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Authorised Translation from the French
[Illustration: DR. METCHNIKOFF IN HIS LABORATORY.]
LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF
1845-1916
by
OLGA METCHNIKOFF
With a Preface by Sir Ray Lankester K.C.B. F.R.S.
London
Constable and Company Ltd.
1921
PREFACE
It has been a great satisfaction to me to carry out the wish of my
dear friend Elie Metchnikoff, and arrange for the production of an
English translation of his biography. The account of his life and work
written by Olga Metchnikoff is a remarkable and beautiful record of
the development and activities of a great discoverer. It is remarkable
because it is seldom that one who undertakes such a task has had so
constant a share in, and so complete a knowledge and understanding of,
the life portrayed as in the present case: seldom that the intimate
thought and mental "adventure" of a discoverer presents so clear and
consistent a history. It is beautiful because it is put before us with
perfect candour and simplicity guided by rare intelligence and inspired
by deep affection. Madame Metchnikoff has drawn the picture of the
development of a single-minded character absolutely and tenaciously
devoted to a high purpose--the improvement of human life. It is a
story of "struggles and adventures," but they are wholly in the field
of the investigation of Nature. We read here little or nothing of the
quest for personal advancement, for fortune or official position.
These things had no attraction for Metchnikoff. He left Russia and
took an unpaid post in Paris in order to have a place to work in. He
had many devoted friends in whose company he sought refreshment and
relaxation, but all his immense energy and industry were concentrated
on the development and establishment of his great biological theory
of "Phagocytosis" and its outcome, the philosophy of life called by
him "Orthobiosis." This volume tells truly of a simple life--a life in
which the social incidents which fill so large a space in most lives
were either non-existent or unnoticed because, by the side of the great
purpose which dominated Metchnikoff's every thought and action--namely,
the advancement of Science--he was not touched by them. He was
affectionate, kind-hearted, and truly considerate of others, but was,
in a way which is traceable to his racial origin, a practical idealist
concentrating his whole strength and reason on the realisation of what
he held to be the highest good.
I had as an eager reader of memoirs on biological subjects become
acquainted with Metchnikoff's earliest publications in 1865, when
he was twenty years of age and I two years younger. I wrote short
accounts of them, as they appeared, for a chronicle of progress in the
_Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, then edited by my father.
Those on a European Land Planarian, on the development of Myzostomum
(the parasite of the Feather-Star), on Apsilus, a strange new kind of
wheel-animalcule, and his protest against Rudolf Leuckart's treatment
of him in the matter of his important discoveries concerning the
Frog's lung-worm--_Ascaris nigrovenosa_--remain in my memory, and
later, in 1872, I was especially struck by his important demonstration
of the true mode of development of the gastrula of the calcareous
sponges in correction of Professor Ernst Haeckel. Many other papers
of his became known to me, until in 1881 he published his first
observations on _Intracellular Digestion in Lower Animals_, which was
the starting-point of his life's work on "Phagocytosis," to which all
his subsequent researches--during thirty-five years--were exclusively
dedicated.
In 1888 I was introduced by my friend Lauder Brunton to the great
Pasteur, and called on him at his laboratory in the rue d'Ulm. There I
met Metchnikoff, only lately arrived from Russia, and welcomed as one
of his staff by Pasteur. The next year, 1889, Pasteur was installed
in the new "Institut Pasteur" in the rue Dutot, and I met Metchnikoff
there in his new quarters. Pasteur's assistants were carrying on daily
his system of inoculation against rabies, and many British subjects
were amongst those treated. I persuaded the Lord Mayor of that year,
Sir James Whitehead, to visit the Pasteur Institute with a view to
taking steps to make some recognition of the services rendered by
Pasteur to our fellow-countrymen in treating over two hundred of them
threatened with hydrophobia. Sir James called a meeting on July 1,
1889, at the Mansion House, and placed the management of it in my
hands. As a result we obtained subscriptions to a fund which enabled
us to assist many poor British subjects to visit Paris for the purpose
of undergoing M. Pasteur's treatment, to make a donation of 30,000
francs to the Pasteur Institute, and to initiate with a sum of £300 the
formation of a fund for the purpose of establishing an Institute in
London similar in purpose and character to the Institut Pasteur. That
initial fund has step by step received generous additions and given us
the "Lister Institute" on Chelsea Embankment possessed of buildings,
site, and capital valued at more than £300,000.
