'But one moming, when I arose after a long prayer, my eyes fell on a flower that was lying on the threshold. A red spider, a very tiny one, not larger than a pin-head, was running around the calyx ofthe flower. I stretched out my hand and gave it a careless push with my finger. Slight as the push was for me, it was a terrible blow to the little spider. It seemed to grow still weaker and smaller and it fell down from the flower, down from the Threshold, down toward the ground. But suddenly there happened something that made me stare with a strange feeling: the little spider did not fall to the ground. It stopped half way as if the law of gravity ceased suddenly to exist for him - and then, as ifin spite of this law it drew itself higher and higher, till the calyx of the flower gave him refuge again and hid him from my sight. Quick as lightning and dazzling as lightning there came to me a sudden realization that this little spider was a sign sent me by God. A sign to tell me that a soul who still knew how to keep a ray of faith, be that ray as tiny as a spider's thread, is not to be lost in despair; even from the
28. Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha'i Faith; taken in 1922
29. The Shrine of the Bab on Mount Carmel, as it looked when Lidia made her
pilgrimage in 1930
jo. In Amhem, Netherlands,July 1930, at the Cseh teacher's course
depths of a chasm it will be led upward, till it reaches its heavenly abode, till it comes to God.'
'It was a promise of protection', Lidia felt, 'as a sign that Heaven was not an impenetrable vault over my head, that it was possible to pierce through that vault and get light from there.
'But what hard work it was for me to pierce through to God! Having received the sign, I should have been assured - but I was not. Still I was as a child crying in darkness. But God was a merciful Father who had much patience with me. I did not feel confirmed yet. I did not know where I was and what was that feeling of utter nothingness which was sometimes completely crushing me. I was being told that these were tests - but it did not make things easier for me. The depression came back. When the last day of my stay in Haifa came and I was making a balance of my experiences, I trembled.
'Here I was in the Holy Land, sanctified again through the appear- ance of a new Manifestation of God, this Manifestation promised ages ago and waited for through ages. Here I was in the Land where this Manifestation, Baha'u'llah, the Glory of God, was kept prisoner in the prison city of 'Akka, that city which was, in His own words, 'as though the metropolis of the owl'; that city from where this Spiritual King addressed His letters of waming to the kings of earth and sum- moned all mankind to the Most Great Peace. Here I was in the Land trodden by the feet of the tireless servant of God and the Center of His Covenant, 'Abdu'1-Baha. Here I was in the land where pilgrims from all over the world come as to the Source of Life, and here, at the foot of Mount Carmel, the resting-place of Baha'u'llah's Predecessor, the Bab, and of His Son and First Servant, 'Abdu'1-Baha, I was standing, telling myself that I was unable to draw therefrom the Water of Life.
'Again I was sad, very sad on that last morning, ascending Mount Carmel for the last time. I was downcast entering the Shrines and bowing myselffor the last time before the Holy Thresholds. My heart, my head, my soul, the air itself seemed to be made of lead.
'I prostrated myself for the last prayer. And as I was praying, the feeling of despondency began to grow less heavy. Little by little the despondency disappeared. And when it had disappeared a joy came. A joy with no outward cause. A joy born in the heart as if the heart was suddenly touched by a smiling sunray. Thatjoy kept growing as a sea- tide, until it flooded my soul. And still it kept growing until it was so great that ifit were one degree greater, it would simply cause my heart to burst! All sadness, all doubts, all the dark hours of battle were gone and the joy was there, a heaven-sent joy, a divine confirmation.
'Whoever receives such a confirmation, forgets his doubts.
'Whoever experiences once such a joy, cannot be truly unhappy even in the darkest hours ofhis life.'
TWELVE
Cseh Teacher
Lidia remained in Palestine two weeks after her pilgrimage to Haifa. She traveled to Jerusalem and visited the five-year-old Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, presenting to the University a manu- script her father had written - a grammar of the Yiddish language. Lidia herself had never learned to read Yiddish.
By the middle of June 1930 she was home in Warsaw again, but not for long. The Universal Congress of Esperanto was to be held in Oxford, England, at the beginning of August, but Lidia planned to make a trip to the Netherlands before attending the congress.
For some years, Lidia had been interested in the Cseh method of teaching Esperanto. At the congresses in Edinburgh and Danzig she had attended individual Cseh lessons, and, impressed by what she saw, she decided that she wanted to become a certified Cseh teacher. Thus, she set out for Arnhem, Holland, to attend a teacher's course in the technique.
The Cseh method was the creation of Andrei Cseh, a Catholic priest from Romania who had turned his efforts to the promotion of Esperanto. He had developed his direct teaching method out of necessity when, after the war, he found himself teaching Esperanto classes under difficult conditions, without textbooks, to students who spoke different languages. The technique he developed proved surprisingly successful, and he was called upon to train others in his method.
Using only a blackboard and some simple objects for illustration - pieces of paper, rubber animals, etc. - the Cseh-method teacher would begin by speaking to the class very simply in Esperanto about everyday subjects. Gradually, through conversation, the students were introduced to the grammar and vocabulary of the language. So popular was this direct method - a refreshing change from the traditional grammar-oriented styles of language teaching - that an International Cseh Institute was established in the Hague in 1930 to train and certify Cseh-method teachers. *
* In 1937 the Cseh Institute daimed 439 certified Cseh teachers, 34 of whom were traveling internationally to give Cseh-method Esperanto courses.
No textbook was used, though at certain points in the course the teacher distributed supplementary leaflets containing little stories for reading practice. No homework was required, but during the course four humorous questionnaires were given to the students to answer. During the twenty two-hour sessions the teacher spoke only Esperanto. For the first few lessons a helper called the aparato translated for the teacher, but as soon as the students started learning the language, the aparato became unnecessary. The teacher held the class's interest through lively conversation with the students, who answered ques- tions and repeated phrases in chorus. Rather than the teacher explain- ing grammatical rules, the students were guided to discover the rules of the language through using them.
After forty hours of instruction, the students were expected to have a solid foundation and a basic ability to communicate in Esperanto. They could then go on to perfect their command of the language through advanced courses, conversation at Esperanto club meetings, correspondence and private study. The Cseh Institute published a monthly magazine, La Praktiko ('Practice'), with articles, news, grammar discussions and a column listing the addresses of those desiring to correspond with pen pals in various countries.
Lidia was entranced by the Cseh method. 'The pupils completely lose awareness of the lesson', she wrote of her experience at Arnhem. '"Forte, kuraĝe, elegante" [Loudly, courageously, elegantly] they answer, almost unaware that new words, new forms, new rules have crept into the conversation.'