Chapter 1

E-text prepared by John Young Le Bourgeois

NELKA

(Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff.)

1878-1963

A Biographical Sketch.

by Michael Moukhanoff

1964

FOREWARD.

In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using the memories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters as material. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the habit of keeping Nelka's letters over the years. There are some as early as when Nelka was only five years old and then up to the year 1916, the year her aunt died. These letters reflect very vividly the personality, the ideas, the aspirations, the disappointments and the hopes of a person over a period of a long life. They paint a very real picture of her personality and for this reason I am using quotations from these letters very extensively.

Nelka de Smirnoff was born on August 19, 1878 in Paris, France.

Her father was Theodor Smirnoff, of the Russian nobility. Her grandmother had tartar blood in her veins and was born Princess Tischinina. Nelka's father was a brilliant man, finishing the Imperial Alexander Lyceum at the head of his class. A versatile linguist, he joined the Russian diplomatic service and occupied several diplomatic posts in various countries, but died young, when Nelka was only four years old, and was buried in Berlin. Nelka therefore hardly knew him, though she remembered him and throughout her life had a great veneration for him and loyalty for his memory.

Nelka's mother was Nellie Blow, the daughter of Henry T. Blow of St. Louis, Missouri. The Blow family, of old southern aristocratic stock, moved from Virginia to St. Louis in 1830. Henry T. Blow was then about fifteen years old and had several brothers and sisters. He was a successful business man who became very wealthy and was also a prominent public and political figure, both in St. Louis and nationally. He was a friend of both Abraham Lincoln and of President Grant and received appointments from them. He was minister to Venezuela and later Ambassador to Brazil. He was active in politics from 1850 on. Though his brothers were southern democrats, Henry Blow took a stand against slavery and upheld the free-soil movement. During the Civil War he was the only one of the family to take the side of the Union and spent much of his time getting his brothers out of prison camps. For a time he was state senator and for two terms was Congressman in Washington. He also served as one of the three Commissioners for the District of Columbia.

He was married to Minerva Grimsley and had ten children. His daughter Nellie Blow, while in Brazil with her father, met Theodor Smirnoff who was then secretary at the Russian Embassy there. She married him in Carondolet, part of St. Louis, where the family lived, in 1872. They had three children, a boy and a girl, who died in infancy in St. Petersburg, Russia, and another girl, Nelka, who was born in 1878 and was therefore the only living child.

Henry T. Blow's oldest daughter (and Nelka's aunt) Miss Susan Blow was a prominent figure in the American educational movement, writing and lecturing on education, and the one who introduced the Froebel kindergarten system in the United States. The youngest daughter, Martha, married Herbert Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y. She was a very talented musician and painter and later became a very known horsewoman.

After Nelka's father died in Europe, her mother returned to America and it was the first time that Nelka came here. As a daughter of a Russian, Nelka was also a Russian subject and remained a Russian that way to the end. After the Russian Revolution, having no allegiance to the Soviet Government, she became what is known as "stateless," a position which in later years she liked, for she always said that she belonged to the World, not just one country.

But as a child her mother wanted to bring her up as a Russian even though in many ways this was difficult, for there were no relatives and few connections left in Russia, her mother did not speak the language and all ties and connections were in America.

Because of this conflict of attachments, Nelka's mother and she traveled many times back and forth between Europe and America. Her mother gave her a very complete and broad education both in America and in Europe. In Europe she attended a very exclusive and rather advanced school in Brussels. Because of this Nelka spoke not only perfect French and English, but German as well.

When she was ten years old she went to a school in Washington. She then already showed interest and love for animals which later became a dominant feature in her life.

Writing to her aunt Susie from Washington 1888:

"At Uncle Charles Drake the boys have a little pet squirrel; it don't bite them but it bites strangers if you give it a chance to. They have some little guinea pigs that are very cute."

She also at that age showed intellectual interests:

Washington 1888.

"I read very much now whenever I get a chance to. I think it is splendid and always amusing. I can play lots of little duets on the piano with Mama. I love it."

Her stay in the school in Brussels was very profitable for her studies and development and also showed in her letters how much interest she took in everything.

Brussels 1893.