After 1889 it was rare for a year to pass without my visiting Paris
both in spring and summer, and seeing a great deal of Metchnikoff
and his friends Roux, Duclaux, Laveran, and the great master of the
Pastorians, who died in 1895. Metchnikoff took me to his home and
cemented his friendship with me by bringing to me that of his gifted
and devoted wife.
Madame Metchnikoff had when a schoolgirl studied zoology under her
future husband at Odessa, and now was able to give serious help in
some of his researches. She published some experimental investigation
on the sterilisation of the alimentary canal of tadpoles and some
other researches, and having a thorough knowledge of English, which
Elie did not possess, she helped him in reading and translating from
that language. But her chief talents were in the arts of painting and
sculpture, and when they purchased their country house at Sèvres, she
built a studio in the garden in which to pursue her vocation.
Metchnikoff on several occasions came to England to take part in
"congresses" or to give special addresses, and often stayed a day or
two with me in London.[1] I was with him at the Darwin Celebration at
Cambridge in 1909, and the last occasion when he came was to give the
Priestley Lecture of the National Health Society in November 1912.
At my request he selected "The Warfare against Tuberculosis" as his
subject, and gave a most valuable account of the history and actual
condition of that enterprise, relating the important results of his
expedition to the Kalmuk Tartars for the purpose of studying the
immunity from and the liability to infection by tuberculosis among
that nomad population. The lecture was delivered in French, and I made
a translation of it which appeared with numerous illustrations in the
journal called _Bedrock_, published by Constable & Co. I mention that
publication here as it is the only one excepting the three lectures on
"The New Hygiene" (Heinemann, London, 1906) originally published in
an English form by Metchnikoff, and deserves more attention from the
English medical public than it has received.
[1] He received an honorary degree at Cambridge in 1891, and
also attended the International Medical Congress in London
in that year. In 1901 he gave a lecture at Manchester on the
intestinal flora. In 1906 he gave a course of three lectures
in London on "The New Hygiene." I translated them for him,
and they were published as a little volume by Heinemann.
I found Metchnikoff a delightful companion. He always had something
new or of special interest to show to me at the laboratory--some
microscopical preparation, the digestive process in Protozoa,
the microbian parasite of a water-flea, a new method of dark
ground illumination with high powers (Commandant's method for film
production), the newly discovered Treponema of syphilis, or the
experimental inoculation of a disease under study. Sometimes I
would lunch at his house, when, although he neither smoked nor took
alcoholic drinks himself, he made a point of giving me first-rate
claret and a good cigar. It was about the year 1900 that he arranged
for the preparation of a pure "sour milk" made by the use of a special
lactic ferment (selected and cultivated by himself), and this he took
regularly. I found it a most agreeable food, and for several years made
it an article of my own diet. He was very careful about the possible
contamination of uncooked food by bacteria and the eggs of parasitic
worms, and in consequence had "rolls" sent to him from the bakers each
in its separate paper bag, whilst he would never eat uncooked salads or
fruit which could not be rendered safe by "peeling." This was not an
excess of caution, but resulted from his characteristic determination
to carry out in practice the directions given by definite scientific
knowledge, and to make the attempt to lead so far as possible a life
free from disease. Often when I arrived in Paris he would invite me to
lunch at one of the leading cafés, and though he ate very simple food
himself took keen pleasure in ordering the best for me and thoroughly
enjoyed the change of scene and the amenities of a first-rate
restaurant. During one of his visits to London, I remember that he was
invited, and I with him, on two or three occasions, by leading London
physicians to dinner-parties. He was greatly shocked at the amount of
strong wine which his hosts and fellow-guests consumed, and assured me
that in Paris it would be injurious to the reputation of a physician
were he not to set an example of either abstinence or great moderation.
Metchnikoff was not only exceedingly gentle and courteous in his
treatment of servants and employés, but he and his wife contrived on
a very small income to help in a most substantial way poor neighbours
and those who had met with misfortune whether they were of French or
Russian nationality. They had many friends in the world of science and
art, real workers and thinkers, including those who had not and those
who had "arrived." With them I met and spent a long and interesting
day with Rodin the sculptor and the son of Léon Tolstoï, who was
working in a Paris studio. Among the pleasures which I have derived
from the _Life_ are the accounts of places such as Naples and Messina,
where I stayed in order to study the embryology of marine animals as
Metchnikoff did; and also the appearance in these pages from time to
time of old friends such as Nikolas Kleinenberg, whom Metchnikoff
met at Messina in 1883. I had formed an intimate acquaintance with
Kleinenberg at Jena in 1871, when he was working at his classical
monograph on Hydra, and continued it at Naples in 1875. From Messina,
where he became Professor in 1875, Kleinenberg sent me for publication
in the _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_ his valuable
memoir on the embryology of a species of Earthworm, and also rare and
interesting specimens of Cephalopoda.
