The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916, by Olga Metchnikoff

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH

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.

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.”

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]

[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.

[CHAPTER II]

Metchnikoff’s brothers and sister — Childish characteristics.

The two elder children, Ivan and Leo, were educated at Petersburg, whilst Katia, the only daughter, was brought up at home. Like all other girls of noble family, she was educated with the object of being suitably married. She was a slender, pretty brunette, like her mother, but less beautiful. Though sensitive and intelligent, she interested herself in nothing but the reading of French novels. There was a great difference in age between Katia and her little brothers, whilst there were only two years between them. Kolia (Nicholas) was the old aunt’s favourite, a fine, handsome boy with velvety black eyes; his slow and grave movements had earned for him the nickname of “Peaceful Papa.”

The youngest of the family, Ilia (Elie), on the contrary, was full of life and spirits. Fair and slender, with silky hair and a diaphanous, pink and white complexion, he had small, grey-blue eyes, full of kindliness and sparkle. Very highly strung and impressionable, his temper was easily roused, and he was so restless that he went by the name of “quicksilver.” He always wished to see everything, to know everything, and found his way everywhere. When, after a long silence, there was a sudden outburst of many voices around the card-tables, he would rush to the drawing-room, saying, “Are they going to fight?” He ran about the house all day, following his mother as she attended to her various duties; he examined the provisions, tasted everything, and even went to the “diévitshia” to see what the maids were doing. He tried to sew or to embroider, exasperated everybody, and ended by being turned out. He would then look for something else to do, go to see whether the table was laid, inquire about the menu, and ask the queerest questions. He could only be kept quiet when his curiosity was awakened by the observation of some natural object such as an insect or a butterfly that he was trying to catch, or by watching the “grown-ups” at their card games. But, of all things, music fascinated him most, and he would remain for hours sitting by the piano listening without a movement. He was very much spoilt by his mother, who had a weakness for her Benjamin, and who also wished to make up for the very obvious preference shown for Kolia by the great-aunt.

Moreover, Ilia was a frail little boy and often suffered from his eyes; the doctor advised that he should not be allowed to cry or to rub his eyes, and, in order to avoid this, he was permitted to have his own way in everything. He was much too intelligent not to understand the advantage that the situation offered and was quick to profit by it. In the face of the least semblance of refusal or reproach, he would begin to rub his eyes and announce in a whining tone that he was going to cry. He was therefore very much spoilt and very capricious; his mother said he was “neurotic”; his sister, who often had differences with him, called him a “little beast.” In reality, Ilia was very good-hearted, tender, and loving; he was affectionate, especially with his mother, and could always be managed by an appeal to his feelings. But if he was sensitive to kindness, he was equally so to the least injustice. He could not forgive his great-aunt the predilection which she exhibited on every occasion for Kolia; for instance, at table, she would choose tit-bits for him, and Ilia observed with bitterness that she always reserved the chicken’s breast for her favourite. Every time a chicken was served, poor Ilia followed the dish round the table with anxious eyes, and she invariably placed the coveted morsel in his brother’s plate.

When the day was over, Ilia was put into his little bed and told to “say his prayers and go to sleep.” But he did not obey at once: after a thousand merry tricks, his eyelids would begin to close in spite of him; then he would make up his mind to kneel and say his prayers, folding his little hands: “Lord, keep and preserve father, mother, great——” But suddenly remembering the latter’s injustice towards him, he would correct himself hastily, “No, not great-aunt, she is too unkind!” and continue, “My sister, my brothers, everybody, and myself, little Ilia.” Still he did not go to sleep immediately; a nervous child, he was frightened of being alone; now and then he would lift his heavy lids to see if the maid was still there. Sometimes the latter, thinking he had gone to sleep, would leave the room on tiptoe. Ilia, seeing her no more, would start, raise his head and, stretching his thin neck, send an anxious look around the room, faintly lighted by a night-light. The vacillating flame threw trembling and dancing shadows. Seized with intense terror, he would hide his face in his pillow and scream with all his might. Avdotia Maximovna would then rush to soothe him and soundly rate the servant girl, “Are you not ashamed to leave a noble child all alone?” Ilia would then go on sobbing for a little while, but, reassured after all, would presently sink into deep, childish sleep.

[CHAPTER III]

Journey to Slaviansk — The coach attacked by peasants.

