CHAPTER VIII
Death of Dr. Schmidt opens doors for hosts of office-seekers and for Marie’s opponents—Hostilities of latter nullified by her methods, and by her continued professional success with patients and with both men and women students—After six months’ struggle with unabated animosities and intrigue, she resigns her position in the hospital. (Twenty-three years of age: 1852.)
I left Dr. Schmidt’s house, and entered alone into the wards, where I felt that I was without friendly encouragement and support. During the three days that intervened before the burial of Dr. Schmidt, I was hardly conscious of anything, but moved about mechanically like an automaton.
The next few days were days of confusion, for the death of Dr. Schmidt had left so many places vacant that some fifty persons were struggling to obtain some one of his offices. The eagerness, servility and meanness which these educated men displayed in striving to conquer their rivals was more than disgusting. The serpents that lie in wait for their prey are endurable, for we know that it is their nature to be cunning and relentless; but to see men of intellect and education sly and snaky, ferocious yet servile to the utmost, makes one almost believe in total depravity. The most of these men got what they deserved, namely, nothing. The places were filled temporarily with others, and everything went on apparently as before.
My position soon became very disagreeable. I had received my installment, not because I was wanted by the directors of the hospital, but because they had been commanded by the government to accept me, in the hope of thus prolonging the life of Dr. Schmidt.
Young and inexperienced in petty intrigue, I had now to work without friendly encouragement and appreciation, in an establishment where three thousand people were constantly at war about each other’s affairs; with no one about me in whom I had a special interest, while every one was regretting that the installment had been given me before Dr. Schmidt’s death which might have happened just as well from some other excitement. I surveyed the whole arena, and saw very well that, unless I practiced meanness and dishonesty as well as the rest, I could not remain there for any length of time, for scores were ready to calumniate me whenever there was the least thing to be gained by it.
I was about to commence a new period of life. I had a solid structure as a foundation, but the superstructure had been built up in so short a time that a change of wind would suffice to cast it down. I resolved, therefore, to tear it down myself and to begin to build another upon the carefully laid basis. I waited only for an opportunity to manifest my intention. This opportunity soon presented itself.
Sister Catherine, the deaconess of whom I have spoken, who had been allowed to attend the School for Midwives after my election, through the influence of her theological friends upon Dr. Schmidt (the city magistrates having refused her because I was already the third accepted pupil), had as yet no position. These friends now sought to make her the second accoucheuse, I having the first position, with the additional title of Chief.
This she would not accept. She, the experienced deaconess, who had been a Florence Nightingale in the typhus epidemic of Silesia, was unwilling to be under the supervision of a woman who had nothing to show but a thorough education, and who was besides eight years younger than herself.
Her refusal made my enemies still more hostile. Why they were so anxious for her services I can only explain by supposing that the directors of the hospital wished to annoy Pastor Fliedner, the originator of the Kaiserswerth Sisterhood. For, in placing Sister Catherine in this position, they robbed him of one of the very best nurses that he had ever had in his institution.
My desire to reconcile the government of the hospital, in order that I might have peace in my position to pursue my development and education so as to realize and manifest to the people the truth of what Dr. Schmidt had affirmed of me, induced me to go to one of the directors and propose that Sister Catherine should be installed on equal terms with me, offering to drop the title of Chief and to consent that the department should be divided into two.
My proposition was accepted nominally, and Sister Catherine was installed but with a third less salary than I received, while I had to give the daily reports, etc., and to take the chief responsibility of the whole. Catherine was quite friendly to me, and I was happy in the thought that there was now one at least who would stand by me should any difficulties occur. How much I was mistaken in the human heart! This pious, sedate woman, towards whom my heart yearned with friendship, was my greatest enemy, though I did not know it until after my arrival in America.
A few weeks afterwards, the city petitioned to have a number of women instructed in the practice of midwifery. These women were all experienced nurses who had taken the liberty to practice this art to a greater or less extent from what they had learned of it while nursing; and to put an end to this unlawful practice, they had been summoned before an examining committee, and the youngest and best educated were chosen to be instructed as the law required. Dr. Müller, the pathologist, was appointed to superintend the theoretical, and Dr. Ebert, the practical, instruction. Dr. Müller, who never had given this kind of instruction before, and who was a special friend of mine, immediately surrendered the whole into my hands; while Dr. Ebert, whose time was almost wholly absorbed in the department of the diseases of children, appointed me as his assistant. Both gentlemen gave me certificates of this when I determined to emigrate to America.
