Departure for Kharkoff--Town life.
The following year was to be spent at Kharkoff. Katia was now seventeen
and her marriage had to be contemplated.
The boys' life was still quite a childish one, made up chiefly of games
and mischief. Kolia had been taught to read by the great-aunt; Ilia
had learnt by himself, asking people now and then for the name of some
letter. He was able to read fluently quite early.
The departure for Kharkoff was a great event, prepared long beforehand.
The children, delighted at the prospect of a change, impatiently waited
for the moment to start. At last every one was seated in the coaches
and, saying to the coachman, "Off! God keep us," they started to drive
along the high road through the steppes.
Life at Kharkoff was very much the same as at Panassovka, with
social elements added. Moreover, the children's liberty was somewhat
restricted. Already on the journey they were given to understand that,
in a town, they could not go out alone, nor shout in the streets, nor
point at people and things with their finger, and that they should
have to make less noise, even in the house. For the first time they
unconsciously realised that their family was not the centre of the
universe, that there were many others who also had to be taken into
account. Ilia did not welcome this discovery.
The flat occupied by the Metchnikoffs was on the first floor, above
that of the owner of the house. One day when the children were
running about, making a fearful noise, some one came up to say that
the landlady was ill and begged that the noise should cease. Ilia,
interrupted in the midst of a game, became furiously angry; in his rage
he seized a whistle, and stooping to a crack in the floor, whistled
with all his might. It was only with much difficulty that he was
induced to stop and to calm himself.[4]
[4] Metchnikoff himself insisted upon the recital of this
episode, for which he had felt some remorse. He considered
that, in a biography, disagreeable traits were not to be
omitted.
The children's horizon soon widened; Dmitri Ivanovitch took them to
the theatre and a new and fantastic world opened out to them. The very
next day they attempted a performance of the play they had seen; soon,
on Kolia's suggestion, they began to compose plays for themselves.
Kolia wrote a drama entitled "Burning Tea," in which the hero having
offered his friend tea that was too hot, the latter burnt his tongue;
a duel ensued, etc., etc. Ilia hastened to follow his brother's
example. He composed something in the same style, but even more absurd.
Having realised that it was so, he gave up literature. That period
was for him a series of disappointments which perhaps helped to lead
him to the path he was ultimately to follow. His brother, following
the "grown-ups'" example, played cards with other boys or with the
maids. Ilia attempted to do the same, but his nervousness left him no
self-control; he lost continually and games generally ended in quarrels
and tears; he became disgusted with cards for the rest of his life.
Kolia was fond of muscular exercises, such as gymnastics, wrestling,
etc. Ilia, younger and therefore weaker, was constantly humiliated, and
his pride kept him away from physical amusements. Thus, by means of
elimination, he became gradually isolated from surrounding influences.
But, at that time, no new element had intervened in his daily life and
he spent his existence in the gentle warmth of his mother's tenderness,
absorbed in his childish games and studies.