In 1850 the children were taken to the baths of Slaviansk. On a warm summer day the heavy “berlin” coach, drawn by six horses with a postilion, rolled along the high road, across the steppes, followed at a distance by a “tarantass.”[3]

In the spacious, antique coach, with its dusty hood, sat Emilia Lvovna, with her three children; the valet, Petrushka, dozed on the box, next to the coachman. The tarantass was occupied by Dmitri Ivanovitch and a cousin.

The heat was oppressive. At the start every one was excited; Emilia Lvovna was trying to remember if anything had been forgotten and was discussing with Katia the details of their installation at Slaviansk. The boys hung out of the windows, gazing at the horses, at the tarantass, and making all sorts of comments. Ilia was so restless and talkative that he was constantly being told, “Do be quiet! Keep still!”

By degrees, however, children and “grown-ups” began to feel drowsy, owing to the monotony of the road, the heat, and the swinging of the carriage. The tarantass had disappeared, for Dmitri Ivanovitch wished to visit an aunt whose house was not far from the road. The outline of a forest was now seen on the horizon; it came nearer and nearer, and soon the coach stopped before the forest inn. Everybody woke up, the children were delighted to be able to run about and stretch their limbs. They begged their mother to let them go into the forest whilst the horses were resting, and obtained permission to go, but not too far, and with Petrushka.

They ate an appetising lunch at the inn and the children ran off at a gallop. Everything delighted them, the underwood, grass patches, ravines, and mysterious paths. But they had hardly entered the forest when they heard a sinister, confused rumour in the distance; they stopped to listen, and recognised the voices of a tumultuous crowd. The children’s joyous excitement fell; frightened and docile, they hastened to return to the inn, from which Emilia Lvovna, looking anxiously out of a window, was making urgent signs to them to return. The coach was still standing without horses, and, a little farther off, the latter were surrounded by a crowd of peasants, of whom many were completely drunk. They shouted vociferously, and closely pressed the coachman and the postilion, threatening to confiscate the horses and detain the travellers if they were not given a ransom of a thousand roubles.

Terrified, the children clung to their distracted mother; Ilia felt her trembling, and his own little heart fluttered like a bird that has been caught. The drunken peasants appeared to him like monstrous ogres or brigands about to capture, perhaps kill, his family and himself; he could hardly keep back his tears. Already the peasants had bound the coachman and the postilion and were taking away the horses. Clinging close to each other, the mother and children listened anxiously; they thought again and again that they could hear the bells of the tarantass. At last it appeared in the distance, and the children joyously whispered, “There they are!” They hastened to inform Dmitri Ivanovitch of what had happened. He at once went with his cousin towards the crowd, and negotiations were opened, but for a long time without result.

At last the cousin had a happy idea; he declared he would go back to his aunt’s house in the neighbourhood and borrow the thousand roubles from her. The peasants consented to let him go alone, keeping the other travellers as hostages. After a time, which to the children seemed endless, the sound of the tarantass bells was again heard, accompanied this time by numerous heavy footsteps, and the vehicle reappeared, escorted by a company of soldiers commanded by two officers. Instead of going to his aunt’s, the cousin had gone to a neighbouring military camp and was bringing assistance.

There was a sudden change of scene. Emilia Lvovna and Katia furtively made the sign of the cross. Ilia had let go of his mother’s hand and was no longer clinging to her, but, stretching his head forward and opening his eyes wide, eagerly waited to see what was going to happen. “Now,” he thought, “we shall not be captured; it is their turn; I am glad!” And, perhaps for the first time in his life, his little heart was moved by feelings of hatred.

In the meanwhile a repulsive scene was going on: a hand-to-hand struggle, invectives and screams. The peasants were securely bound. Men and women hastened from a neighbouring village; one of the women slapped an officer’s face. Furious, he ordered the soldiers to fill her mouth with earth; she was thrown on the ground; the new arrivals in their turn attacked the soldiers, and a regular battle raged.

Ilia was alarmed, shaken, and profoundly disgusted with that exhibition of brutality. The coachman and postilion, their bonds unloosed, hastened to put the horses in, and whilst reprisals were still going on, the family hurried away. They reached Slaviansk without further trouble, excitedly talking over their adventure. This episode was the first deep and definite impression which remained on little Ilia’s mind; it struck him so much that he kept the memory of it during his whole life.

From that moment he held crowds, violence, and all manifestations of brute force in the utmost horror, whatever their cause might be.

[CHAPTER IV]

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]

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.

[CHAPTER V]

Leo Metchnikoff’s illness — Private tutors — Botanical studies — A memorable birthday.

