e was
neither ambitious nor envious; yet she felt that she was the second in
place. Drs. Mueller and Ebert never addressed themselves to her; neither
did they impress the nurses and the servants with the idea that she was
any thing more than the head-nurse. All these things together made her a
spy; and, though nothing happened for which I could be reproved, all that
I said and did was watched and secretly reported. Under a despotic
government, the spy is as necessary as the corporal. The annoyance of this
reporting is, that the secrecy exists only for the one whom it concerns;
while the subaltern officers and servants receive hints that such a person
is kept under constant surveillance. When it was found that no occasion
offered to find fault with me, our administrative inspector was removed,
and a surly old corporal put in his place, with the hint that the
government of the hospital thought that the former inspector did not
perform his duty rightly, since he never reported disturbance in a ward
that had been notorious as being the most disorderly in former times. The
truth was, that, in my innocence of heart, I had been striving to gain the
respect and friendship of my enemies by doing my work better than any
before me had done. To go to bed at night regularly was a thing unknown to
me. Once I was not undressed for twenty-one days and nights;
superintending and giving instructions on six or eight confinement cases
in every twenty-four hours; lecturing three hours every afternoon to the
class of midwives; giving clinical lectures to them twice a week, for an
hour in the morning; superintending the care of some twenty infants, who
were epidemically attacked with purulent ophthalmia; and having, besides,
the general supervision of the whole department. But all this could not
overcome the hostility of my enemies, the chief cause of which lay in the
mortification at having been vanquished by my appointment. On the other
hand, I was happy in the thought that Mrs. Schmidt continued to take the
same interest in me as before, and was glad to hear of my partial success.
The students, both male and female, were devoted to me, and manifested
their gratitude openly and frankly. This was the greatest compensation
that I received for my work. The women wished to show their appreciation
by paying me for the extra labor that I performed in their instruction;
not knowing the fact, that I did it simply in order that they might pass
an exam