The marked preference for my wards that had always been shown by the male students was shared by these women when they came. Sister Catherine was neither ambitious nor envious, yet she felt that she was the second in place. Drs. Müller and Ebert never addressed themselves to her; neither did they impress the nurses and the servants with the idea that she was anything more than the head nurse. All these things together made her a spy; and though nothing happened for which I could be reproved, all that I said and did was watched and secretly reported.
Under a despotic government, the spy is as necessary as the corporal. The annoyance of this reporting is that the secrecy exists only for the one whom it concerns, while the subaltern officers and servants receive hints that such a person is kept under constant surveillance.
When it was found that no occasion offered to find fault with me, our administrative inspector was removed and a surly old corporal put in his place, with the hint that the government of the hospital thought that the former inspector did not perform his duty rightly, since he never reported disturbance in a ward that had formerly been notorious as being the most disorderly.
[Marie’s method in transforming this ward and consequently its reputation is evidently described in the “Introduction” written by Mrs. Dall for these earlier chapters.
In the autumn of 1856, Marie was addressing a physiological institute in Boston. Mrs. Dall says:
She spoke to them of her experience in the hospital at Berlin, and showed that the most sinning, suffering woman never passed beyond the reach of a woman’s sympathy and help.
Mrs. Dall then quotes from the address:
Soon after I entered the hospital [said Marie], the nurses called me to a ward where sixteen of the most forlorn objects had begun to fight with each other. The inspector and the young physician had been called to them, but dared not enter the mêlée. When I arrived, pillows, chairs, footstools and vessels had deserted their usual places; and one stout little woman, with rolling eyes and tangled hair, had lifted a vessel of slops which she threatened to throw all over me, as she exclaimed, “Don’t dare to come here, you green young thing!”
I went quietly towards her, saying gently, “Be ashamed, my dear woman, of your fury.”
Her hands dropped. Seizing me by the shoulder, she exclaimed, “You don’t mean that you look on me as a woman?”
“How else?” I answered. She retreated to her bed while all the rest stood in the attitudes into which passion had thrown them.
“Arrange your beds,” I said; “and in fifteen minutes, let me return and find everything right.” When I returned, all was as I had desired, every woman standing at her bedside. The short woman was missing, but bending on each a friendly glance I passed through the ward, which never gave me any more trouble.
When, late at night, I entered my room, it was fragrant with violets. A green wreath surrounded an old Bible and a little bouquet rested on it. I did not pause to speculate over this sentimentality, but threw myself weary upon the bed when a light tap at the door startled me. The short woman entered and humbling herself on the floor, since she would not sit in my presence, entreated to be heard.
“You called me a woman,” she said, “and you pity us. Others call us by the name the world gives us. You would help us, if help were possible. All the girls love you and are ashamed before you; and therefore I hated you—no: I will not hate you any longer. There was a time when I might have been saved—I, and Joanna, and Margaret, and Louise. We were not bad. Listen to me. If you say there is any hope, I will yet be an honest woman.”
She had had respectable parents; and, when twenty years old, was deserted by her lover who left her three months pregnant. Otherwise kind, her family perpetually reproached her with her disgrace and threatened to send her away. At last, she fled to Berlin, keeping herself from utter starvation by needlework. In the hospital to which she went for confinement, she took the smallpox. When she came out, with her baby in her arms, her face was covered with red blotches. Not even the lowest refuge was open to her, her appearance was so frightful. With her baby dragging at her empty breast, she wandered through the streets. An old hag took pity on both, and carefully nursed till health returned, her good humor and native wit made those about her forget her ugly face. She was in a brothel, where she soon took the lead. Her child died, and she once more attempted to earn her living as a seamstress. She was saved from starvation only by her employer, who received her as his mistress. Now her luck changed. She suffered all that a woman could, handled poison and the firebrand. “I thought of stealing,” she said, “only as an amusement; it was not exciting enough for a trade.” She found herself in prison, and was amused to be punished for a trifle, when nobody suspected her crime. It was horrible to listen to these details; more horrible to witness her first repentance.