In 1851, in the middle of the winter, the Metchnikoffs heard that Leo, their second son, was suffering from hip-disease, and the doctors advised that he should be taken away from Petersburg. Poor Emilia Lvovna was in great despair and shed many tears; her brother-in-law, Dmitri Ivanovitch, calmly announced that he was going to fetch Leo. He took his great fur coat, his fur cap and fur-lined boots, and started that very day for Petersburg by coach. He took but the necessary time to go and to bring Leo back, only stopping at relays to change horses.

The boy was then thirteen years old, handsome, gifted, and intelligent; he walked with crutches, but his general health seemed good, and it was decided that he should work at home to prepare for the Lycée, under the tuition of students as tutors. Thus a new element was introduced into the family life.

In 1853 Leo had as a tutor a student named Hodounof, a very intelligent young man, who wished not merely to teach him but to impart to him the love of science. Leo was extremely gifted and worked with great facility, but he lacked concentration and was therefore somewhat superficial. This cooled his tutor’s enthusiasm, whilst on the other hand he became more and more interested in little Ilia. It was in the course of country walks that they were drawn together. Hodounof used to take Leo for walks in order to study the local flora, and Ilia came out with them, at first for the sake of the exercise. But soon he became interested in the flowers and showed so much taste for botany that he attracted Hodounof’s notice; soon the tutor’s interest became concentrated on the little boy and he gave him serious attention.

It was with a real enthusiasm that Ilia gathered and studied plants; he soon became thoroughly acquainted with the local flora. He thought himself very learned already and wrote memoirs on botany. Passionately fond of teaching, he used to offer all his pocket-money to his brothers and other children to induce them to hear lectures which he gave them. His vocation was fixed from that moment. He was then eight years old.

When the family returned to Kharkoff he spent all he had in buying books on natural history, which he read with passionate interest. These contained many things that he could not understand, but his curiosity was all the greater. When he was eleven years old his passion for natural history almost cost him his life. While fishing for hydra in a small pond he was so eager that he fell into the water and was only pulled out with great difficulty.

That particular day, his own and his father’s name day, was nearly fatal to him, not only through water but through fire. It was a family custom to hold a great gathering of friends and relations at Panassovka on St. Elias’s day. Preparations for the feast began days beforehand; the whole household was in a turmoil.

On that particular St. Elias’s day, so many guests came to Panassovka that there was not enough room in the house to accommodate them all, and the children were transferred to a pavilion outside the house.

Whilst in the drawing-room people were talking and playing cards, the servants were holding rejoicings of their own. Towards night-time the majority of the coachmen and footmen brought by the guests were completely drunk; a cigarette imprudently thrown on some hay started a fire. Soon the stables were ablaze and many horses perished in the flames, in spite of every effort to save them. Presently the wind changed in the direction of the pavilion and the thatched roof caught fire. There was a rush to save the children, who were with much difficulty taken out through a window.

In spite of intense terror, Ilia’s first thought was for his baby nephew, the son of his sister, who had then been married a year; he ran in affright all over the house searching for the child, and only became calm again after he had ascertained that it had been carried out into the garden.

Katia being married there was now no reason to spend the winter in the town. The father and mother therefore remained at Panassovka and Dmitri Ivanovitch took the boys to Kharkoff, where they entered the Lycée. They had been well prepared by their tutors, and moreover spoke French and a little German, having had special teachers for these languages. Their French tutor, M. Garnier, was gay, boastful, and pretentious; his idea of teaching them French literature was to memorise Béranger’s chansons. He was passionately fond of shooting and gave to that sport as much time as he could, greatly to the detriment of his pupils’ studies, for they were not allowed to accompany him for fear of an accident. Their mother, perhaps on account of her weak heart, was so nervous that they were discouraged from any sporting tastes. The German tutor also neglected the children: his favourite occupation consisted in drinking beer. On one occasion he gave so much to little Ilia that the boy conceived a lifelong distaste for beer. Ilia took advantage of his tutors’ indifference to devote himself to his favourite study of natural history. His vocation was so obvious that it could not be mistaken. It seems a strange thing that a passion for science should have developed in so inappropriate an environment. Evidently the first impulse was given by Hodounof, but, if his influence stimulated this passion, it cannot have created it. This vocation probably had a deeper source, and in order to discover it we should perhaps look back into the antecedents of the Metchnikoff family.

[CHAPTER VI]

Ancestors of the Metchnikoff family — The Great Spatar — Leo Nevahovitch.

