er, through false accusation he
separated me from her, accusing me of causing trouble between them.
When there was no one else to defend her and she was robbed of
everything, they began to look down upon her--his mother, his sisters,
and he himself. She was born in America; there they treat women
differently. In spite of it she suffered a whole year because she
loved him very much. Once she saw her jewelry on another lady, and
asked where she had bought them. Thus she found out that they were
pawned and had been sold for the charges on them. There were many
evil-minded people around her; they opened her eyes after that to what
kind of a husband she had, how he fooled and robbed her, that he loved
only her money. That was most insulting to her. Not an hour more would
she stay with him under the same roof. She got together the last
things she had--above all her little son--and went to Vienna. There
I found her dangerously sick. She asked her husband to send her her
things, for she was sick. He again asked for the boy but she would not
give him up. In order that they might not take him away, I, myself,
took him to northern Bohemia, to my own family, where it was well with
him. In the meantime the lawsuit ended, and they took him away from
her because he was assigned to his father. Because she did not give
the boy up at once, he sent her, from her clothing and laundry, only
what was old and shabby. His relatives divided her beautiful, valuable
garments among themselves. Thus they dealt with her because nobody
would protect her. In those hard days, her uncle from America, who had
arranged for her training in singing, helped her. Thus she could pay
for the upkeep of the boy, and we went first to Berlin, then to Rome
and Paris. She sang to make her living, but also that she might regain
the honor of which Lord Gemer wanted to rob her, when he had parted
with her and had told all kinds of evil about her, which he could not
prove. Later we went to England, and finally to Russia. There she
fared the best. There she might have become a rich princess, but she
would not look at any man again. How glad the gentlemen there would
have been if she would have spoken to them as kindly as she speaks
here with you. But the purer the life she led, the more they bothered
her, and the more she did not want to live. She said she wanted to see
her boy once more before she died. For a long time we could not find
out where the boy was. Finally, she