When Lidia recovered, she was impressed by how hard the Lyon Esperantists were working to publicize her course. They had put up posters, handed out leaflets, sent invitations, and broadcast announce- ments over the radio station of Lyon-la-Doua (of which Emile Borel was the manager). 'Imagine the important radio station manager of imposing stature, how he personally visited offices, shops, etc., asking for a place to put up posters for the course,' Lidia wrote. 'About the work ofMrs Borel I will say nothing, because she liked to carry out her task anonymously and she would complain terribly if I betrayed her . . . And here, the out-of-work samideano who during a frosty night pasted up posters, putting all his heart into that work which always goes unrecognized.'
It was the Borels themselves who had been largely responsible for bringing Lidia to Lyon. In 1932 they had proposed to the Amicale, an
Esperanto group in Lyon, that Lidia be invited to come from Sweden to teach a course. But the cautious committee members had 'reserva- tions'. The public of Lyon seemed indifferent to Esperanto. If ten people could be gotten together for a course, it was considered a great success. Four thousand francs - a large sum - would be necessary to bring Lidia from Sweden and pay for publicity. Where could they find so much money? Marie Borel said: 'We will find it,' and somehow they did.
Lidia was to present her introductory lesson in the Edgar-Quinet Hall of the University of Lyon. The time had been announced for 8:30 p.m. with the secret intention ofbeginning, at theearliest, at8:45. But in spite of inclement weather, by 8:33 the hall was packed with more than four hundred people and some had to remain outside.
Law professor Andre Philip introduced Lidia to the audience, remarking that she was carrying on her father's work like an apostle. After the Polish consul in Lyon spoke a few words, expressing sympathy with the idea of intemational language, Lidia gave a short talk, with Emile Borel serving as her translator.
'Then the lesson began', the reporter for the newspaper Le Progres de Lyon wrote, 'and it was a real delight to listen to the new teacher teach . . . initiate and ardently convert to the international language all those who listened.
'The method is extremely picturesque, amazing', he went on. 'Instantaneously, and as if under an irresistible suggestion, the entire rows of listeners apply themselves to repeating, with the singsong pronunciation of the initiates, the words and phrases which the teacher illustrates with familiar objects and expressive gestures. A veritable ovation was given Mademoiselle Zamenhof.'
'Never has a course of Esperanto, or even, perhaps, a course in any other language, won such great success at the Faculty of Letters,' was the evaluation of Le Progres.
The next evening the course began. Lidia had been afraid that the students would not want to come every evening, and even she herself was surprised to see how 'young and old, laborers, merchants, scouts, teachers and various important people hurried every day not to be late and to get a good seat'. During the class 'the pupils worked, the rubber animals worked - cat, dog, donkey, pig - the usual tools of the Cseh course. The photographers also worked.' The Lyon papers reported favorably on the course, with articles and photographs that aroused great interest. In spite of unusually cold weather and a wave of grippe, for three weeks every night the students came. And every night, the appearance of the diminutive teacher was greeted with a thunderous applause. Dr Andre Vedrine, who attended the course, later recalled: 'the atmosphere was extraordinary. Lidia Zamenhofwas a remarkable teacher. Plain in appearance, she demonstrated a sprightliness and a joyful spirit which could leave none indifferent. A few objects skill- fully handled, a few pieces ofcolored chalk, an expressive pantomime, and all the students understood.' The translator was hardly needed.
Raymond Gonin recalled: 'Often one heard the students say, "What a good teacher!" because she made them enthusiastic.' Mrs Borel told him that before the course began she had feared it would not be successful because Lidia was somewhat timid, but during the course Lidia spoke so forcefully, she conquered her shyness.
'With these three weeks of amazing lessons by Lidia Zamenhof', raved Le Progres,'. . . the universal language which already counted so many eloquent followers in Lyon has been given an impetus which should be decisive.
'Upon seeing the hundreds of pupils of all ages, of all social classes, looking and listening so attentively in order not to miss the slightest gesture, the slightest intonation of the charming teacher - because it is a veritable charm which Lidia quite naturally, without knowing French, radiates among her audience - to see all these radiant faces, eager to understand and to make themselves understood, one gets the feeling of a new faith, an irresistible blazing-up of minds which should not come to a standstill now.
'By this vigorous demonstration, this unprecedented educational triumph, the universal auxiliary language proves its irresistible impetus, its effective power in human progress.'
When the course ended, the number of students had risen from 144 to 170. On the last evening Mr Borel installed a radio microphone in the classroom. Before beginning the lesson, Lidia gave a farewell speech which was broadcast over the air. Then, to her polite questions: ' Are you well? Are you happy?' her class responded as usual in chorus.
Lidia left the university that night sad to be departing. At the emotional farewell party in the Maison-Doree, a large crowd of her students gathered to say good-bye to their teacher and offer her gifts. The table was so crowded with the flowers they had brought that, she noted, 'there was hardly room for a cup of chocolate'. But most satisfying of all to Lidia was hearing her pupils speak to her in Esperanto - people who three weeks earlier had known nothing of the language. When she left Lyon she wrote, 'although the day was cold, my eyes were sweating'.
News of Lidia's tremendously successful course in Lyon stirred up enthusiasm and excitement among the Esperantists in other cities in France, and invitations poured in asking her to come and teach courses. She left Lyon for Montbeliard, Belfort and Valentigny, in a region where up to now there were very few Esperantists. After she left, there were 140 new ones.
Her next course, in Saint-Etienne, began with 80 and grew to 103. In
Bordeaux, again there were 80. Her successes were so encouraging that the committee in Lyon asked her to continue teaching in France for another year, and Lidia consented.
After her classes ended that summer, Lidia and the Borels traveled to the Netherlands to spend several weeks at the new Esperanto House in Arnhem, attending a seminar for Cseh-method teachers. On July 26, which the Esperantists celebrated as the birthday of Esperanto, people in one of the classes presented Lidia with a basket of flowers. Touched and surprised by the gesture, she thanked them but, one observer noted, 'gently directed the honor' to her father.
Although Lidia had seen her father idolized by the Esperantists, she did not expect this attitude of awe to carry over to herself simply because she was Dr ZamenhoPs daughter and was continuing his work. She was well aware of the visible position she held, but besides the position she had also inherited from her father the attitude that the Esperanto work was all-important, and that any status that people attributed to her was only useful as far as it helped to get the work done. Like Dr Zamenhof, she did not seek or expect special attention to be paid to her but - through her - to Esperanto.
At Arnhem, after class, there was time to relax on chaises in the garden or take a rowboat out on the River Rhine. Mies Bakker-Smith remembered Lidia from that summer as 'a very serious person, who was never seen to laugh'. Lidia impressed her as very determined and inflexible, even 'somewhat dictatorial'.