived, I accidentally met in the street Robert Imbrie, whom I had known when he was American Consul in Petrograd. It turned out that he also had just arrived and like ourselves was also on his way to the Crimea, appointed from the State Department. He asked me what I was going to do and I explained that probably for the moment we would return to France. He said that he was waiting for instructions from Washington to know what to do. Next day he contacted me saying that he was assigned to form a Russian Section at the American Embassy in Constantinople and offered me a job to work with him. I gladly accepted and so we stayed in Constantinople for the next 8 months.
It was a very interesting period. My work was varied. I acted asinterpreter at the American Embassy with the Russians and with theFrench. Nelka joined the organization of the French Admiral's wife,Madame Dumesnil, doing refugee relief work.
It was an interesting and exhilarating time in Constantinople. We saw and knew a number of very interesting people. We saw unusual situations and we were both very busy.
Mr. Imbrie, with whom I worked, had as his assignment to undertake inspection tours. For this he often used the American destroyers which were anchored in the Bosphorus. Thus, we went to Gallipoli, to Lemnos, to Salonica, etc.
On a certain day we took off for Varna in Bulgaria and from there toBatum in the Caucasus.
Nelka remained in Constantinople and had with her a little companion, a dog Djedda. Djedda influenced a great deal of our future existence, and as you will see there was quite a story attached to this little dog.
One day we were visiting the bazaar of Constantinople, a colorful, typical oriental spot, crowded and noisy, with oriental smells and sounds. In one of the passages we came across a small, brown dog, which was running around frightened and miserable. We spoke to her and, while she was timid, she was friendly and came to us. We decided to pick her up and that we could give her to the little daughter of the man in whose house we had a room. The little girl Offy was living with her father who had recently lost his wife and we thought that the little dog would fit in nicely as a playmate for the little girl. Offy was very pleased and we showed her how to take care of the dog. The first thing to do was to wash the dog and get some of the grime off. When this was done we were surprised to find out that she was white not brown, the size of a small fox terrier, with lovely eyes and a vivacious disposition. So all was well for the dog, for Offy and for us—at least for the moment. A few days later Offy announced that the dog seemed ill. We examined her and found that she was running a temperature, would not move and certainly was not well. We arranged her in a small box and took her to our room for she needed better care than the little girl could give her. As she did not improve, we took her to the veterinary and he found that she was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism of the joints. He gave her some medicine and told us to keep her quiet. This was not difficult to do for she was very ill and did not move. In this critical condition she must have stayed for about two weeks, possibly more. Then she began to show some signs of recovery, but even this was very gradual. Gradually she began to regain strength and finally we tried to have her get out of her box and walk about. When we tried this, we found to our surprise that she could not stand up and we discovered that her two front legs had stiffened in the joints, which would not move. Those joints had actually grown together and the dog would never be able to move them again. However, with time Djedda adapted herself wonderfully to this situation and learned to hobble about just on her hind legs supporting herself by holding her left front leg against her hip. The right front leg was bent up below her chin against her chest. Naturally in that condition the dog could not remain with the little girl so she stayed with us. And despite her crippled condition, Djedda was a most wonderful and lovable dog. She adapted herself so well that she could even go up the steps.
Like all invalids, Djedda adapted herself wonderfully and was quite proficient in her movements, though she always remained a cripple. The only thing she could not do was come down the stairs. So, if she found herself at the head of the stairs, she would start barking until someone came to carry her down. She was a very wonderful pet to us for about 12 years. This poor little cripple was the most gay and joyful little dog, a wonderful and devoted companion and we never regretted for a moment having had the good luck of finding her. She gave us a great deal of joy and comfort.