Another great and noteworthy figure about whom all zoologists are
glad to learn as much as possible is Kovalevsky. Metchnikoff made his
acquaintance at Naples in 1864, and they formed a close friendship
for one another. Later, in 1867, they shared the Baer Prize of the
Petersburg Academy for their discoveries in embryology (p. 58). In
1868 Metchnikoff had a dispute with Kovalevsky as to the origin of the
nervous system of Ascidia (p. 62), concerning which he subsequently
admitted that he was wrong and Kovalevsky right. There is no doubt that
Kovalevsky, by his numerous important investigations of invertebrate
embryology, and especially of that of Ascidia and Amphioxus, laid
the foundation of _cellular_ Embryology, and the modern study of the
embryology of Invertebrates. Metchnikoff's contributions were also of
great value and importance (pp. 51, 52, 53, and pp. 72 and 73), though
he has not so great a triumph in animal morphology to his credit as
Kovalevsky's discovery of the close identities of the development of
organs in Ascidia and Amphioxus. I had long cherished profound esteem
for Kovalevsky when in 1896 I met him and his daughter at Wimereux
with Professor Giard. He came in the autumn of that year to London,
but left unexpectedly owing to some nervous fear of annoyance by the
police. The great position of Kovalevsky was deliberately ignored in
a German history of Zoology,[2] published just before the Great War.
Metchnikoff describes Kovalevsky as a young man, small and timid, with
shy but cordial manners and the clear sweet eyes of a child: he had
(like Metchnikoff) for Science an absolute cult--"no sacrifice was too
great, no difficulty too repellent for his ardour."
[2] By Prof. Hertwig of Munich.
* * * * *
It is, I think, desirable to assure the reader of this book that the
actual state of knowledge in regard to various subjects discussed
in the _Life_ at the time when they were made the subjects of study
by Metchnikoff is fairly and correctly sketched, and the growth and
development of his views and original discoveries are correctly given.
But it must be remembered that this _Life_ is not a critical discussion
of the steps by which our knowledge of cell-layers, of intracellular
digestion, and other factors contributory to Metchnikoff's doctrine of
Phagocytosis and its outcomes were reached. Others played an important
if a subsidiary part in building up that knowledge. What we have here
is an account of the growth of Metchnikoff's own observations and
theoretical inferences, which were so independent, and founded on
such decisive original observations, as to make him a solitary figure
contending, and successfully contending, during the best years of
his lifetime for the recognition of a great generalisation for long
opposed by most of the medical and physiological authorities of the
time, and finally established by his lifelong researches and those of
his faithful pupils and coadjutors. The recognition of the validity
of _the doctrine of phagocytosis_ in relation to wounds, disease,
immunity, and normal healthy life is the triumphant result of the
scientific insight and boundless energy of Elie Metchnikoff.
