is extremely painful
to me, but all this kind of thing just pushes me more in the opposite
direction and makes me firmer in my fast maturing resolution. I am
exceedingly blue. In fact, it is only occasionally that I am not so,
and, as in the light of the world I have an unusual amount of things
to make me the contrary, it must mean surely that I am not of the
world and I wish, wish, wish that I were out of it."

Ashantee, December 1901.

"I am going to try and be reasonable and as mildly satisfactory as I
may be and avoid extremes and keep hold of myself, as the only
possible justification of my points of view and ideas, for no one
will agree with them, and one cannot claim any merit in these, when
the result offered is not better than anyone else."

"I will never be influenced by anyone until I see someone who masters
intelligently, calmly and practically situations as they occur. I
have a great deal in myself to fight and the powerful helping
influence has been Mama and the warnings I have had from witnessing
things that went wrong. I think the more one lives and the more one
thinks, the simpler things get. The greatest of all dangers seems to
me to fool oneself. Really this seems to me to be the only hopeless
plight and there comes to a certain fascination in trying to say
things plainly to oneself. Nothing is as strong as plain truth about
a thing, and the moment one shirks it one is lost."

One can see that back in America she was again distressed,
discontented and uncertain. She had lost the tranquility and the
assurance which she had while in Europe. It seems to me that for
some reason or other this feeling of unsatisfaction was always much
greater in America than in Europe and here she was always disturbed.

A heavy test to her feelings of loyalty for Russia came with the
advent of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. America was in those days
very pro-Japanese and Nelka suffered in her feelings while living in
Washington. Finally, in a feeling of exasperation, she left
Washington in 1904 and returned to Paris. Here she studied at the
French Red Cross to qualify as a nurse. She also resumed her
painting studies. For medical practice she worked at a children's
dispensary.

Denmark 1903.

"The trip is such a complicated one (back to Paris) with such
indefinite changes and waits that I feel sure it would not be right
to go alone despite my mature years, and so there is nothing to do."

(She was 25 years old.)