So when I left with Imbrie for Batum, Nelka remained with Djedda. When leaving I told Nelka that I was to be back a certain Monday. Well, things did not go exactly on schedule. When we got to Batum, we found that the city, which was occupied by the Turks, was being besieged by the Georgians. We went ashore, looked the situation over and saw that it was not good. We remained anchored in the harbor. The next morning the Georgians attacked and hot fighting resulted. Most of it was with small arms only, but when the bullets begun to spatter against our destroyer, the captain decided that we better get out, which we did, and we steamed back to Constantinople. With this delay, we were off schedule and instead of arriving on Monday it was Wednesday. When I returned home I found that Nelka was gone, with a note left for me. The note said that as I had not returned on Monday and as news had reached Constantinople that heavy fighting was on in Batum, that she was leaving to look for me. I was furious, because it was so utterly useless.
Upon inquiry I found that she had boarded a small Italian freighter plying the cost of Asiatic Turkey. The boat named San Georgio had left on Tuesday and had no wireless. The boat's company explained that she was due back in about three weeks.
I went to explain the situation to Admiral Bristol at the American Embassy. He said that he knew about Nelka having gone, for while disapproving of it and advising her against it, he had helped her get the Interallied visas which were necessary to be able to leave the city. Normally it took about a week to get these visas, British, French, Italian and United States. Nelka got them in 3 hours.
While the Embassy reassured her and told her there was nothing to worry about, her main objective of getting on a boat was to try to communicate with me on the destroyer by wireless. It later developed that, after she had left on the San Georgio and they were out at sea, then only did she discover that the boat carried no wireless. Therefore her main objective of communicating with me was not possible but this she discovered too late.
She had booked passage first class and upon arriving found out that that entitled her to a chair in the salon. Others sat on the deck on the floor. The decks were crowded with Turkish men who were traveling from one small port to the next along the east. Each night they brought out their small prayer rugs and turning towards the setting sun, prayed kneeling in rows on deck.
Once aboard, Nelka also found out that first class tickets did not include meals. Having very little money with her, she found that she was not able to afford to buy much. She had a bag of apples with her. Not having anyone to leave Djedda with, Nelka took her along and carried her under her arm all the time. While they did not feed Nelka, the steward was very kind and Djedda was fed. And so they traveled.
I, in the meantime, was desperately trying to find a way to contact Nelka on the San Georgio. The admiral and the Embassy were very cooperative and the admiral issued orders to all the destroyers to keep an eye for the San Georgio and intercept her if spotted.
Having traveled most of the length of the southern coast of the Black Sea, the Italian captain announced that he was going into Batum. Batum in the meantime had been occupied by the Bolshevik forces and therefore Nelka's position became very precarious. She argued with the captain but he said he had a cargo to pick up and that he was going in. The first thing Nelka did was to hide her identification papers, her passport and visas. Better to have nothing than to be found out as a White Russian. She remained in the cabin while in Batum. On the second morning a bunch of Bolshevik soldiers arrived and announced that they were going to search the ship. This was a very dangerous situation for Nelka. However after a while, and while they had been half through the boat, another party arrived and started an argument with the first bunch as to who had the right to make this search. They pretty nearly came to blows in this argument, but finally still arguing all left without finishing the search. This was a close call for Nelka. Next morning the San Georgio pulled out on her way back to Constantinople. She was grateful, but by now was becoming pretty hungry and what food she managed to get was very scarce.
A few days later, just as they were pulling into Samsun, the American destroyer John D. Edwards spotted the San Georgio, hailed her and inquired about Nelka. When told that she was aboard, they lowered a boat and came to fetch her, and took her and the dog aboard upon specific orders from Admiral Bristol. The commanding officer, Captain Sharp was most helpful and kind. He gave Nelka his cabin and, also as she had run out of everything, offered her his underclothes. Two sailors were assigned to take care of Djedda.
They steamed back towards Constantinople, but had to delay the return for they had to go out to sea for gunnery practice. Thus, Nelka must have remained on the destroyer for four or five days before returning. This was a very harrowing and needless expedition which could have very easily ended in a tragic manner.
By summer the work of the Russian section of the Embassy was coming to an end. My chief, Mr. Imbrie, received a new assignment to go to Rumania, and we decided to return to France. The Embassy hearing this, offered to give us a permit to travel to Marseilles on an American Shipping Board vessel, which normally did not carry passengers. They advised that it would be convenient for us and inexpensive, the rate being only $5 per day for each of us, for a trip of about five days.
