On August 12, in Bialystok, the birthplace of Ludwik Zamenhof, Lidia and Zofia helped to place the foundation stone for a monument that was to be constructed - a 'Tower of Babel' twelve meters high. Although the event was surrounded in official pomp, with speeches by government functionaries, brisk marches played by a military band, and an honor guard from the fire brigade, the monument was never built.
In 1932 the economic situation in Poland was very bad, and few could afford the luxury ofEsperanto classes. Though Lidia worked hard, she earned very little teaching Esperanto in Warsaw. If she earned anything from her writing or her translations, it could not have been much. In any case her Baha'f translations were done as a labor of love, not for money.
She had been devoting much time to translating Baha'i scriptures under Shoghi Effendi's direction: her Esperanto edition of the Paris Talks of'Abdu'1-Baha was to be published in 1932 - specimen pages were included with the January 31 edition of Heroldo de Esperanto. She had also finished translating Some Answered Questions and was beginning the Kitab-i-Iqan ('The Book of Certitude'), a volume by
Baha'u'llah. She was having difficulty with it, but it seemed she was working from an outdated, poor English translation. Shoghi Effendi sent her a new edition.
She also found time to translate Polish literature. The firm of N. Szapiro in Warsaw was publishing her translation of two stories by Polish author Boleslaw Prus, and her translation of the novel Quo Vadis? by Henryk Sienkiewicz, would soon appear. Lidia had been named to the editorial committee of La Nova Tago in 1929 and contributed articles to the Encyclopedia ofEsperanto, the first volume of which was published in 1933.
Since she lived in the family flat with her sister and brother and his family, Lidia was able to devote her time to her teaching and her translating without worrying about having to depend on this work for her daily bread. She probably could have continued to let her brother support her, but Lidia was not satisfied to do that. Although at that time it was not expected that a woman would support herself through her own work, Lidia was something of a feminist, and was dismayed by what she called 'that lamentable type ofdoll-woman, educated only to find a husband'. More and more, she had seen, there was 'a new type of woman, independent and capable, earning her own bread*. Lidia wanted to be one of those women. But prospects for doing so in Warsaw were bleak.
Some Esperanto teachers, like Tiberiu Morariu, a Romanian, had had enormous success giving Cseh courses in other European countries. Lidia had attended her second Cseh teacher's course just before the Krakow congress, after which she was more enthusiastic than ever about the Cseh method. She decided she wanted to go abroad to teach Esperanto. Outside Poland, where there was more interest in such matters, perhaps she could have more success spreading the international language and at the same time make teaching Esperanto a real career.
Martha Root, who was in Europe again, learned Lidia hoped to leave Poland, and she changed her plans and hurried to Warsaw to be with her. Martha wrote: 'I reached Warsaw the morning of May 18, and Lidia Zamenhof my precious spiritual child was at the train to meet me.' Over the years Martha's respect for Lidia had deepened. 'I consider her one of the great souls of Europe,' Martha wrote of Lidia. 'She is a born translator, she has a genius for it, and the books she has translated into Esperanto will be a great "leaven" not only in Europe but also in the Far East. . . Her mind is keen and logical and I have met few people in my life morejust than Lidia.'
Martha hoped to find people in Poland who would be interested in the Baha'i Faith, but found few. 'People are very devout Catholics or very devout Jews,' she observed. 'Lidia thought that I should only stay
an independent woman
two weeks this time. She said: "You know I want you to stay a year! But it is better to go slowly!"' Martha stayed eighteen days.
Martha and Lidia visited the University Library to place Baha'i books there and paid a call on the Polish Minister of Religions. They were told that the Ministry would have to give permission to introduce a new religion into Poland.
Martha, as was her custom, gave teas for the people she met, including a secretary of Marshal Pilsudski, dictator of Poland; a Polish writer; the American Consul-General and 'the young girl at the Consulate who had been so nice about my mail'. 'I just gave two teas downstairs in the lobby, a quiet corner,' she wrote, '. . . the others I gave up in my room and prepared it myself which was much cheaper.'
'I met Lidia's friends,' Martha wrote to Shoghi Effendi, 'had them to tea in my room and made the tea myself. She has done her best, but they do not have much interest in spiritual matters. I wish I could tell you all Lidia has done. She went to Lodz to visit one lady whom she thought had a little interest. . .'
Lidia and Martha also spent time together alone, reading the Kitab-i- lqan aloud and talking about the book, which Lidia was translating. To her close friend, Lidia confided her feelings and her dreams.
Martha already had great plans for Lidia. 'Sometime I hope Lidia can go to the US and to Persia,' she had written even before she arrived in Warsaw. Martha had traveled through Persia in 1930, and she surely told Lidia stories about her experiences there, stories that kindled in Lidia a desire to visit that land. After leaving Warsaw, Martha wrote to Shoghi Effendi: 'Lidia would like to study Persian . . .'
But there was no way Lidia could learn Persian in Warsaw, where there was no Persian consulate, and the Persian language was not taught in the university. Martha was enthusiastic about the idea nevertheless, and she began to concoct plans for Lidia. 'I wish that Lidia had the opportunity to become a fine Persian and Arabic scholar,' she wrote. 'If she could go to Egypt in September and teach Esperanto in Cairo for a year and study Persian and Arabic and the following year go to Persia for a year and teach Esperanto, then a wonderful something would be done! She does not know that I am writing this, she is so modest, so reserved, she works very hard, but the economic situation is such that she can only earn a little, but if she ever could, I know she would love to go to Cairo or work in any city in Egypt.'
Martha Root sensed that life would be very difficult for Lidia in Poland. As a Baha'f she would be virtually alone. The pressure from others not to link her name with Baha'i would be a difficult test. Though Lidia was outwardly very determined and 'ready to do battle' for ideas, like her father she was a quiet and sensitive person. 'Lidia is my loved spiritual child,' wrote Martha, 'but strange as it may seem, I feel it would be good for Lidia to leave Poland and work elsewhere (you know how the Bible says about one having no honor [standing] in his own country. She has a very high standing as an individual). . . She is so young in the Cause, I do not wish her spirit crushed, and I wish her capacity developed and used to its highest.'
In latejuly 1932, Lidia and Martha met again in Paris at the Universal Congress of Esperanto. When Lidia rose to give her speech at the Baha'f meeting, it was clear that the pressure on her had had no effect. Her talk on 'Modern Man and Religion' was bold, earnest and challenging. Could twentieth-century scientific man, she asked the audience, still believe? In the heart of the greatest skeptic there was still a corner in which there was room for belief, she told them, and her words had the confidence of a skeptic who had discovered such a comer in her own heart. But, Lidia said, religion need not rely on 'superstitions, naive beliefs in an underground hell where homed devils fry the bodily souls of sinners in pitch' or a paradise made of 'clouds and winged blue-eyed blond angels playing in the heavenly blue'. Could not hell be the condition in which thousands of souls already lived, ignorant of spirituality, condemning themselves to an ephemeral life after which they expected utter nothingness? Could not the very consciousness of a sin committed be, in itself, more burning than boiling pitch, more painful than devilish pitchforks? And heaven - was it not eternal harmony with the cosmic Order and Light?