On the same morning, I saw Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell--and from this call of the 15th of May, 1854, I date my new life in America. She spoke a little German and understood me perfectly when I talked. I gave her all my certificates for inspection, but said nothing to her of my plans in coming to America. It would have seemed too ludicrous for me in my position to tell her that I entertained the idea of interesting the people in the establishment of a hospital for women. I hardly know what I told her, indeed, for I had no other plan of which to speak, and therefore talked confusedly like an adventurer. I only know that I said that I would even take the position of nurse if I could enter one of the large hospitals, in order to learn the manner in which they were managed in this country. I cannot comprehend how Dr. Blackwell could ever have taken so deep an interest in me as she manifested that morning, for I never in my life was so little myself. Yet she did take this interest, for she gave me a sketch of her own experience in acquiring a medical education and explained the requirements for such in this country and the obstacles that are thrown in the way of women who seek to become physicians. She told me of her plan of founding a hospital--the long-cherished idea of my life--and said that she had opened a little dispensary on the 1st of May, two weeks before (the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children), which was designed to be the nucleus for this hospital, and she invited me to come and assist her. She insisted that first of all I should learn English, and she offered to give me lessons twice a week and also to make efforts to enable me to enter a college to acquire the title of “M.D.,” which I had not the right to attach to my name. I left her after several hours’ conversation, and we parted friends. [Dr. Blackwell, in her autobiography, tells of writing to her sister, Dr. Emily, giving her impression of this interview: “I have at last found a student in whom I can take a great deal of interest, Marie Zakrzewska, a German about twenty-six.... There is true stuff in her, and I shall do my best to bring it out.... She must obtain a medical degree.”] I found Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell a rather short but stately lady, blonde with wavy hair, very dignified, kindly in speech, and very deliberate and wise in her remarks. The cordiality with which she welcomed me as a co-worker, I can never describe nor forget. It aroused all my sunken hopes and energies and directed them again to the field of work which I had cultivated and which I had almost given up in despair. Now, I was finding the welcome and the beginning of which I had dreamed, and all the many days of disappointment were instantly forgotten.