The Romanov Bride

Chapter 31 ELLA

All were surprised at how quickly we grew-all except me, for I had long sensed the need to reach out and knew how well we would be received. There was much suffering in Moscow and so many who needed our help, which my sisters gave with boundless joy and love. I had long felt that Moscow was the hope of Russia, and wealthy Muscovites, long wanting to help, opened up their hearts to us, giving of money and materials to a most generous extent. Yes, our success spawned more success, and was felt by all, for while my community was part of the old Russia, we belonged at the same time to the new Russia, with our new interests and new ideals, not to mention our young sisters, who were so full of energy and strength.

Such was the need that soon my obitel quickly grew to thirty sisters, and within three years’ time there were 97 of us serving in many obediences. Some were employed at the apothecary shop that provided free medicaments to the poor, others at our hospital that had an operating theater and twenty-two beds and which itself was served by thirty-four doctors who could be called at a moment’s notice, still others could be found in the kitchen, bakery, refectory, or the administrative office, and in many other areas as well. Each and every day we served over 300 meals to poor working mothers, and, too, there was my orphanage for girls. Also, I had recently established a home for beggar boys, where they were bathed and clothed and fed, and then apprenticed as messenger boys-these little chaps with red bands around their caps could be seen delivering letters all about town or standing outside Moscow’s best stores, taking parcels from fine ladies and delivering them to their homes. I was most proud of them and hoped so dearly for their bright futures. We taught them how to read and kept close attention to their development so as not to lose their souls.

In short, we grew tremendously, our operating theater became known as the best in the city, and every day my community was full of useful activity. I was determined that though I and my sisters had taken the veil, we would not be dead to the world, and in 1913 alone we saw almost 11,000 patients in our outpatient clinic, and more than 12,000 petitions came across my desk. I personally went over each and every petition, of course, and with my work at the hospital and elsewhere, not to mention prayers, I found not much time or need for sleep.

We had then at our hospital a most horridly burned cook, injured when an oil stove had spilt all over her. From head to foot nearly her entire body was covered with burns, and gangrene had set in by the time she reached us-that such a dire case was brought to us wasn’t surprising since we were often given the most hopeless cases. I knew that there were those who quietly said it might be better if the poor suffering woman passed from this world, but my reply to that was, “God willing, she will not die here.” So determined was I that I personally changed her bandages twice a day, which took well over two hours each time. Oh, the poor creature, she really was in such pain. The change of bandaging was hideously uncomfortable for her, and she cried out at the slightest touch, yet we dared not chloroform her, so close to death was she. Too, the stench of gangrene was unbearable for nearly all, so penetrating that after each session I had to remove my garments and have them aired.

I had just changed into fresh robes after one such session when Nun Varvara came to me, quietly saying, “Matushka, there is a woman from America to see you.”

“Ah, yes, that would be Mrs. Dorr, the journalist.”

“A woman working as a journalist?” asked Nun Varvara, unable to hide her surprise.

“Yes, and why not? She has written at length about woman’s suffrage all across America and Europe, and she has come to tell me about some model education plan in the American city of Gary.”

“I see. And how is our patient, the cook?”

“She suffers greatly, but I sense improvement already. Mark my words, we will be singing a Te Deum to her within a month’s time.”

“Slava bogu.” Thanks to God, said Nun Varvara, crossing herself.

A few minutes later I went to my parlor and found a woman standing there. Her dress was pale blue and her hair brown, and one couldn’t help sensing her determined but pleasant air. Admiring a bunch of my favorite flowers, white lilies, which were arranged in a vase, she stood near my desk, which was piled with papers.

Entering the bright room, in English I said, “I am so happy to find that I have time to meet you today, Mrs. Dorr.”

“Your Highness speaks English?” said the woman, turning to me, her eyes wide with astonishment. “I thought we might be conducting the interview in French.”

“Well, my mother was English, after all.”

“Forgive me, I had forgotten.”

Motioning her to sit, I added, “I welcome any opportunity to speak English, because if one is wholly Russian, as I am, and especially if one is Orthodox, one hears hardly anything except Russian or French. When I was a child I always spoke English to my mother, and German to my father, such were the ways of our household.” My furniture of English willow creaked loudly as we sat down, and I asked, “Tell me, what do you think of my convent?”

“It’s beautiful-the vines on the walls, the verbena along the paths. It’s all so warm and welcoming that I feel as if I’ve stepped back into the romantic thirteenth century.”