"I know what you mean about my getting older. You think that at every different age I would be content to be that age if I did not get any older. So I was. When I was ten I thought it would be dreadful to be eleven, but when I was eleven I was quite satisfied if I did not have to be twelve, and so on. But ever since I have been fourteen I have thought it was awful and have never become reconciled to it."

Brussels 1894.

"I was first in grammar, literature and physics. Do you know the 'Melee' of Victor Hugo? I have just read it and I like it so much. I would like to see some persons who have lived and who live. It makes me crazy to see people vegetate."

Brussels 1893.

"We went to Waterloo. We went by carriage all the way, first through the Bois de la Cambre and then on through the most perfect woods imaginable. We went to a sort of little mound in the middle of the battlefield with a huge lion on top as the emblem of victory. One thing, although of no importance, I like so much, that was three little birds nests one in the lion's mouth and one in each ear. Wasn't it nice? We then went to the museum at the foot of the hill. I got a photograph of Napoleon and one of Wellington. I have such a contempt for Napoleon and I just take pleasure in comparing it with the frank, open face of the Duke of Wellington."

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.

"I shall have to go to bed at eight! Just fancy that!!! But then I have an astonishing capacity for sleeping and eating just now."

While in Paris, in addition to the general subjects and the lectures at the Sorbonne, Nelka also studied music, in particular the violin, and at a time was quite proficient in it, though she did not keep it up, as she did with painting, which she continued for a number of years.

Nelka's mother tried to bring her up in the Russian spirit with a great veneration for the memory of her father. Nelka grew up with a burning nationalistic feeling for Russia and a veneration for the Russian Emperor. Her mother kept up relations with such Russians as she knew or who were with the Russian Embassy when in Washington. And later, when she grew up, Nelka continually kept up with her Russian friends.

I think characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expressions of loyalty and devotion, an emotion which dominated all of her life and all of her actions. Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotion or feeling rather than reason, but once decided upon was carried out with determination and a great deal of will power.

But because the difference of national attachments and the resulting conflict there was always a tearing apart and a division, a duality of attachments both to Russia and to America, and this seems to have been an emotional disturbance which lasted with her for a great many years.

Her first, overwhelming emotional feeling was a patriotic nationalistic devotion to Russia and a mystic devotion to the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church. Then her next emotional feelings embraced the devotion and loyalty for her family and her kin.

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was in America. Because of that there seemed always a conflict of emotions, attachments and loyalties which dominated as a disturbance throughout her life, at least through the first half of it. This conflict of feelings was upsetting and painful and she suffered a great deal from the frustrations that these emotions often brought about.

The Russian education of feelings for Russia which her mother tried to install in her succeeded, for throughout life Nelka remained a faithful Russian in all of her feelings and while having so many ties in America, and being herself half American, she was constantly in conflict with the 'American way of life.'

From her early childhood Nelka had a tremendous love and devotion not only to her mother but also to her two aunts, Miss Blow and Mrs. Wadsworth. When in America she and her mother would stay either in Ashantee with the Wadsworths or in Cazenovia where Miss Blow had her home.

Early in life she was seeking and trying to think things out. She was never satisfied, never ready to accept something but always tried to analyze it through her own thinking. At the age of twenty she wrote in 1898:

"I have absolutely no facility for expression; that is what is the matter. I see persons so clever, so talented, and genuine in their line and with absolutely distorted points of view. How aggravating. I feel that in due time I may get to see something clearly (at least thus far, if I do not see things clearly, I have not been pleased to see any other way), and I am craving a means of giving out. You will say I need the persistence to educate myself in the technique of some mode of rendering my impressions. I suppose it is so. That is what I have always meant with this desire to 'exhaust' myself. I need to work. I need to give out or I shall have such a mental indigestion that I shall no longer be able to form a single thought. As it is, so many things are fleeting through me in incompleteness, in mere suggestion and so simultaneously at that, that I am bewildered. O, for complete cessation of consciousness, since this consciousness is but that of an amalgamation quantity of incomprehensible suggestions, or else, for a vent for some of this shapeless, immature acquisition, so that something at least can complete itself."

Was this just a disturbance of youth, of any youth, not completely empty-headed, frivolous or superficial, or was this the result of a distinct inheritance of two very different and opposing personalities, of so different nationalities and with an addition of even tartar blood? I don't know. The fact remains that she was constantly emotionally disturbed and constantly seeking the answers of life, that so many have done and so few have found.

