Because of these conflicting feelings and attachments Nelka was restless and went back and forth between Europe and America always seeking a solution and a way of life. I think these conflicting feelings and the deep attachment to her family were the main reasons why for so long she had not married. She just was afraid to create or add a new attachment.
Pretty, with a lovely figure, always very feminine, with a brilliant mind and a sparkling personality, a great sense of humor, broad and diversified education, an understanding of art and good taste, cosmopolitan in her experiences and speaking four languages—Nelka had tremendous success both with men and with women.
The friends she had were always deeply devoted friends who kept their friendship through years or through life and were always under the spell of her personality.
Her overwhelming personality and charm naturally attracted men and about thirty men of every nationality had at one time or another asked her in marriage. When she was twenty-two, during her four months visit in Bulgaria, five men proposed to her.
But she never agreed, first because just marriage for the sake of marriage had no attraction for her, and because of her emotional attachments she was afraid to create a new one. She also once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and overwhelming feeling, and that she had not yet found.
Throughout these years and because of these conflicting feelings, I think she was disturbed and in many ways not happy. There was too much conflict of feelings. Also her philosophically inclined mind was always searching and seeking—searching a religious understanding of life, always questioning the reasons for this or that problem of life. Her Aunt Susan Blow, who was a great student of philosophy, contributed much in a way to Nelka's emotional seekings. But how often in later years Nelka lamented the fact that she had not utilized fully the wisdom and the knowledge that her aunt could have given her in her philosophical understandings. Nelka was seeking by herself, trying to unravel the questions which bothered her through her own thinking.
But from a rational point of view some of her feelings and emotions were very devastating for her own existence and her own serenity. And her deep attachment to the family was also a source of pain and suffering because of its acuteness. There was not much family left but for those who remained, Nelka gave a full measure of love and devotion. The loss of those close to her were blows which did not heal easily and caused deep pain. The death of her little dog Tibi likewise gave a nearly exaggerated frustration and grief. Just like everything else in her life, Nelka's grief was complete. She in everything understood and accepted only completeness. Nothing in her life meant anything if it was only partial. She could never settle for 50%, always seeking totality, only completeness, and this of course is a tremendous strain on one's person. That strain I think showed itself in Nelka for many years of her life and only towards the later part of it she seemed to acquire some stability of feeling and emotional impulse. There was a reason for that of which I will speak later.
A friend of hers once said about her, "She was a tremendous personality and such force."
Like all humans she had her weaknesses, but these weaknesses were in a way her force, for by sheer will power, by determination or by uncompromising dedication, she was able to control or overcome her weaknesses. Not many are able to do that.
She had many friends in all walks of life and in different countries of many nationalities, but always the reaction was the same—a complete spell of attraction and fascination and generally a long lasting friendship—which once established, was never broken. And that because of that tremendous personality.