We accepted with pleasure. It was also convenient for the transportation of our animals, for by this time, in addition to Djedda we had a small black dog and two young cats. One, Nuri, was a small kitten which I picked up out of the gutter where it was nearly drowned in the rain. That was a very wonderful cat who lived with us for 18 years.
Late one evening we boarded the Lake Farley. The captain assigned to us our cabin and we were underway. It was late July and when we entered the cabin we found that the temperature must have been well over a hundred. It was so hot that the floor was too hot for the cats to walk on and they kept jumping back and forth from one bunk to the other. The dogs we had left on deck.
So we went to the Captain and complained about the heat. He said he was sorry he had nothing better but that the whole boat was at our disposal and we could arrange ourselves wherever we wished. So after looking everything over, we finally decided to sleep on top of the chartroom. We climbed up there with a couple of blankets and settled for the night under the stars. This was not bad but only the sparks from the funnel kept raining down on us most of the time. But we got used to this and stayed that way most of the trip. The captain was American as well as the mate but the crew was of all nationalities, the cook being a Turk. However it did not look as though the trip would last only five days as the boat was very slow. We stopped on our way at Biserta on the African coast and had a day ashore. The day after we left Biserta at lunch time, I smelled smoke, so I told Nelka I would go and investigate. The moment I came out on deck the alarm bells started off and I saw the middle of the ship aflame.
While I went on deck, Nelka had gone to our cabin, and when she entered she also heard the alarm. So picking up the two cats and a life belt, she hurried on deck. I likewise picked up the two dogs and a life belt.
The captain was hollering from the bridge to lower the boats as the ship would blow up because of the oil. In a few minutes one of the boats was already bobbing on the water and the cook in his white cap was in it. However, all who were available were fighting the fire, mostly with sand and finally we got it under control. All was fine, only the fire did some damage in the engine room and for more than a day we drifted while they were making repairs.
Then we resumed our way to Barcelona where we were to unload some of the wheat we were carrying. When we got there the Spanish authorities would not allow us to go ashore for, as we were Russians, they decided that we may be communists. So they even posted a policeman to see that we would not sneak off. This might not have been so bad, but in the unloading a mistake was made. The forward hull was emptied and as a result the ship sank by the stern and got stuck in the mud bottom. It took us a whole week to extricate ourselves and all that time we had to just sit on that boat.
By the time we finally got to Marseille we had been traveling for three weeks.
We settled in Menton where we remained for several years. I worked in a French Real Estate office. We also played at Monte Carlo and were quite proficient. Nelka used to say that this was the only honest and "above board" business.
In the summer of 1927 we received the news that Nelka's Uncle Herbert Wadsworth had died suddenly from a heart attack. Once again Nelka had a severe blow and sorrow and once more she had lost a close person without having seen him. That fall we finally sailed for America with our friends Count and Countess Pushkin. We all settled in Cazenovia where Count Pushkin and I started a furniture carving business which we kept up for about three years, until the start of the depression.
While living on the Riviera our animal family had grown to 8 dogs and 5 cats, all picked up or abandoned. The little crippled Djedda was still with us and the most cherished of our pets. We brought the whole menagerie with us to America.
In 1930 when the depression was well under way, we once again sailed back to France and this time were there for three years—part of the time in the South and part near Paris. My father died at that time and in 1934 we returned to America.
On arrival, we went directly to Ashantee to visit Nelka's Aunt Martha, who had been quite ill for sometime after a car accident. We arrived on a Saturday. The next Tuesday Aunt Martha died. This was again a terrible shock for Nelka. Once again death had struck suddenly and this time her last close relative was gone. Both Aunt Susie and Uncle Herbert had died without Nelka being with them and now Aunt Martha dies only three days after we had returned.
Aunt Martha left Ashantee to Nelka and her cousin Lutie Van Horn. So unexpectedly we found ourselves here and remained. At first we thought that we would sell the property but the depression was on and it was not possible to do so.
Thus we stayed and stayed. I did some farming and we still had the remnants of her aunt's horse business, but these were difficult years for us.
