In Search of the Miraculous

or suitable. And so, if after three years of work I perceived that G. was leading us in

fact towards the way of religion, of the monastery, and required the observance of all

religious forms and ceremonies, there would be of course a motive for disagreeing

with this and for going away, even though at the risk of losing direct leadership. And

certainly this would not, at the same time, mean that I considered the religious way a

wrong way in general. It may even be a more correct way than my way but it is not

my way.

The decision to leave G.'s work and leave him exacted from me a great inner

struggle. I had built very much upon it and it was difficult for me now to reconstruct

everything from the beginning. But there was nothing else to do. Of course, all that I

had learned during those three years I retained. But a whole year passed by while I

was going into all this and until I found it possible to continue to work in the same

direction as G. but independently.

I went into a separate house and again began work abandoned in St. Petersburg, on

my book which afterwards appeared under the title A New Model of the Universe.

In the "Home" lectures and demonstrations still continued for a certain time and then stopped.

Sometimes I met G. in the park or on the street, sometimes he came to my house.

But I avoided going to the "Home."

At this time the position of affairs in the north Caucasus began to get very much

worse. We were completely cut off from central Russia; what was going on there we

did not know.

After the first Cossack raid on Essentuki the position quickly began to change for

the worse and G. decided to leave Mineralni Vodi. Where he actually intended to go

he did not say and it was difficult to say, having regard to the circumstances of the

time.

The public who had left Mineralni Vodi at that time had tried to get through to

Novorossiysk and I supposed that he would also go in that direction. I also decided to

leave Essentuki. But I did not want to leave before he did. In this respect I had a

strange kind of feeling. I wanted to wait until the end; to do everything that depended

upon me so that afterwards I could tell myself that I had not let a single possibility

escape me. It was very difficult for me to reject the idea of working with G.

In the beginning of August G. left Essentuki. Most of those living in the "Home"

left with him. A few people had gone earlier. About ten persons were left in

Essentuki.

I decided to go to Novorossiysk. But circumstances began to change swiftly.

Within a week of G.'s departure communications even with places nearest to us came

to a stop. Cossacks began to raid the branch line to

Mineralni Vodi and where we were, bolshevik robberies, "requisitions," and so on began. This was the time of the massacre of "hostages" in Pyatigorsk when General Russki, General Radko-Dimitriev, and Prince Ouroussov and many others perished.

I must confess that I felt very silly. I had not gone abroad when it was possible in

order to work with G. and the final outcome was that I had parted from G. and

stopped with the bolsheviks.

All of us who had stayed in Essentuki had to live through a very difficult time. For

me and my family things turned out comparatively favorably. Only two people out of

four got ill with typhoid. No one died. Not once were we robbed. And all the time I

had work and earned money. Things were much worse for others. In January, 1919,

we were set free by the Cossacks of Denikin's Army. But I was only able to leave

Essentuki in the following summer of 1919.

The news we had of G. was very brief. He had traveled by railway to Maikop and

from there the whole of the party with him went on foot by a very interesting but very

difficult way, through the mountains to the sea at Sochi which had then been seized

by the Georgians. Carrying with them the whole of their baggage they walked, with

all possible kinds of adventures and dangers, over lofty passes where there were no

roads and where hunters crossed but seldom. It was, apparently, only about a month

after their departure from Essentuki that they reached Sochi.

But the inner situation had changed. In Sochi the greater part of the company, as I

had foreseen, parted company with G. Among them were P. and Z. Only four people

stayed with G. of whom Dr. S. alone belonged to the original St. Petersburg group.

The others had only been in "young" groups.

In February P., who had established himself in Maikop after the rupture with G.,

came to Essentuki for his mother who had remained there, and from him we learned

the details of everything that had taken place on the way to and on arrival at Sochi.

Moscow people had gone to Kiev. G. with his four companions had gone to Tiflis. In

the spring we learned that he was continuing work in Tiflis with new people and in a

new direction, basing it principally on art, that is, on music, dances, and rhythmic

exercises.

At the end of winter when conditions of living became slightly easier I began to