The Grandmother. Божена Немцова
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dreams and beautiful ideals forever ruined. . . Woman's heart is like wax, every picture is easily impressed; but what does it all avail? Now everything seems to me pale, tame, and cold, and lead seems to course through my veins. I could weep over myself, when I consider my condition."
Although Madame Nemec looked upon her marriage as entirely unhappy, it was not without some redeeming features. Her husband was a very estimable man, beloved of many friends. He was, moreover, a man of culture, an ardent patriot, and had his wife been an ordinary woman they might have lived happily together. But what she lost in her marriage she tried to make up in her literary life.
While Madame Nemec had always taken a deep interest in all things pertaining to her country, and her early education had been in the Bohemian language, she knew nothing of the literature of her native land until the family moved to Polna, where she became acquainted with the writings of Tyl.[1] She had already written some tales, and now, roused by patriotic enthusiasm, she composed the beautiful poem, To the Bohemian Women. This and several other poems and tales gained her much popularity, so that when, in 1841, the family moved to Prague, she was received with open arms into the circle of young authors. The chief of these were Erben, Tyl, Chelakovsky, Nebesky, and Chejka.
The last named gentleman proved of the greatest service to her. He saw that she was introduced among the most cultivated ladies, provided the way for some culture in art, and induced her husband to engage for her a Bohemian teacher, which he not only willingly did, but himself began to study the language. These were happy and profitable days for the author, but they were of short duration. In 1845, her husband was again transferred, this time to Domazlitz (Taus). A new field of labor was now open to her. She found abundant material to work up, and during this time she wrote: Pictures from Domazlitz, Fables, Karla, and The Mountain Village.
Madame Nemec's experience at Domazlitz was somewhat singular. She delineated the life of the people so faithfully that some of the tradesmen, imagining that she was holding them up for ridicule, tried to rouse the people against her. Charles Havlichek[2] took her part, and so ably defended her in the papers that the people turned to her with greater love than before. She tried to instruct them through conversation, read to them, and lent them books, and they appreciated her kind labors, followed her from village to village, until the police interfered, thinking that she was propagating ideas hostile to the government. While at Domazlitz, she contracted the dread disease, consumption, so that her future work was done under great disadvantages.
In 1847, M. Nemec was transferred to Neumark, on the Bavarian frontier. Here his wife's health was considerably improved. She wrote: "I feel much better and am becoming fleshy; perhaps it is because my life in these mountains is so peaceful. We sent the two elder boys to Domazlitz to school, and I am very lonesome; you know I live only in my children. O, heavens, soon the world will claim them and then my heart shall yearn for them in vain!" This peaceful life at Neumark was of short duration; in 1848, they were transferred to Nymburg.
The same year came the stormy times when the revolutionary wave swept over Europe. Bohemia, too, was involved; and M. Nemec, as an ardent patriot, could not look on with indifference. In a letter dated at Nymburg we read: "Believe me, no one here knew what to do. All, Germans as well as Bohemians, wanted to go to the assistance of Prague. I wept for my husband as already lost, but was resigned, sending him in God's name to fight for his country." As might be supposed, she, too, was not silent; for all faithful Bohemians were carried away by enthusiasm, imagining that the time had come for delivering the great mass of their countrymen from servitude, and for securing for all constitutional rights. At this time she wrote Peasants' Politics which gives a very good idea of the way the countrymen looked upon the constitution, and the rights and privileges promised them.
The active part Madame Nemec and her husband took in the revolution did not remain overlooked by the government. In 1849, M. Nemec was transferred to Liberetz, the following year to Hungary, and in 1853, he was placed upon the retired list with a pension of three hundred and fifty florins. This was a great blow to the family, and from this time poverty was added to the numerous ills against which they had to struggle. The same year they lost their son, Henry, and Madame Nemec, broken down by her afflictions, was taken seriously ill.
After this the family lived mostly in Prague, M. Nemec being closely watched by the police. He engaged in some literary labors and held various positions on the staff of some of the newspapers. But the amount thus earned was so small that the family were reduced to great want. A small collection was made for them; but the hosts of friends that had surrounded the promising author in the days of her prosperity scarcely showed themselves in her adversity. A few remained true, but they were not able to assist her. Her difficulties, too, were increased by her reckless generosity. This was a trait of her whole family and is well described in the story, in the scene where Grandmother relates to the Princess her journey from Silesia to Bohemia. Add to this her open and confiding nature, and it may easily be seen that she was often made the dupe of selfish, designing persons. She believed in them and shared with them all she had, whether it was much or little. Thus, when the collection spoken of above was given her, she immediately divided it with a young man who was just then in the house and who had awakened her sympathy by the recital of his own trials and financial difficulties. This, too, was one of the causes that often disturbed the domestic harmony of the Nemec family.
The year 1861 was the darkest of her life. Eager to seize any opportunity whereby she might relieve herself from eating the bitter bread of charity, she accepted the offer of a publisher at Lytomysl to give her her board and twelve florins for every thirty-two pages of manuscript which she should write. She accordingly moved to that city; but the publisher treated her most cruelly. Not only did he refuse to give her the price agreed upon, but he went so far as to order the hotel keeper not to give her any food at his charge. As she had come from Prague almost penniless, she was obliged to live on bread and water until she could receive assistance from her husband. Her expenses ranged from four to eight kreutzers a day. She returned to Prague shortly after, completely discouraged and broken down both mentally and physically, and died the following year. She was buried in the old cemetery of Visehrad, and several years later the ladies of the American Club erected a suitable monument over her grave.
Her husband lived till 1869. Her son Charles is a professor in the Agricultural College at Tabor, Jaroslav fills a similar position in the Real School at Odessa, and her daughter, Dorothea, is a teacher in Jincin, Bohemia. The two motives that guided Madame Nemec in her work were her patriotism and her love for the common people. While at Domazlitz she wrote to a friend: "The common people, they are my joy; I feel refreshed whenever I grasp the hard, rough hand of one of these women."
In reply to the advice given in the Prager Zeitung, that all should learn German as fast as possible and thus end that eternal strife between the two nationalities, she says:
"Yes, that would be well, only that by so doing we should become estranged from the greater part of our nation, which looks to us for guidance and light." This is the key note to her whole life and work. She loved the common people and labored to elevate them. She knew that she could reach their hearts much more quickly through their mother tongue than through another language, and for this reason she wrote in Bohemian, although she had been better educated in the German language. Then, too, she longed to see her nation strong, great, and free, and many fervent words were spoken and written by her to arouse the educated women to greater earnestness in its behalf.
As regards religion, Madame Nemec believed in the essential principles of Christianity, but was an enemy to priestcraft and superstition. Writing from Domazlitz she said:
"The ruin of several villages here is that accursed Jesuitism. Not far from here are two priests of that order, and you have no conception of the evil they have done! They have imposed upon the people, stupefied them, led them into poverty, so that they walk about bewildered like so many wandering sheep. And no one dares touch that hundred headed dragon!"
While a child, it was her custom to pray before the picture of Christ.
"While praying, I did not turn my eyes from it, and I gazed so long that it ceased to be a mere picture. Christ seemed to be before me in reality; to