I think that while this prolonged stay might have been difficult and materially complicated, this time was not wasted, as Nelka pointed out, from a moral point of view. It was a time of consolidation of our points of view, of our beliefs and conceptions.
And so we stayed here from 1934 until today, and until Nelka passed away in December 1963—a long stay of close to thirty years.
Nelka had had a very varied, very diversified and unusual life. A life which was one of highly emotional feelings. I think characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expression of loyalty and devotion, an emotion, which dominated most of her life and all of her actions.
Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotion rather than by reason, but once decided upon she carried out her actions with great determination and great will power.
Her first overwhelming emotional feeling was a patriotic nationalistic feeling for Russia, and a mystic devotion to the person of the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Then her next emotional feeling was the attachment and deep loyalty for her family and her kin.
But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was American. Because of that there seemed always to be a conflict of feelings, attachments and loyalties, a conflict which dominated a great part of her life, at least the first part of it. I think in many respects this conflict of feelings was upsetting and painful and she suffered a great deal from the frustrations that these feelings often brought about.
Because of these conflicting feelings and attachments Nelka was restless and went back and forth between Europe and America always seeking a solution and a way of life. I think these conflicting feelings and the deep attachment to her family were the main reasons why for so long she had not married. She just was afraid to create or add a new attachment.
Pretty, with a lovely figure, always very feminine, with a brilliant mind and a sparkling personality, a great sense of humor, broad and diversified education, an understanding of art and good taste, cosmopolitan in her experiences and speaking four languages—Nelka had tremendous success both with men and with women.
The friends she had were always deeply devoted friends who kept their friendship through years or through life and were always under the spell of her personality.
Her overwhelming personality and charm naturally attracted men and about thirty men of every nationality had at one time or another asked her in marriage. When she was twenty-two, during her four months visit in Bulgaria, five men proposed to her.
But she never agreed, first because just marriage for the sake of marriage had no attraction for her, and because of her emotional attachments she was afraid to create a new one. She also once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and overwhelming feeling, and that she had not yet found.
Throughout these years and because of these conflicting feelings, I think she was disturbed and in many ways not happy. There was too much conflict of feelings. Also her philosophically inclined mind was always searching and seeking—searching a religious understanding of life, always questioning the reasons for this or that problem of life. Her Aunt Susan Blow, who was a great student of philosophy, contributed much in a way to Nelka's emotional seekings. But how often in later years Nelka lamented the fact that she had not utilized fully the wisdom and the knowledge that her aunt could have given her in her philosophical understandings. Nelka was seeking by herself, trying to unravel the questions which bothered her through her own thinking.
But from a rational point of view some of her feelings and emotions were very devastating for her own existence and her own serenity. And her deep attachment to the family was also a source of pain and suffering because of its acuteness. There was not much family left but for those who remained, Nelka gave a full measure of love and devotion. The loss of those close to her were blows which did not heal easily and caused deep pain. The death of her little dog Tibi likewise gave a nearly exaggerated frustration and grief. Just like everything else in her life, Nelka's grief was complete. She in everything understood and accepted only completeness. Nothing in her life meant anything if it was only partial. She could never settle for 50%, always seeking totality, only completeness, and this of course is a tremendous strain on one's person. That strain I think showed itself in Nelka for many years of her life and only towards the later part of it she seemed to acquire some stability of feeling and emotional impulse. There was a reason for that of which I will speak later.
A friend of hers once said about her, "She was a tremendous personality and such force."
Like all humans she had her weaknesses, but these weaknesses were in a way her force, for by sheer will power, by determination or by uncompromising dedication, she was able to control or overcome her weaknesses. Not many are able to do that.
She had many friends in all walks of life and in different countries of many nationalities, but always the reaction was the same—a complete spell of attraction and fascination and generally a long lasting friendship—which once established, was never broken. And that because of that tremendous personality.