E. RAY LANKESTER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION xxi
CHAPTER I
1845. Panassovka--Metchnikoff's parents--Country life in
Little Russia 1
CHAPTER II
Metchnikoff's brothers and sister--Childish characteristics 8
CHAPTER III
1850. Journey to Slaviansk--The coach attacked by peasants 12
CHAPTER IV
1851. Departure for Kharkoff--Town life 16
CHAPTER V
1853-1856. Leo Metchnikoff's illness--Private tutors--
Botanical studies--A memorable birthday 19
CHAPTER VI
Ancestors of the Metchnikoff family--The great "Spatar"--Leo
Nevahovitch 23
CHAPTER VII
1856-1861. The Kharkoff Lycée--Bogomoloff and Socialism--
Atheism--Natural History studies--Private lodgings--
Private lessons in histology from Professor Tschelkoff
--A borrowed microscope--First article--Italian opera--
The gold medal 28
CHAPTER VIII
An early love--A schoolfellow's sister--A pretty sister-in-law 35
CHAPTER IX
1862. Journey to Germany--Leipzig, Würzburg--A hasty return 37
CHAPTER X
1863. Kharkoff University--Physiology--The Vorticella--
Controversy with Kühne--_The Origin of Species_--
Gastrotricha--University degree 40
CHAPTER XI
1864-1866. Heligoland--Giessen Congress--Leuckart--Visit
to Leo Metchnikoff at Geneva--Socialist gatherings--
Metchnikoff's discovery appropriated by Leuckart--Naples
--Kovalevsky--Comparative embryology--Embryonic layers--
Bakounine and Setchénoff--Cholera at Naples--Göttingen--
Anatomical studies--Munich; von Siebold--Music--Return
to Naples--Intracellular digestion 43
CHAPTER XII
1867-1868. Petersburg--Baer Prize--Return home--Friendship
with Cienkovsky--Odessa--Naturalists' Congress at
Petersburg--Departure from Odessa--Zoological Lecturer's
Chair at Petersburg--Messina--Enforced rest--Reggio--
Naples--Controversy with Kovalevsky--Visit to the
B. family--Mlle. Fédorovitch--Educational questions--
Difficulties of life in Petersburg 58
CHAPTER XIII
1868-1873. Slight illness--Engagement to Mlle. Fédorovitch--
Marriage--Illness of the bride--Pecuniary difficulties
--Spezzia--Montreux--Work in Petersburg University--The
Riviera--Coelomata and Acoelomata--St. Vaast--Panassovka
--Madeira--Mertens--Teneriffe--Return to Odessa--Bad news,
hurried journey to Madeira--Death of his wife (1872)--
Return through Spain--Attempted suicide--Ephemeridæ 65
CHAPTER XIV
1874. Anthropological expedition to the Kalmuk steppes--
Affection of the eyes--Second expedition to the steppes--
The eggs of the _Geophilus_ 82
CHAPTER XV
1875. Studies on childhood--The family in the upper flat--
Lessons in zoology--Second marriage--Private life--Visit
and death of Lvovna Nevahovna--Conjugal affection 86
CHAPTER XVI
1875-1880. Metchnikoff at the age of 30--Lecturing in Odessa
University, from 1873 to 1882--Internal difficulties--
Assassination of the Tsar, Alexander II.--Further troubles
in the University--Resignation--Bad health: cardiac
symptoms--Relapsing fever--Choroiditis--Studies on
Ephemeridæ--Further studies on intracellular digestion--
The _Parenchymella_--Holidays in the country--Experiments
on agricultural pests 96
CHAPTER XVII
1881-1882. Death of his father- and mother-in-law--Management
of country estates--Agitation and difficulties--Departure
for Messina with young brothers- and sisters-in-law 112
CHAPTER XVIII
1883. Messina--Inception of the phagocyte theory--Encouragement
from Virchow and Kleinenberg--First paper on phagocytosis
at a Congress at Odessa in 1883--The question of _immunity_
--Article in Virchow's _Archiv_, 1884 115
CHAPTER XIX
1884-1885. Ill-health of his wife and sister-in-law--Journey
to Tangiers through Spain--Villefranche--Baumgarten
criticises the phagocyte theory 123
CHAPTER XX
1886. A Bacteriological Institute in Odessa--Unsatisfactory
conditions--Experiments on erysipelas and on relapsing
fever 127
CHAPTER XXI
1887. Hygiene Congress in Vienna--Wiesbaden--Munich--Paris
and Pasteur--Berlin and Koch--Failure of anthrax
vaccination of sheep--Decision to leave Russia 131
CHAPTER XXII
1888. The Pasteur Institute--Dreams realised--Metchnikoff
at 50--Growing optimism--Attenuated sensitiveness--The
Sèvres villa (1898)--Daily routine 135
CHAPTER XXIII
1892. Opposition to the phagocyte theory--Scientific
controversies--Experiments in support of the phagocyte
theory--Behring and antitoxins--The London Congress--
_Inflammation_ 147
CHAPTER XXIV
Cholera--Experiments on himself and others--Illness of M.
