“In no one particular thing, but rather in all his ways and actions. At lessons no child was more industrious or quicker to understand; in playtime none was so full of fun. When we read together none listened so attentively as he did, and when on holidays I gathered my pupils around me in the twilight and let them tell tales in turn, no one could improvise so well as Peter Ilich. I shall never forget these precious hours of my life. In daily intercourse we all loved him, because we felt he loved us in return. His sensibility was extreme, therefore I had to be very careful how I treated him. A trifle wounded him deeply. He was brittle as porcelain. With him there could be no question of punishment; the least criticism or reproof, that would pass lightly over other children, would upset him alarmingly.”
The weak and unhappy always found in him a staunch protector. Once he heard with indignation that someone was intending to drown a cat. When he discovered the monster who was planning this crime, he pleaded so eloquently that pussy’s life was saved.
Another proof of his compassion for the suffering was his extraordinary sympathy for Louis XVII. Even as a grown man his interest in the unhappy prince survived. In 1868 he bought a picture representing him in the Temple, and had it framed. This picture, and the portrait of Anton Rubinstein, remained for a long while the only adornments of his walls.
The boy was also influenced by that enthusiastic patriotism—not without a touch of Chauvinism—which characterised the reign of Nicholas I. From this early period dates that exclusive affection for everything Russian which lasted his whole lifetime. Sometimes his love for his country was shown in a very droll way. Fanny used to relate the following story:—
“Once, during the recreation hour, he was turning over the pages of his atlas. Coming to the map of Europe, he smothered Russia with kisses and spat on all the rest of the world. When I told him he ought to be ashamed of such behaviour, that it was wicked to hate his fellow-men who said the same ‘Our Father’ as himself, only because they were not Russians, and reminded him that he was spitting upon his own Fanny, who was a Frenchwoman, he replied at once: ‘There is no need to scold me; didn’t you see me cover France with my hand first?’”