The Metchnikoff family made no show of family pride; one old aunt, however, was extremely proud of one of their ancestors, the Great “Spatar” (sword-bearer). The following is the account given of this ancestor by E. Picot, after a Moldavian chronicle.[5]

Few men led such an adventurous life or made themselves glorious through such varied gifts as did Nicholas Spatar Milescu.

His name is connected with the history of Moldavian, Greek, Russian, and Chinese literature. His origin, his talents, his crime, the mutilation he suffered, his audacious journey across the whole of Asia to reach Pekin, the valuable information which he gathered during his embassy at the Court of the “Son of Heaven,” everything conspires to excite curiosity concerning him.

Spatar was born in Moldavia in 1625. While yet very young he went to Constantinople, where he studied theology, philosophy, history ancient and modern, Greek, Latin, Slavonic and Turkish. He afterwards went to Italy to study natural science and mathematics. On his return to Moldavia he soon became known for his erudition, acquired great influence, and became much appreciated at Court. Owing to clever political intrigues he preserved the simultaneous favour of several enemy princes, one of whom, Stepanita, covered him with benefits and honours. Nevertheless, Spatar wrote to Constantine Bassarab, in Poland, advising him to come and to overthrow Stepanita’s throne. He sent his letter inside a hollow cane; Constantine, however, did not wish to launch himself into such an adventure, and indignantly sent the hollow cane and the letter to Stepanita himself. At first the prince, naturally angry, thought of having Spatar executed; he spared his life for the sake of his talents, but condemned him to have the tip of his nose cut off. Spatar went to Germany, where, says the naïve chronicler, a doctor made his nose grow again. He came back to Moldavia for a short time and then went to Russia. Thanks to his knowledge of languages, he was made an interpreter at the Court of the Tsar Alexis Michailovitch, and was the first tutor of his son Peter the Great, whom he taught to read and to write.

In 1674 the Tsar Alexis Michailovitch entrusted Spatar with a mission in China, where he was to open negotiations with a view to commercial and political relations between Russia and China. In the course of his journey Spatar carefully collected all possible information concerning the countries he traversed. He thus gathered much interesting geographical knowledge and highly important data concerning the commercial value of Asiatic rivers, and specially the Amour river.

At Pekin, Spatar rapidly learnt the Chinese language, occupied for three years the post of ambassador in China, and returned to Russia bringing back most valuable information and many rich presents given him by the Emperor of China.

All this had excited the jealousy of the Muscovite courtiers; they took advantage of the coincidence between the death of the Tsar and Spatar’s return to deprive him of his treasures and to have him exiled to Siberia. But, when Peter the Great ascended the throne, Spatar succeeded in making a letter reach him relating his misfortunes, and the Tsar recalled him, gave him back his property, and showered honours upon him. Spatar again became interpreter of the Embassy; Peter consulted him in all Far-Eastern questions, and gave him confidential documents to translate into foreign languages.

Spatar’s literary activity was vast and varied. He translated the Bible from the Greek into Roumanian; he wrote a chronicle on the origin of Roumania, articles on theology, a Greco-Latin-Russian dictionary, and a work entitled Arithmetic, in which he discussed, by means of numbers and figures, questions of Theology, Philosophy, and Ethics. He dealt in his writings with Art, Archæology, and History; described his Siberian travels, China and the Amour river, and made numerous translations of diplomatic documents. His erudition was such that his contemporaries appealed to his knowledge as they would have consulted an encyclopædia.

He had married a Muscovite and had several sons and grandsons. Three of his nephews came from Moldavia to join him and entered the Russian army. He died in 1714 at the age of 80. Such is the history of the “Great Spatar.”

The following notice is to be found in Brockhaus and Effrone’s Encyclopædia: “The Metchnikoffs are a noble family, descended from a Moldavian Boyar, the Spatar (sword-bearer) Joury Stepanovitch,[6] who came to Russia with Prince Cantemir. Peter the Great gave this Boyar large land estates. His son took the name of Metchnikoff (Russian translation of Sword-bearer).”

The following generations included military men chiefly, one sailor, one mining engineer, one senator, but no scientific men.

On the mother’s side, Elie Metchnikoff had no ancestor as remarkable or as romantic as the great Spatar. Yet his grandfather, Leo Nevahovitch, was a very intelligent and highly cultivated man. He had been Farmer-General for tobacco in Poland. A Jew by race, he took to heart the persecutions directed against his co-religionists and defended them in literary newspaper articles. Nevertheless he accepted indirect advice from Alexander I. and let himself be baptized. He adopted the Lutheran religion and his children were brought up in it.