Jupille--Death of an epileptic subject--Insufficient results 154
CHAPTER XXV
1894. Pfeiffer's experiments--The Buda-Pest Congress--
Extracellular destruction of microbes--Reaction of the
organism against toxins--Dr. Besredka's researches--
Macrophages--The Moscow Congress--Bordet's experiments 158
CHAPTER XXVI
1900. Immunity--Natural immunity--Artificial immunity 168
CHAPTER XXVII
1893-1905. Private sorrows--Death of Pasteur--Ill-health
--Senile atrophies--Premature death--Orthobiosis--
Syphilis (1905)--Acquisition of anthropoid apes (1903) 181
CHAPTER XXVIII
Researches on the intestinal flora--Sour milk 196
CHAPTER XXIX
1908. The Nobel Prize--Journey to Sweden and Russia--A day
with Léon Tolstoï 199
CHAPTER XXX
Intestinal flora--Infantile cholera--Typhoid fever--Articles
on popular Science 206
CHAPTER XXXI
1911. Expedition to the Kalmuk steppes to study tuberculosis
--Plague 210
CHAPTER XXXII
Further researches on the intestinal flora--_Forty Years'
Search for a Rational Conception of Life_ 220
CHAPTER XXXIII
Unpleasant incidents--The fabrication of lacto-bacilli--St.
Léger-en-Yvelines--Return to Paris--First cardiac attack
--Evolution of the death instinct--Notes on his symptoms 225
CHAPTER XXXIV
1914. Return to St. Léger-en-Yvelines--Norka--Studies on the
death of the silk-worm moth--War declared--Mobilisation 237
CHAPTER XXXV
1915. Return to Paris--The deserted Institute--Memoir on the
Founders of Modern Medicine--Metchnikoff's Jubilee--Last
holidays at Norka 244
CHAPTER XXXVI
1916. Bronchial cold--Aggravated cardiac symptoms--Farewell
to Sèvres--Return to the Institute--Protracted sufferings
--Intellectual preoccupations--Observations on his own
condition--The end--Cremation. 254
EPILOGUE 276
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 285
INDEX 291
INTRODUCTION
On a calm summer evening we were seated together on our terrace.
On the preceding day, one who hardly knew my husband had come to ask
him for information concerning his life, with the object of writing
his biography. We were saying to each other how inevitably superficial
and incomplete such a biography was bound to be; how difficult such a
task is for a biographer, even when fully informed; how necessary it
is to be thoroughly acquainted with a man and with every phase of his
existence in order to give a truthful picture of his character and of
his life. The intimate side is bound to remain more or less closed to a
stranger; in order to decipher it, it is indispensable for the writer
of a biography to have lived in complete communion of spirit with its
subject. Our long past, spent together, fulfilled all these conditions.
My husband's whole life was well known to me. My mother-in-law had
often told me vivid stories of his childhood; he himself willingly
talked to me about his past. As to the second part of his existence, we
had lived it together.
In order clearly to understand his character, at once both complex and
one-sided, it was necessary to possess the key to his psychology. In
his life, as in his work, everything was so closely knitted that it was
impossible to understand the whole without knowledge of every link of
his evolution.
In the soothing calm of that summer evening, I submitted my reflections
to him; he warmly encouraged me, and I then and there resolved to write
his biography. He advised me to relate his whole life without any
reticence, considering that thus alone does a biography justify its
existence. That advice was to guide me, within limits, for to dissect
an individual life without touching other lives as well is not always
possible.
Numerous were the difficulties before me; yet, I considered the task as
a mission, hoping, in spite of all, that this biography would present a
true picture of the life and evolution of Elie Metchnikoff.
We talked over this project for a long time. The moon now appeared
above the trees, the soft light tracing silver designs through the ivy
leaves. The lawn, the walnut tree in front of the house, and everything
around us was bathed in peaceful radiance. Under its mysterious charm,
we ceased to speak, we listened to the inward voices of nature and of
our own hearts.
In youth, vague reveries fill our minds; after a long life, distant
memories.... He whose life I describe is no more.... Without his help
my task could not have been accomplished.
Often, when he was not too tired, he would sit comfortably in his
armchair and recount to me with his usual spirit and animation some
period or episode of his past. I read to him a sketch of the first part
of this biography and a few chapters only of the second, which was
hardly begun. Thus we spent many evenings, never to be forgotten.
He wanted this biography written, for he held that the evolution of
a mind, of a character, of a human life is always an interesting
psychological document. During his long and painful illness, he urged
me to relate the "last chapter" of his life; he hoped that his attitude
in the face of death might diminish the fear of it in others. Also
he considered that men are rare who are conscious until the end;
even rarer, those who reach the development of the "death-instinct."
Therefore, according to him, an example would be interesting.
I have tried to accomplish his desire within the measure of my strength.
The only object of this simple and truthful story is to show Elie
Metchnikoff as he was, a help, a support, and a lesson to others.
