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.