"'How else?' I answered; while she retreated to her bed, all the rest standing in the attitudes into which passion had thrown them.
"'Arrange your beds,' I said; 'and in fifteen minutes let me return, and find every thing 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 upon 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 hate 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 small-pox. 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 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 every thing 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."
It will be impossible, for those who have not heard such stories from the lips and in the dens of the sufferers, to feel as I felt when this dropped from the pure lips of the lecturer. For the first time I saw a woman who knew what I knew, felt what I felt, and was strong in purpose and power to accomplish our common aim,--the uplifting of the fallen, the employment of the idle, and the purification of society.
I needed no farther introduction to Marie Zakrzewska. I knew nothing of her previous history or condition; but when I looked upon her clear, broad forehead, I saw "Faithful unto death" bound across it like a phylactery. I did not know how many years she had studied; but I saw thoroughness ingrained into her very muscle. I asked no questions of the clear, strong gaze that pierced the assembly; but I felt very sure that it could be as tender as it was keen. For the first time I saw a woman in a public position, about whom I felt thoroughly at ease; competent to all she had undertaken, and who had undertaken nothing whose full relations to her sex and society she did not understand.
I thanked God for the sight, and very little thought that I should see her again. She came once more, and we helped her to establish the Women's Infirmary in New York; again, and we installed her as Resident Physician in the New-England Female Medical College.