In the same year, not long before her mother died, she wrote from Narragansett Pier 1898:

"I am very much puzzled still on individuality, that is, on its everlasting existence. I do not see at all how it can be, but I am waiting. Perhaps I can see soon. I have been trying to get a definition for art and for beauty. I have nothing that satisfies me yet. Art and beauty: I do not connect them at all in my mind. Art is based on significance first and this does not depend on beauty. Beauty is much more difficult to define than art. We have somehow got the idea that only the beautiful pleases. Can beautiful be applied to whatever pleases? I don't think so. Beauty is truthfulness of what? Of the original intention I suppose. Is beautiful something or is it not? Anyway I detach it from that which pleases. If beauty is something distinct that which pleases is not always beautiful. Is beauty independent of taste? It is so hard to think out. However, I never think anything without knowing it, and I know very few things, needless to say."

Washington 1898.

"It is terrible to be twenty! But I proved myself still young in being able to shed a tear over my departed teens. Mama and all of our little Russian colony drank my health wishing me each in turn to find myself each year one year younger, till I had to stop them less they eclipse me altogether. I think my nineteenth was the fullest year I have ever had--crammed."

When she was twenty, Nelka went with her mother to Narragansett Bay for the summer. Here a very tragic event took place which left an imprint on Nelka, if not for life, then certainly for many years. One afternoon, while sitting and talking with her mother, the latter suddenly collapsed and died instantly. Nelka was there all alone with her. The blow was terrible. For a very long time, being highly emotional, she could not get over this tragic end of a person with whom she had always been so close and so intimate. She went into deep mourning and remained in a state of frozen sorrow. Writing to her aunt Susie she expressed so vividly the tragic feeling of complete sorrow which gripped her:

St. Louis 1898.

"No one could offer more generously what unfortunately I feel that I may never have. Don't misunderstand me, dear Poodie, but my 'home' was forever lost when Mama left me and I can never find it except with her. I am Mama's own and my 'home' such as you mean it can only exist in memory and anticipation."

"I am thankful to God that I am left on earth with such aunts as you and Pats. Not many in my situation are so blessed. I shall always feel alone. But perhaps I have had more of Mama than many have in twice the time."

It is true that by circumstances she had always lived very much together with her mother, who as a widow had nothing but her. Even when Nelka was in school, her mother lived in the same city and saw her constantly, and their closeness was very complete.

Again she writes:

"In all events I have had more in life than I deserve, more than one should dare hope for."

"I was sorry to disappoint you yesterday, but I cried all the afternoon."

A year later--Washington 1899.

"Try as I will I do not see how I can ever take up any interest again. I have so little desire to go on with anything and I am so satisfied with what I have had."

Washington 1899.

"I went to church this morning and I was surprised to realize how heathenish and unchristian the sermon sounded to me. It was painful to feel that I did not believe one word of what a Christian minister said. What a network man seems to have made of the simplest things, wherein to be everlastingly confounded. Might one just look up and reach out overhead, instead of looking around one and trying to grope at one's level. Truths made intangible by the impenetrable meshes of faulty creeds and imperfect reasoning."

Ashantee 1899.

"Please do not worry about me. I told you that I was peaceful and content, which I am. I want nothing which I cannot get and my mind is reposeful. I do not care to understand anything. That I have got to accept whatever may come is manifest and the wherefore has ceased to trouble me, if it ever did. In the instances that have thus far come up in my life, what I should do has always been palpable enough and has required more determination or will. My inclination is to do as little as I can to maintain my peace of conscience. While I have no feeling of lassitude, I also feel no incentive, and while without this one need not fail utterly, one will not probably accomplish much."

"I don't believe there are many happy lives. Mama gave me more happiness in the given number of years than I shall ever have again, though doubtless, if I live long enough, I shall have some more happy moments. This is to be supposed. But all this matters so very, very little."

"I don't think that out of what is anything better is going to be."

"The external situation in general is not bad and as far as I can see, the trouble lies in the natures of the individuals and is more or less beyond remedy. The tragedy arriving from trying to unite in action and purpose where in mind and heart and soul there is no union, no mutual illumination, no mutual comprehension of the point of view, will be everlasting. 'Constater et accepter' and the sooner to 'constater' correctly, the sooner futile struggle ends."

