“That is just what I wanted my convent to be,” she replied, “one of those busy, useful medieval types. Such convents were wonderfully efficient aids to civilization in the middle ages, and I don’t think they should have been allowed to disappear. Russia needs them, certainly, the kind of convent that fills the place between the austere, enclosed orders and the life of the outside world. We read the newspapers here, we keep track of events and we receive and consult with people in active life. We are Marys, but we are Marthas as well.”
The Grand Duchess’s interest in the outside world is patent. She asked me eagerly to tell her how things were going in Petrograd, and her face saddened when I told her of the riotous and bloody events I had witnessed during the days of the July revolution, scarcely past. “Times are very bad with us just now,” she said, “but they will improve soon, I am sure. The Russian people are good and kind at heart, but they are mostly children—big, ignorant, impulsive children. If they can find good leaders, and if they will only realize that they must obey their leaders, they will emerge from this dreadful chaos and build up a strong, new Russia. Have you seen Kerensky, and what do you think of him?”
I replied rather cautiously. Like every one else, I still hoped that Kerensky would succeed in getting his released giant back into its bottle, and I did not want to unsettle any one’s confidence in him even to the extent of an expressed doubt. Kerensky, I told her, was greatly admired and liked, and I hoped he might prove the strong leader Russia needed in her trouble.
“I hope so,” replied the last of the Romanoffs, “I pray for him every day.”
The bells of the little church chimed the hour softly, and the Grand Duchess paused to cross herself devoutly. “I want to hear about those wonderful public schools of yours,” she said, “but first tell me what America is doing in war preparation.”
As I talked she listened, nodding and smiling as if immensely pleased. The great airplane fleet in course of construction seemed to amaze and delight her, and when I told her of the conservation of the food supply and the restriction of the manufacture of alcohol she fairly glowed. “America is simply stupendous,” she exclaimed. “How I regret that I never went there. Of course I never shall now. To me the United States stands for order and efficiency of the best kind. The kind of order only a free people can create. The kind I pray may be built some day here in Russia.” And then she made her one allusion to the deposed Czar. I did not know that at that minute the Czar was on his way to Siberia, but it is very probable that she knew it. She said: “I am glad you are going to protect your soldiers from the danger of the drink evil. Nobody can possibly know how much good the abolition of vodka did our soldiers and all our people. I think history should give the Emperor credit for his share in that act, don’t you?” I agreed that the Emperor should receive full credit for what he did, and I spoke with all sincerity.
Elisabeta Feodorovna kept me for nearly three-quarters of an hour talking to her about the Gary schools, which she is eager to see in Russia; about American women and their part in the war, and about welfare work for children, especially for tubercular and anemic children. “It is wonderful,” she said with a sigh. “I can scarcely help envying you sinfully. Think of a great, young, hurrying nation that can still find time to study all these frightful problems of poverty and disease, and to grapple with them. I hope you will go on doing that, and still find more and more ways of bringing beauty into the lives of the workers. How can you expect workmen who toil all day in hot, hideous factories or on remote farms, with nothing in their lives but work and worry, to have beauty in their souls?”
The Grand Duchess Elizabeta Feodorovna, sister of the late Czarina,
and widow of the Grand Duke Serge (who was assassinated
during the Revolution of 1905), now Abbess of the
House of Mary and Martha at Moscow.