At the beginning of the Polish Revolution in 1830, Nevahovitch was warned that his house was about to be sacked; the warning reached him as he was peacefully enjoying a theatrical performance. He hurried to prepare for departure and left Warsaw with his family for Petersburg, where he lived on his income. Having given up business, he took up literary work and translated German philosophical works, made friends in the literary world, and knew Pushkin and Kriloff. His children, Emilia Lvovna amongst others, inherited his intellectual gifts. One of his sons was a remarkable caricaturist and edited a caricature newspaper which was very well known at the time. The Nevahovitch family produced no men of science. Metchnikoff himself considered that he had inherited his mother’s disposition and turn of mind. In any case, his ancestors on both sides included talented individuals, from whom he may have inherited his gifts and his innate taste for science.

[CHAPTER VII]

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.

In 1856 Dmitri Ivanovitch took the boys to Kharkoff in order to make them enter the Lycée. They passed their entrance examination quite satisfactorily; Kolia was admitted into the fifth class and Ilia into the one below it. They were day boarders and lived in the house of one of their former tutors.

This was at a time when the new and liberal reign of Alexander II. was giving birth to many hopes; the Lycées preserved but insignificant traces of the hard regime of Nicholas I. Previous narrow and doctrinal teaching was giving way to a current of realistic and rational ideas, physical and natural science had become the vogue, and professors were trying to come into touch with their pupils and to influence their intellectual development. The boys on their side were founding mutual instruction clubs, attending popular Sunday lectures, interesting themselves in social questions—in fact the revolutionary movement was beginning to strike root. Life in general was intense, aspirations exalted, and hopes radiant.

During his first school year Elie worked assiduously in all branches of the curriculum, and his name soon appeared on the honours list. The Russian language teacher became his friend, and greatly contributed to his development by choosing for him books of general knowledge. Under this direction Elie read, among other things, Buckle’s History of Civilisation, which had at that time a very great influence on the young Russian mind. According to the author’s principal thesis, the progress of humanity depended chiefly upon that of positive science; this idea sunk deeply into the boy’s mind and confirmed his scientific aspirations.

When he reached the fifth class he formed a friendship with one of his school-fellows, Bogomoloff, who had great influence over Elie’s ulterior development; he was the son of a colour manufacturer, and his elder brothers were studying chemistry at the Kharkoff University with a view to applying it to their industry. They had travelled abroad and had brought back novel ideas and books forbidden by the Russian censorship; they influenced their young brother, who in his turn initiated Elie. It was thus that the latter became acquainted with materialistic ideas and social theories; he read the Popular Star, the Bell of Herzin, and other publications prohibited in Russia. Little by little he lost the faith which he had held when under his mother’s influence. Atheism, however, was to him more interesting than disappointing; it incited in him a state of general criticism. Ardently passionate in this as in all things, he preached atheism to others and received the nickname of “God is not.” The course of teaching at the Lycée did not escape his criticism; when he had reached the fourth class he omitted those exercises which seemed to him devoid of interest. On the other hand, he plunged with passion into the study of natural science, botany, and geology.

He had ceased to be a model student, but his scientific aspirations became stronger from day to day.

In order to cultivate foreign languages, the two brothers had been placed in a boarding-house where morals were strict and patriarchal, the food bad, and the director’s sermons long and tedious. None of these things suited Elie. This regime, with the addition of dancing lessons, inspired him with the deepest aversion; he resolved to obtain from his parents permission to take furnished rooms for himself and his brother.

In spite of the current of political exaltation which was then universal in Russia, Elie was too deeply immersed in his studies to be carried away in that direction. He did at one time attend popular lectures and the political gatherings of the students, but he felt that science was his real vocation. He was so early and so completely absorbed by it that he was not interested in the great movement for the emancipation of the serfs. It is true that, at Panassovka, the question was not acute as elsewhere, the serfs being quite happy; however, the fact remains that it was his passion for science which kept him, in spite of his exalted ideas and ardent soul, apart from the noble movement for liberation.

In the third class he made friends with a group of students who were devoted to science and to intellectual culture. Elie, owing to his ardour and vivacity, played the part of a ferment in that little circle, each member of which was to make a special study of certain scientific branches in order that they might together edit a new encyclopædia of human knowledge. He studied German so as to read in the original the classical materialistic writers, Vogt, Feuerbach, Buchner, Moleschott, etc. The Lycée lectures were relegated to the background. Nevertheless, owing to his great facility of assimilation, he was successful in every branch. Plans for his ulterior activities were soon definitely fixed.

