Lilka, as the family always called her, even when she grew up, had come at a time when her parents could enjoy her. Although the situation in Russian Poland was often insecure and sometimes dangerous, life was financially easier than it had been for the Zamenhof family in earlier years. Dr Zamenhof had a large practice, and he received additional income from his Esperanto books. The family was able to go on holidays to the country, and every year Ludwik and Klara traveled to the Universal Congresses, wherever they were held.
But Ludwik's health was getting worse: he was overworking himself, often keeping longer hours than he should, though from devotion to his patients, not for money. One day a week and sometimes two, he saw poor patients without charge. Although there had been no pogroms in Warsaw, conditions were terrible. Hundreds of Jews were fleeing, seeking refuge and a new life outside Europe. Many poor emigrants, sometimes entire families, passed through the consulting room of Dr Zamenhof to be examined and treated for eye diseases so they could enter other countries. In 1908 Klara confided to her friend Mrs Moscheles in London, 'My husband's health would be better if he could rest even a little, but unfortunately he is always working very hard.' The mental anguish he had suffered made him nervous and agitated. 'He still cannot walk', wrote Klara, 'so he always sits home at his writing desk.'
Lidia received her first education at home, beginning at the age ofsix - she did not enter school until she was almost ten years old. Klara described Lidia at six as 'very able, bright and hard-working'.
Ludwik was not as strict with Lidia as he had been with Adam and Zofia. He never punished his children physically, although he sometimes made them stand in the corner. Lidia remembered her father's discipline as firm yet kind. 'When Lidia's cat caught its first mouse', Maijorie Boulton recounts, 'she ran eagerly to tell her father. No doubt she was disappointed by his gentle "Lidia, don't you think the mouse would like to live too?" but this was part of his training.'
Zamenhof taught his children always to be honest. Many years later Lidia recalled an incident which illustrated how much her father valued this virtue. Among the objects on her father's writing desk was a stone paperweight in the form of a dog. Once Lidia noticed that the base had been broken in two parts. 'Usually when I saw something broken, tom, I preferred not to ask how it had happened,' she recalled, 'because I was never completely sure whether I myself was not responsible for it. But as for the paperweight, I truly had a clear conscience. So I bravely asked my father: "Who broke it?"
*Heanswered, "I."
'I was almost speechless. Impossible! Papa broke it?! Could Papa actually break - ruin - something?'
Dr Zamenhof told his daughter that it had happened when he was a young boy.
'He had many brothers and sisters. Everyone knows that in a home where there are many children, it happens very easily that unexpectedly, for example, a window pane may shatter with a loud noise, or porcelain figures fall from their pedestals . . .'
Markus Zamenhof had been a strict father, Lidia wrote, 'who was not very forgiving if because of childish pranks some damage happened in the home.
'And then, one day . . . from my grandfather's writing desk a paperweight fell to the ground and broke. Terror gripped the little group of children, and undoubtedly their hearts pounded when they heard the stern question: "Who did that?"
'And then from among the trembling crowd bravely Ludwik stepped out and confessed: "I!"
'The courageous confession touched my grandfather's heart. He forgave and did not punish the culprit.'
However, the children of Ludwik Zamenhof learned that there was one subject about which their father rarely revealed the truth: his own health. He did not wish to burden others on his account. In the same letter in which Klara confided to Mrs Moscheles that her husband could not walk, Ludwik had written to Mr Moscheles, 'I have indeed too much work and I feel rather tired . . . but I am not ill.'
Many years later, Lidia would remember her mother as 'loving, affectionate, maternal. I see you as you bent over my crib, to caress me and say good-night, to put your hand on my warm forehead before the thermometer told you I was really ill. I see how you bent over the household accounts, or how quickly your hand turned the wheel of the sewing machine, to make me a new simple cotton dress. And the cut- out scraps of material - oh, what joy! - would serve to dress my doll, my favorite one, who closed and opened her eyes.'
Though she was the only child at home, Lidia was not without companions of her own age. There were many young cousins who played together whenever their families visited each other. The children of the Zamenhof family had a special relationship with Uncle Feliks, Ludwik's brother. A pharmacist by profession, and something of a poet, Feliks Zamenhof often arranged entertainment evenings for the family and had a talent for writing little plays for the children. Whenever one of his children had a birthday or sometimes on other occasions, he wrote and directed little theater productions which Lidia and her young cousins performed.
Every week, all the Zamenhofs - brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins - would meet at one of their homes. This weekly Zamenhof family gathering was a tradition that lasted long after the children had grown up, although, as Lidia's cousin Stephen Zamenhofhas recalled, 'later on, the younger people had better things to do and just the old ladies attended'. While the children played, he remembered, 'the adults discussed what was going on during the week - mostly food prices and servants not being what they should be, and so on'. When the family met at Ludwik's home, all looked forward to Klara's strawberry tarts with cream. Many years later, cousinJulian Zamenhofrecalled that 'an atmosphere of enthusiasm and reverence' surrounded Dr Zamenhof. Stephen remembered that the children called him ' Wujaszek Ludwik'- 'little uncle Ludwik'. At those weekly gatherings, Julian remembered, his uncle sat 'cigarette in hand, talking quietly without flourish or emphasis, never gesticulating; and yet whatever he said seemed important: one had to listen to him.
'He was also a great listener himself; he would readily listen to a child, a patient, a tram conductor or royalty; he would always speak, behave and listen in the same way, with respect and attention.'
While the young cousins were permitted to roam through the house in their play, one room was strictly forbidden to them: Uncle Ludwik's consulting room. The children resented this, for the room was full of books and interesting objects, and had great possibilities for exploring. Once, the eleven-year-old Julian spoke up, giving vent to the bitterness the children felt because they were not allowed to go into the wonderful room.
"'. . . all these Esperantists, whoeverthey happentobe,"'heargued as spokesman for the rebellious crowd, "'may enter his study whenever they like and yet we, his family, would be admitted only in the case of a sore eye . . . They are strangers whilst we are family!"
'Uncle Ludwik listened patiently with a kindness yet without a trace of a smile.
"'They are not strangers; they are also my family; they share my greatest belief in the need of mutual understanding, and help me to propagate this idea amongst those who most need it but do not yet realise their need."'
From an early age Lidia knew that there were many other people who were important in her father's life. She knew she must wait until all the patients had left his office before she might play a game of ball with him, although sometimes, when she thought he had been working long enough, she would bravely enter and ask him to play ball with her. And he would cheerfully give in for a few minutes.
'From my childhood,' Lidia later wrote, 'I remember the patients' waiting-room, where some came with flaming red eyes, others would cover their painful eye with a piece of cotton wool, sometimes stained, and still others, the saddest ones of all, did not come alone; relatives or friends accompanied them, because in their own eyes all sight was gone.