Around 1885 lived a young Russian girl, Marie Bashkirtzeff. She wrote some prose and poetry and did some painting. She lived and died very young from TB on the French Riviera in Nice. Not particularly pretty, nor particularly striking, she had nevertheless a tremendous personality. In fact so striking that the city of Nice after her death created a Museum Bashkirtzeff where were kept her paintings, her writings and her personal things. The French author Francois Coppee said of Marie Bashkirtzeff: "Je l'ai vue une fois, je l'ai vue une heure, je ne l'oublirais jamais." (I saw her once, I saw her one hour—I shall forget her never.)
I think as far as personality is concerned, this applied likewise to Nelka. As I said before, I saw her for the first time when I was but seven years old. The impression I got then never left me throughout my life and only grew and developed with time and age.
We were married for 45 years and my love and devotion to her date back from that encounter at seven. In other words a span of 60 years—a lifetime. A lifetime during which everything was centered around this one person.
I think one can say that she had been both very happy and very unhappy in her life, at least this was the balance of her feelings during the first half of her life. During that period she experienced great happiness in her relationship with her mother and with other members of her family, in the devotion and loyalty she had to them. She also experienced happiness in her endeavors in her school work, in her interests in life and for life. The happiness she may have derived from the realization of things well done and accomplished.
But also there was great, overwhelming unhappiness and sorrow, because of the unusually hard way in which she accepted the loss of those who were close to her. Few probably felt such losses as acutely as she did and this caused pain and anguish. Then there also was unhappiness in the contradiction and the division of feelings, between two countries, two backgrounds, two ideologies, two attachments. This constant division brought with it many heartaches, many disappointments.
And then the second half of her life was the one she passed with me. I can only hope that I may have given her at least a measure of the happiness which she so much deserved. Again there were disappointments, frustrations and heartaches as there are in every life and existence. But gradually, with age she seemed to acquire a greater calm in her feelings, she seemed to mellow in her intensity, she seemed to find greater reconciliation within her own beliefs and thoughts and find a greater calm of the soul and a greater satisfaction in her beliefs than she had before that.
She always felt that the turning point in her life, as well as in mine, started from the time we were in Constantinople and when we saw a distant aunt of mine, Princess Gorchakoff.
She was a student of Theosophy and also seemed to have the calm and serenity which comes from the study of that philosophy. Undoubtedly she had a good deal of influence on Nelka and started us on a new way of thinking. Out of this encounter developed gradually all the changes of beliefs and attitudes which brought about such a fundamental and radical change in all the outlooks which Nelka had held hitherto and which she was now discarding.
I think I can say that towards the end she had acquired great moral calm, satisfaction and serenity. She was not perplexed or afraid of the uncertainties of one's beliefs, of the imminence of death or of the questions of the hereafter.
Doubt, uncertainty, perplexity and an unresolved search seemed to have been supplanted by a feeling of calm and confidence. A great thing for anyone to have and to be able to have the moral fortitude to face such a change and to accept it graciously.
And the change was radical and complete in every phase of her life:
From a framework of an organized Church, the change to a live internal belief in the teachings of Christ and an effort to carry this out in the aspects of everyday living, in reality of application and not in dogma.
From a conservative, ultra conservative aristocratic, nearly feudal system of absolute monarchy, an understanding that this had become obsolete and had no value except perhaps in it purely external beauty—to a realistic approach of a form of Christian socialism and the brotherhood not only of man but of all living creatures.
From an accepted habit of meat eating to complete ethical vegetarianism as a regard to the sanctity of all life. A complete Reverence of Life.
From an intolerance towards the beliefs of others to a complete understanding of the others point of view. A tolerance towards others, accepting from them only as much as the given person can understand in the given time and his mental and moral development, and no more. But at the same time expecting to see that person exercise in practice the full measure of that understanding and belief.
From a pride and satisfaction at her aristocratic origin, an admission that this had no value and that the only thing that counted was the "aristocracy of the spirit."
From a worry of having to put a new fur collar on her winter coat to a refusal to wear any fur as being the product of animal slaughter or the product of the trap, producing protracted agony to the animals.
From a lack of understanding, if not indifference, to animals and dogs in particular, an intense devotion, love and work for all animals and for dogs in particular.
