Toward the Endless Day: The Life of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel

2. The Years in Nancy, 1933–1969

ch apter two THE YEARS IN NANCY, 1933–1969 The Behr Family’s Installation in Nancy, May 1933–August 1939 While to the east of the Rhine, Hitler became chancellor of the Reich, André and Elisabeth were married on February 19, 1933, at PlessisRobinson on the outskirts of Paris. Father Lev officiated, assisted by André’s uncle, Fr. Nicolas Behr, a former diplomat then living in London . The Behr family, still mourning the recent death of André’s grandmother, who had passed away on January 29, decided that there would be no photographs made of the ceremony. Disappointed that there would be no visual souvenir, Elisabeth would later ask André to take a picture of her in her wedding dress. Shortly thereafter André found work in the metallurgical industry , which, at that time, was prospering. He obtained a position as 53 chemical engineer at the Pompey steelworks in Meurthe-et-Moselle. Thus it was that in May the couple settled in Nancy, several kilometers from Pompey. They moved into an old house at 21, rue d’Auxonne, where they rented four rooms on the ground floor. This would be Elisabeth’s home base for forty years. Although originally built for a single family, the house was occupied by three families of tenants. The arrangement of the Behr’s new ground-floor lodgings was not very convenient. The common stairwell , which led to the upstairs apartments, divided their rooms in two. To the left of the stairwell was the bedroom, whose furniture was a wedding present from Charles Sigel; it was next to the bathroom, and then there was the dining room, the center of the household. To the right of the stairwell was Elisabeth’s “studio,” as she called it, with furniture her father had made for her and which she would keep for the rest of her life: a big desk lined with drawers, a long shelf, a small bed over which hung a bookshelf. It was there that she worked and received her guests. Next to that was a narrow room that would be the children’s, and then the kitchen—freezing cold in winter—that overlooked the garden. The front windows had a view of a large weeping willow, which hid the street. Behind the house, a few steps led to the garden, which was shared by the three families of tenants. The Josts, who would quickly become good friends of the Behrs, lived on the second floor. Madame Vivin and her daughter lived on the third. In Nancy, Elisabeth was relatively cut off from her family in Alsace and her Orthodox friends in Paris. The only Orthodox parish in Nancy celebrated the liturgy in Slavonic once a month. The priest accepted the young Frenchwoman, recently converted to Orthodoxy, into the community thanks to a written recommendation from Fr. Sergius Bulgakov. The parishioners were Russian workers, most of them employed in the metallurgical plants scattered throughout the region. André made friends among the other immigrant engineers at the steel mill, while Elisabeth, in Nancy, was reunited with her friend Pastor Mathiot, with whom she had been teamed during her pastoral studies. The Behrs also became friends with a physician, Pierre Châtelain, who owned a large property several blocks away. Châtelain was a gifted radiologist who lived with his aged mother and a maid in their spa54 The Years in Nancy, 1933–1969 cious family house. He had a great love for Russia, spoke the language fluently, and sheltered families of refugees in buildings he owned. This brilliant man of science had a strange, capricious personality. His colleagues had to lock him up to force him to write his thesis. A confirmed bachelor, Châtelain got into the habit of stopping by to see the Behrs every evening after work since their house was a convenient stop halfway up the hill to his own place. The radiologist installed himself in the studio to read the newspaper and chat with Elisabeth or André about current events in Russia or to dispute questions in theology. The discussions could become stormy, and often Elisabeth, fed up with him, declared categorically, “Châtelain, it’s time for you to go home!” During the years in Nancy, the relations between the Behrs and their neighbors, especially Pierre Châtelain, would become solid friendships that would sustain the family in difficult moments . First Publications In Nancy, Elisabeth, although separated from...