I dedicate this book to his dear memory.
OLGA METCHNIKOFF.
SÈVRES, _15th Dec. 1918_.
CHAPTER I
Panassovka--Metchnikoff's parents--Country life in Little Russia.
In Little Russia, in the steppe region of the province of Kharkoff,
is situated the land of Panassovka, which belonged to the Metchnikoff
family. It is now sold, it has passed into strange hands, but it was
once the patrimony of Ilia Ivanovitch, father of Elie Metchnikoff.
The country around Panassovka is neither beautiful nor rich: steppes,
hillocks covered with low grasses and wild wormwood; a poor village,
meagre vegetation, no river; the whole impression is a melancholy one.
But what boundless space! What soft, silver grey colouring! And, in the
mornings and evenings, what fresh, cool air, and what a delicious aroma
of wormwood leaves!
The house of Panassovka, a little way from the village, is situated
on a hill which slopes gently towards a pond. It is like that of any
other middle-class landowner in Little Russia. It has only one storey
and two flights of steps on the principal façade, opening into a
deserted courtyard with no view but the high road. On the other side
a semicircular terrace, with columns and steps, leads to the garden,
composed of a few meagre flower-beds and fruit trees, reaching to the
pond. On the bank, a distillery and a very well-kept kitchen garden.
The house is arranged inside in a commonplace manner, with no claim to
beauty or comfort. The furniture, devoid of style or elegance, neither
comfortable nor fashionable, is distributed quite inartistically. On
the other hand, great care is evident in everything that pertains
to the table: the cellars and larders are full of provisions, and
obviously constitute the principal preoccupation of the masters of
the house. And indeed the hospitable table of Panassovka is renowned
throughout the neighbourhood.
According to a very fine portrait, painted in 1835, Ilia Ivanovitch was
at that time a handsome young man with regular features, tender blue
eyes, and curly fair hair. He was very intelligent, but his mind had
that sceptical turn which prevents men from taking life seriously and
which paralyses activity. Moreover, he had an Epicurean temperament and
was in the army.
He had married, when very young, Emilia Lvovna Nevahovna, sister of one
of his brother officers in the Imperial Guard, a very attractive and
unusually intelligent girl. Her beauty was of the Jewish type, with
splendid dark eyes, and she had a bright and lively disposition as well
as a kind and tender heart. Her friends called her "Milotchka," which,
in Russian, means "charming"; in her old age she loved to relate that
the great Russian poet, Pushkin, once said to her at a ball, "How well
your name suits you, Mademoiselle!"
After his marriage, Ilia Ivanovitch remained in Petersburg, leading
a merry life with his brothers-in-law, and giving no thought to the
future; it took him but a few years at that rate to spend the whole of
his wife's inheritance. And three children were growing up whose future
had to be thought of. It was then that Ilia Ivanovitch's distant
estate was remembered, away in a remote part of Little Russia. What
energy, what perseverance had to be displayed by his wife before she
could persuade him to take refuge there! and how hard it must have
seemed to the gay officer to leave the capital for the lonely and
monotonous life of the country! However, departure was decided upon.
The two boys, Ivan and Leo, were placed in a school at Petersburg, to
be prepared for the Lycée and the Law School. Ilia Ivanovitch obtained
a post as Remount Officer for two Guards regiments, and started with
his wife, his daughter, an aunt, and a younger brother, to settle down
in the country.
The family settled at first in the old Ivanovka house, where a son,
Nicholas, was born. Though they wished to have no more children,
one more child was born two years later, on the 16th May 1845--Elie
Metchnikoff.
The Ivanovka house was old and inconvenient; Ilia Ivanovitch decided
to build a new one at the other end of his estate, in a place called
Panassovka, which thus became the family home.
Emilia Lvovna threw herself into her domestic occupations with her
usual energy and ardour. She was anxious to improve the situation,
which had become precarious, and wished at the same time to create
for her husband an environment suited to his Epicurean tastes. Ilia
Ivanovitch loved cards and the table, both tastes easy to satisfy in
the country, and which became the pivot of life at Panassovka. The
great daily problem was the question of meals, and long conversations
had to take place with the cook and with the housekeeper concerning
catering.
