[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.