From an interest and participation in medicine, a complete reversal in her attitude towards it because of the vivisectional basis of most of it. As a result, an ardent and militant anti-vivisectionist.
A complete change all along the line.
Despite an often tragic look on life and a serious questioning of its purposes, despite a great deal of sorrow which she always felt very deeply, despite an often sad expression on her face in her photographs, Nelka had a great deal of natural gaiety and a tremendous sense of humor. She was always ready to see the funny qualities of people or the funny side of events and could laugh with a great deal of abandon.
Despite her strong Russian nationalism, Nelka was fundamentally cosmopolitan. Having had a diversified education in various countries, speaking four languages and having traveled extensively through many countries, she had a cosmopolitan mind and outlook and was perfectly at home in any country and with any nationality, in any surrounding.
Nelka's mind was always a very philosophical mind and which was never at rest. I have never known anyone who did so much constant thinking. She was always thinking, her mind never idle, always trying to "think things out." Many people are ready or willing to just "accept." Nelka was never ready to just "accept." She would accept only after she had thought it out and could accept it as a result of her own thinking.
Perhaps the most striking change in her outlook and belief was the question of war. She had been a strong militarist; that is, that she understood and justified and accepted war. In fact she considered that this was the only right attitude that one could have and that the willingness to go to war for an idea or a principle could not be questioned. Thus, she had participated in three Wars.
But then later, having seen all the horrors of war, its utter futility, absurdity and uselessness and most of all its immorality and its contradictions to the principles of the teachings of Christ, she became an uncompromising and militant pacifist.
Very characteristic of Nelka was her attitude towards all action and activities motivated for a principle. She was never worried or seeking results. She always said that one should do the right thing as one understood it and not worry about the results, those will take care of themselves. If you did the right thing, the result was bound to come, but should not be the goal in itself—the goal only being to try to do the maximum according to one's understanding. A very admirable conception but one which it is not easy to accept by most who only seek results and often with means which might not be the right ones. The concept that the end justifies the means was certainly the absolute opposite of what she was either seeking or believing.
It took courage to advocate such beliefs and even perhaps more courage to be able to turn around and so fundamentally change the beliefs from the ones held to the ones now accepted. But the concept of accepting only that which one understands at the given time, applied just as much to the beliefs first held as to the ones ultimately accepted.
Nelka was never afraid physically, but she was also never afraid morally.
I think after our marriage and also the circumstances of the Revolution Nelka lost some of her restlessness. Marriage for better or worse was an achievement and carried with it an obligation and a purpose. She took the acceptance of marriage as a completeness and a fusion of two persons into one. This in itself was an anchor which held back the former restlessness.
Also the Russia she loved so was gone as a practical and possible entity and only a memory of a past devotion remained. Therefore, both marriage and the Revolution brought about a stabilization of feelings and a concentration as well. There was less possible diversion and this brought a mental calm and satisfaction. There was less searching or even the necessity for it.
Her loyalty to the principles of marriage was complete like everything else in her life to which she never gave less than completeness. She always was looking for one hundred percent and nothing less would do.
In later years of her life and after our marriage, Nelka settled much more mentally and morally and seemed to find many of the answers she had so long been seeking. And this, not because of the external differences of life or the establishment of a marital status, but rather as the result of certain new currents of thought which came as a result of the study of Theosophy and the wisdom of the East.
While I cannot claim any personal influence which I may have contributed, there certainly was no divergence and thus no upsetting uncertainties. I think we were blessed in that way that we helped each other and followed largely the same path of mental analysis hand in hand.
I feel and consider that I was exceptionally privileged in my life to have had such a mate, such a guide, such a helper, such a companion.
She never married before because she had not found the completeness of feeling. I am grateful and happy to think that she found that completeness with me, which I hope I was able to give her at least in a measure.
She gave me the complete devotion and love which she did for a very happy existence and complete understanding between us for 45 years. I, at least, understood what a very extraordinary person she was and what a blessing had been bestowed on me for having had her for my own.
Nelka—a unique name for a unique person.