Thanks to serfdom, servants were very numerous and everything could
be manufactured at home. The "diévitshia" (maid-servants' room) was
crowded with maids, seamstresses, needle-women, washer-women, etc.,
under the direction of a fat, middle-aged woman named Duniasha. She
wore a silk kerchief on her head, and was invariably clothed in a
white dressing jacket and a brown skirt with white spots. A regular
autocrat, she ruled her little world with a rod of iron; as soon as her
heavy, felt-slippered steps were heard, the maids whispered to each
other, "Avdotia Maximovna!" conversations ceased, and every one became
absorbed in her work.
Among the male retainers, the first place was held by Petrushka, the
valet. Careless and often drunk, he was nevertheless a good fellow; he
was usually to be found asleep behind the screen in the hall. The upper
servants, the cook, coachman, and others left their work to be done by
their underlings, the scullery boy, postilion, page-boy, etc. In fact,
everything followed the routine usual in every Russian household in the
time of serfdom.
Emilia Lvovna directed the children's education; her personal teaching
consisted chiefly in tender indulgence, but it was she who chose the
nurses and teachers. As long as the boys were small, their great-aunt
Elena Samoïlovna looked after them; afterwards they were handed over to
tutors and professors. Ilia Ivanovitch's activities consisted in buying
horses at fairs and in studs and in convoying them to Petersburg.
These journeys took a long time, by stages and relays of horses. Ilia
Ivanovitch took advantage of them to gamble heavily and to enjoy
pleasures which the country did not offer.
Agriculture was very restricted at Panassovka, for the property
consisted mostly of pasture land for horses and sheep. The younger
brother, Dmitri Ivanovitch, had undertaken the management of the
estate. He was entirely devoted to the family of his elder brother,
whom he had followed into the country. Though only a few years younger,
he used the respectful second person plural in speaking to Ilia
Ivanovitch, whilst the latter said "thou" to him. Dmitri Ivanovitch
was tall, thin, and taciturn, a silent pipe-smoker. The lively Emilia
Lvovna often said to him, "But why do you never talk, Mitienka?" To
which he invariably answered, "It is not every one who is as talkative
as you are, Emilia Lvovna." Yet they were on the best of terms. Dmitri
Ivanovitch would have gone through fire for his sister-in-law, as she
well knew. She had the utmost confidence in him, and depended upon his
support in every difficult circumstance.
At Panassovka the men spent the greater part of the day, and often even
of the night, in playing cards; games were organised between neighbours
and relations, and that occupation was considered most important. Meals
were prolonged indefinitely; everything was served in abundance and
eaten with a connoisseur's appreciation, each dish being discussed.
After the meal was over, the cook would make his daily appearance,
and the next day's _menu_ was drawn up by the whole party. After a
siesta, gambling was resumed. Thus the days went by in the cult of good
cheer and of cards, interspersed with conversations about horses and
sometimes about politics.
By this time Ilia Ivanovitch was beginning to become bald and obese.
It is difficult to define what was his inner life; not even to his
wife did he ever speak of it. As to his children, he petted them when
they were small, but as they grew up, their intercourse with him was
limited to kissing his hand morning and evening. He was not indifferent
to their welfare, but left it entirely to his wife's active solicitude.
The children were on very different terms with their mother; not
only did she spoil them, but also always eagerly shared all their
childish interests. Owing to that, and to her bright and affectionate
disposition, they looked upon her as their intimate friend and
confidante.
Masters and servants were on good terms, relations between them were
even remarkably human, according to the ideas of the time, and in spite
of certain customs inherent to serfdom. For instance, the younger maids
were punished by having their faces slapped and their hair pulled.
Even the kindly and peaceable Dmitri Ivanovitch would soundly box his
valet's ears when he found him drunk. At that time such things were not
thought cruel or humiliating, but looked upon as a paternal correction.
The peasants had confidence in their "barin" (master) and consulted him
or appealed to his generosity when in trouble.
Ilia Ivanovitch never opposed the free choice of his serfs in
matrimony, a rare tolerance at that time. According to custom every
betrothed couple came to salute him, the young man in his Sunday
clothes and a fine, bright-coloured scarf, the girl wearing an
embroidered bodice and a head-dress of many-coloured ribbons. They
knelt before him and bowed three times to the ground, then offered him
sacramental loaves, hard and shaped like pine cones, on beautifully
worked diapers. Ilia Ivanovitch and Emilia Lvovna blessed the bride and
bridegroom with "ikons," embraced them, and gave them a sum of money
for the wedding.
The Metchnikoffs were liked by their peasants and looked upon as good
masters.