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.
In the spring of 1881, Metchnikoff having recovered from relapsing
fever, we went to stay with my parents at Kieff and found my father
dying. He entrusted Elie with the care of the family, and they came to
live with us at Odessa. But, the following year, we had the misfortune
to lose my mother also. From that moment my husband took upon himself
the responsibility of the whole family.
Our resources came from landed property, and he, who had never
concerned himself with rural questions, had to make himself acquainted
with them. In this he was greatly helped by a neighbour, Count
Bobrinsky, through whose influence he came to abandon the purely
theoretical opinions he had hitherto held concerning agrarian
questions. He had considered communal property as a desirable agrarian
system: Count Bobrinsky showed him that it was not so, at any rate in
Little Russia.
Metchnikoff came to the country with the keenest desire to make himself
useful. First of all he devoted the gratuity which he had received on
leaving the University, to a school which my sister and myself desired
to open in our family property. But we were met by administrative
opposition which nearly wrecked our plan, under the pretext that it was
intended for political propaganda. And though cordial relations were
established from the first between Metchnikoff and the peasantry, many
complications were unavoidable, due to the general agrarian situation,
to the insufficiency of the peasants' allotments, and to their
primitive methods of cultivation.
My father, whose property was in the province of Kieff, had inherited
another domain in that of Kherson; Metchnikoff therefore had to
manage both estates and to adapt himself to their very different
respective circumstances. The majority of the farmers in Little Russia
at that time were Jews and were beginning to be persecuted both by
the Government and by the peasants; Elie was constantly obliged to
intervene. In the province of Kherson, it was a tradition with the
peasants that the land should belong to them, and they imagined that
this could be brought about by the simple elimination of the farmers.
Therefore they inflicted constant vexations upon the latter, allowing
cattle to pasture in their crops, pulling up their beetroots, etc.
Metchnikoff attempted in vain to re-establish peace by means of
compromise; he persuaded a farmer to sub-let part of the land to the
peasants, but this had to be given up, for the latter did not carry out
their engagements. Relations between the farmers and the peasants were
getting worse and worse, and Metchnikoff, foreseeing a catastrophe,
warned the local administration that the situation was getting very
grave and would lead to irreparable consequences. He was merely told
that preventive measures would be useless; hereupon the peasants
brutally murdered a keeper who was turning the cattle away from the
crops. Then at last the administration awoke, arrested the murderers,
and twelve men were exiled to Siberia.
All this caused Metchnikoff the deepest anxiety, the more so that he
was absolutely incapable of altering the situation. As soon as it
became possible, he sold to the peasants that portion of the land
which belonged to us personally; until then, the property had been
common to the whole family, of which the younger members were not yet
of age. This, however, was not a general solution, and these moral
preoccupations, as well as the heavy responsibility incumbent upon him,
kept him from his scientific work. He was therefore very pleased to
hand over the management of the property to one of my brothers who had
just completed his studies in a Higher Agricultural School, and, in
spite of difficult conditions, Elie had the satisfaction of giving up
everything in good order.
Thanks to my parents' inheritance, he was able to abandon his share of
the Panassovka patrimony to the children of his brother and to live
henceforth independently. He wished to pursue researches on the shores
of the Mediterranean: therefore, in the autumn of the year 1882, we
went to Messina with my two sisters and my three young brothers. The
children were no trouble to Elie, who loved them; on the contrary, he
enjoyed organising the journey and arranging all sorts of pleasures for
them. The children, accustomed to his kindly indulgence, always came to
"the Prophet" for everything they wanted.[14]
[14] "Elie" is the French form of Elijah, in Russian Ilia, and
was ultimately adopted by Metchnikoff.