“That is just what I wanted my convent to be, one of those busy, useful medieval types. Such convents were wonderfully efficient aids to civilization in the Middle Ages, and I don’t think they should have been allowed to disappear. Russia needs them, certainly now more than ever-yes, we need the kind of convent that fills the space between the austere, enclosed orders and the life of the outside world. Here in my community we make a point of trying to understand what is happening around us. My sisters read the newspapers, we keep track of events, and we receive and consult with people in active life. We are Marys, but we are Marthas as well, and we are most hopeful of building up a strong, new Russia.”

Mrs. Dorr took out a small notebook and wrote something down, and said, “Well, things are looking quite well in your country. Of course, the entire world knows of your riotous and bloody events of a few years ago, and, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived last week.”

“As one of our noted politicians recently said, just ten more years of steady, hard work and Russia will be saved. You see, the Russian people are good and kind at heart, but they are mostly children-big, ignorant, impulsive children. If only they would realize they must obey their leaders-only then will we emerge into a wonderful nation. Everyone is trying so hard, and I pray daily for the Emperor.” The bells of our church chimed the hour softly, and I paused to cross myself. “Now tell me about those wonderful public schools of yours-I hear there is quite a model system being established in your city of Gary.”

“Yes, in Gary, Indiana, actually. What has begun there is something called the Gary Plan, or platoon schools, which is a system of dividing schools into separate platoons, so to speak, for more efficient use.”

The American plan for education was all most interesting, and for nearly three quarters of an hour I listened as this very able woman explained the plan for improving the lot of each and every child via stimulating education. The standard curriculums were being expanded upon, explained Mrs. Dorr, and schooling during the summer months had even been added. Most interestingly and strangely, educational services were even being made available to the adult worker, which I had never heard of before. As I listened I couldn’t help admiring what the Americans were doing-making education more natural and based upon the child, and more democratic too. Mrs. Dorr told me it was an exceedingly expensive program, but it had proved so popular that it was being accepted as far away as New York.

“ America is simply stupendous,” I finally exclaimed. “How I regret that I never went there. Of course, I never shall now. But, to be perfectly frank, to me the United States stands for order and efficiency of the best kind, the kind of order only a free people can create, the kind I pray may be built someday here in Russia. Truly, it is wonderful, and I can scarcely help envying you sinfully.”

“May I quote you, Your Highness?”

“Yes, by all means. Think of America-a great, young, hurrying nation that can still find time to study all these frightful problems of poverty and disease, and to grapple with them as well. I hope you will go on doing that, and still find more and more ways of helping children, you must never let go of that. Too, I am entranced by the way you are trying to bring education and beauty into the lives of your workers. After all, how can you expect workmen to have beauty in their souls if they toil all day in hot, hideous factories or on remote farms? The poverty of our peasants and the poor working conditions of our workers are for us a great, great problem that we must quickly resolve.”

We talked more about the Gary schools, which I was eager to see here in Russia, and about American women and their welfare work, especially for the tubercular and anemic. It was my belief, I remarked to my visitor, that if a country were to thrive, women would have to play a role equally important and equally prominent as that of men. I’d always had a special devotion to Jeanne d’Arc, I explained, and believed she had been inspired by God, just as so many other women had been called by God to do great things.

“In America,” said Mrs. Dorr, “we would say you are a good feminist-and to me that is the greatest compliment. I can’t tell you how much I admire your convent for its beauty and even more for the ease with which you are reaching out to those in need. Everyone seems so happy and content here.”

“I’m so glad that you like my little obitel,” I said as I rose to my feet. “Please come again and see all that I hope to accomplish in the years ahead. We have great plans to help a great many.”

“Thank you, Your Highness, I would love to return. Your convent is one of the brightest stars in the new Russia, and one that it can least afford to lose. I wish you all the best success.”

Yes, all that my lovely adopted homeland needed was a few more years of peace and hard work. We were so close. Our industries were flourishing, our scientists had become known throughout the world, and our crops were so bountiful that we had left our famine years behind and become Europe ’s bread-basket. Indeed, we were such a rich country, wealthy in oil and gold and diamonds, and finally we were on the verge of being able to exploit all of this for the good of the entire Motherland. Even our writers and painters and musicians-such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Repin and Kandinsky, Chaikovsky and Rachmaninoff-were becoming known around the world. If only we could keep moving forward, not leaving the poor behind but embracing them and bringing them along and raising them up.

Perhaps we didn’t even need ten years, perhaps only another five. In any case, we were never to find out because the peace and harmony that we so desperately needed was shattered by the outbreak in August, 1914, of that hideous war: the Great War. Within so short a time millions of our people were killed as war engulfed the whole of my beloved country, gushing over all like a waterfall of flame and leaving everyone, victor and vanquished alike, horribly maimed.