When I thanked her for her violets, she kissed my hands, and promised to be good.
While she remained in the hospital, I took her as my servant and trusted everything to her, and when finally discharged she went out to service. She wished to come with me to America. I could not bring her, but she followed, and when I was in Cleveland, inquired for me in New York.]
The truth was that in my innocence of heart I had been striving to gain the respect and friendship of my enemies by doing my work better than any before me had done. To go to bed at night regularly was a thing unknown to me. Once, I was not undressed for twenty-one days and nights; superintending and giving instructions on six or eight confinement cases in every twenty-four hours; lecturing three hours every afternoon to the class of midwives; giving clinical lectures to them twice a week for an hour in the morning; superintending the case of some twenty infants who were epidemically attacked with purulent ophthalmia; and having, besides, the general supervision of the whole department.
But all this could not overcome the hostility of my enemies, the chief cause of which lay in the mortification at having been vanquished by my appointment.
On the other hand, I was happy in the thought that Mrs. Schmidt continued to take the same interest in me as before, and was glad to hear of my partial success. The students, both male and female, were devoted to me, and manifested their gratitude openly and frankly. This was the greatest compensation that I received for my work.
The women wished to show their appreciation by paying me for the extra labor that I performed in their instruction, not knowing the fact that I did it simply in order that they might pass an examination which should again convince the committee that I was in the right place. I forbade all payment as I had refused it to the male students when they wished to pay me for their extra instruction on the manikin. But in a true womanly way, they managed to learn the date of my birthday, when two or three, instead of attending the lecture, took possession of my room which they decorated with flowers, while on the table they displayed presents to the amount of some hundred and twenty dollars which the fifty-six women of the class had collected among themselves.
This was, of course, a great surprise to me and really made me feel sad, for I did not wish for things of this sort. I wished to prove that unselfishness was the real motive of my work, and thought that I should finally earn the crown of appreciation from my enemies for which I was striving. This gift crossed all my plans. I must accept it, if I would not wound the kindest of hearts, yet I felt that I lost my game by so doing. I quietly packed everything into a basket and put it out of sight under the bed, in order that I might not be reminded of my loss.
Of course, all these things were at once reported. I saw in the faces of many that something was in agitation, and I waited a fortnight in constant expectation of its coming. But these people wished to crush me entirely. They knew well that a blow comes hardest when least expected, and they therefore kept quiet week after week until I really began to ask their pardon in my heart for having done them the wrong to expect them to act meanly about a thing that was natural and allowable.
In a word, I became quiet and happy again in the performance of my duties; then suddenly, six weeks after my birthday, I was summoned to the presence of Director Horn (the same who had reprimanded me for leaving the church). He received me with a face as hard and stern as an avenging judge, and asked me whether I knew that it was against the law to receive any other payment than that given me by the hospital. Upon my avowing that I did, he went on to ask how it was then that I had accepted gifts on my birthday.
This question fell upon me like a thunderbolt, for I had never thought of looking upon these as a payment. If these women had paid me for the instruction that I gave them beyond that which was prescribed, they ought each one to have given me the value of the presents. I told him this in reply and also how disagreeable the acceptance had been to me and how ready I was to return the whole at his command, since it had been my desire to prove not only my capability but my unselfishness in the work.
The man was ashamed—I saw it in his face as he turned it away from me; yet he saw in me a proof that he had been vanquished in intrigue, and he was resolved that the occasion should end in my overthrow.
Much more was said about the presents and their significance, and I soon ceased to be the humble woman and spoke boldly what I thought, in defiance of his authority, as I had done at the time of the religious conversation (by the way, I never attended church again after that interview).
The end was that I declared my readiness to leave the hospital.
He wished to inflict direct punishment on me and forbade me to be present at the examination of the class which was to take place the next day. This was really a hard penalty to which he was forced for his own sake. For if I had been present, I should have told the whole affair to men of a nobler stamp who would have opposed, as they afterwards did, my leaving a place which I filled to their entire satisfaction.