Already at that age she was seeking answers to moral questions and showed her philosophical mind:
Brussels 1894.
"'Une injustice qu'on voit et qu'on tait: on la commet soi meme.' (An injustice one sees and keeps quiet about: one commits it oneself.) I wish more persons could or would recognize that truth."
As a child Nelka did not speak Russian, because there was no one around using this language. After her school in Brussels, her mother took her to Russia to St. Petersburg. She was then seventeen.
St. Petersburg 1895.
"For the last few days I have been most blissfully absorbed in Taine's 'Ideal dans l'Art.' I never knew it was in a separate volume. It is splendid. Of course you know 'Character' of Smiles. I don't care for it much, so sermony. I am going to the Hermitage tomorrow just to see the Dutch and Flemish schools."
The same year her mother took her to Paris and entered her to attend lectures at the College de France while living at the Convent of the Assumption.
Paris 1895.
"I have just come back from the College de France. I enjoyed the lecture very much; it was on Stendhal. You will be perhaps surprised to learn that my educational career has taken a sudden turn. I am going into the Convent of the Assumption next week. Now don't be horrified. The Assumption is an exception to all the convents; besides the regular studies they have professors from the Sorbonne, Lycee Henry IV and other colleges to come in and give lectures on foreign literature, history, art, etc. Besides this unheard of privilege they have an atelier for drawing with Ducet to correct, and living models, men, women and children. Of course Mama never imagined such a thing possible in a convent, the general idea of convents not going beyond wax flowers. Here are the privileges I will have:
1) Clock-like life and no time lost. 2) No risk of disagreeable associations as they are most particular who they take. 3) I will see Mama almost every day.