"Goodnight. I neither weep nor laugh and I am glad to go to bed; might be a good deal worse off, if I had no bed."

Ashantee 1899.

"I have lots of things to talk to you about but I don't know where to begin. I want to say one thing that I think, which is that I think it is very difficult to judge practically when a too analytical definition of a condition or state is substituted for the ordinary and worldly vernacular. I think one must often fall into error from too great an attempt of metaphysical accuracy (precision), for whatever the thing in essence, the reaction thereof upon the multitude is made more forcible and more lucid to the mind by the term applied to it at large. For instance a crank is not a person of peculiar fancies."

Ashantee 1899.

"Great griefs are beyond all expression, but the stillness of agonizing moments is worse. Why, oh, why anything?"

"I cannot feel anything. That makes variety but it is being alone in interests, the feeling unchanged, the purposes conceived and striven for singly that makes the struggle seem hard and the achievement futile."

A girl of twenty or twenty-one, she was always questioning, always, seeking, always disturbed.

Ashantee, December 1899.

"You see I am making use of the divine right of the individual which you are ever proclaiming and you must not mistake this for unniecelike freedom of speech. I can only live and learn and perhaps learn to see how often I am mistaken. I am still in that pitiful state of youthful consciousness and have with it the confidence to act upon what I think. And to me almost every general rule becomes transformed under the allowances one must make for the modifications of the issue at hand. I think that often all that is most vital in life may be lost be adhering to formulated precepts and I think that every occasion calls for special and particular consideration for its solution."

After staying a while in America, after her mother's death, Nelka decided to go to Europe in order to change her ideas and get away from memories. This was a wise move and gave her a great deal of comfort, and helped build up her morale. She first went to Paris where she once again went to the Convent of the Assumption and took up the study of painting in earnest at the Julien studios. From Paris she also went to visit her friends the Count Moltke and his wife in Denmark and then later went for four months to Bulgaria where she stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Bakhmeteff, my uncle who was Russian ambassador in Sofia and Madame Bahkmeteff who was Nelka's godmother. These two years in Europe were a very happy, steadying and pleasant time for Nelka and she regained a hold of herself. Especially she loved Paris as she always did. She told me once that when in Paris at the time she was so exhilarated that she felt like walking on air. But her observations of life and its questions continued as always, something that never left her. She wrote a great deal to her aunt Susie and there are many interesting observations made during that period.

Paris 1899.

"I don't believe there is any use trying to understand things until an issue comes up and I believe that anyone who has heretofore responded to the flagrant necessities and requirements of life will be able to solve and meet more readily, more justly and more normally any problem which may arise. More is there to be learned and more balance and judgment gained in attending to one's most minute duties than in hours of mental anticipation of possible events and questions, conjured up in necessary incompleteness. What beauty there is here! The intellectual and emotional stimulus would make a cow tingle, and yet not some people I know."

Paris 1899.

"I am disgusted with the ending of the century with two wars, it is a disgrace. I think the whole world is very horrible anyhow and I don't believe in worldly goods and possessions, or countries, or governments and I don't see why everyone by inhabiting tropical climes couldn't dispense with clothes and even the lazy could find food where the vegetation is luxuriant. I think it is artificial to live in a place where one's own skin is not sufficient protection against the weather. I think the whole organization of everything is abominable and I don't believe it is a necessary stage of development. Most ordinary lives are the quintessence of artificiality and the grossest waste of time. I am more than ever against the 'me' in myself. It is the source of all evil."

Paris 1900.

"I have read some illuminating bits and I think I will finish by finally building myself a scant but solid creed for I have cast all preconceived notions from me, rooted out all expressions of habit and influence, and cleared, though perhaps still warped dwelling of my former tentative suppositions will contain henceforth but the jewels of certain convictions, or remain empty evermore!"

Paris 1900.

"The stimulating effect of this place is wonderful. I don't know what it is, but it is just life to everything in one. I have absolute peace of mind and I have no mental worries or torments. Nothing seems complicated, nothing seems involved and everything that I can help is satisfactory. I want to lose myself in my work and I have every advantage for doing so. Paris is wonderful, I never so appreciated it before."