At that time of intense intellectual effervescence in Russia, libraries were invaded by a number of translations of works on natural science. Elie absorbed them with avidity, and read amongst others a Russian translation of Bronn’s book on the Classes and Orders of the Animal Kingdom. He saw for the first time in the plates of that work pictures of micro-organisms, amoebæ, Infusoria, Rhizopoda, etc. That world of lower beings impressed him so strongly that he resolved from that moment to devote himself to the study of them, that is, to the study of the primitive manifestations of life in its simplest forms.

He was then fifteen years old. The two brothers now obtained from their parents permission to live in furnished rooms, an independent arrangement which allowed each of them to satisfy his individual tastes. Apart from the Lycée, Kolia spent his time in playing cards and billiards and in other amusements, whilst Elie worked with ardour, his only recreations being music and debates on abstract subjects. When he entered the second class he had become completely specialised. In order to tackle serious scientific studies, he tried to come into touch with one of the University professors. The University of Kharkoff was still making use of ancient methods; teaching was given by means of manuals, with practical application; but Elie, who did not know that, dreamt of finding in laboratories assistance and means of, at least, undertaking personal scientific work. He attended a lecture on comparative anatomy, and, in order not to appear too young, he wore his ordinary clothes instead of the Lycée uniform. After the lecture was over, he shyly approached the professor and begged to be allowed to study protoplasm under his direction. The professor received him coldly, and told him in a pedantic tone that he was in too much of a hurry, and that he should first of all finish his course at the Lycée and then get admitted into the University.

It was a disappointment for the eager boy; however, he did not lose heart but continued to attend divers University lectures, clinging to the hope that another professor might be more sympathetic. He was pleased with the lectures of a young physiologist, Tschelkoff by name, and decided to make another attempt. This time he was successful. The professor received him kindly and consented to give him private lessons in histology. Then, fired with a passionate desire to produce something personal in medical science, and attracted by Virchow’s cellular theory, he dreamt that he might create a general theory of his own in medicine. In order to increase his scientific knowledge, he undertook with his friend Zalensky the translation of Grove’s work, The Unity of Physical Forces. The professor of chemistry and natural history willingly encouraged the two boys in this work, to which they gave up the whole of the school year. Elie wasted no opportunity of learning; during those lectures which did not interest him he used to read scientific books. One day that he was doing so during catechism he did not notice that the priest, wishing to know what he was reading, had come up to him. The latter, however, was greatly impressed by the title of Radlkoffer’s learned work on The Crystals of Proteic Substances; he returned the book without a word and never interfered with him again.

Through the assistance of some medical students, Elie obtained the loan of a microscope; he studied Infusoria and imagined that he had made divers discoveries; he hastened to write an article, and sent it to the only scientific Russian paper then in existence, the Bulletin of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. To his great joy his MS. was accepted, but before long the young scientist perceived that his deductions were erroneous, for he had mistaken phenomena of degenerescence for phenomena of development. He was able to stop the publication of this article, the first he ever wrote, and it never appeared.

Thanks to Tschelkoff, who lent him a microscope for the duration of the holidays, he was able to study the local fauna of inferior animals. At the beginning of his last year at the Lycée, he read a text-book of geology by a Kharkoff professor and, with juvenile assurance, wrote a critical analysis of it. Inserted in the Journal de Moscou, this was Elie’s first publication; he was then sixteen years old. Encouraged by this success, he sent several other criticisms, but they were not accepted.

The last examinations were coming near: Elie wished to obtain the gold medal, not only out of pride, but in order to prove to his parents that he deserved their assistance in order to go abroad to continue his studies. He therefore provisionally suspended his favourite pursuits and resumed the study of the long-neglected school programme. The last examinations took place in the spring of 1862. It happened to be the Italian Opera season and Elie could not resist the temptations offered him by music. In order to make up the time, he often had to work the whole night long at the cost of severe fatigue.

In spite of this complication, he passed his examinations brilliantly and obtained the gold medal. He now wished for nothing but to devote himself to scientific study.

[CHAPTER VIII]

An early love — A schoolfellow’s sister — A pretty sister-in-law.

In spite of his precocious vocation, Elie was in no wise indifferent to his surroundings. His mind was sensitive and impressionable and his affections deep and tender, especially where his mother was concerned. He never undertook anything without consulting her, a sweet habit which he preserved even in his maturity.

It was already at the age of six that he received his first love impression: a lady came on a visit to Panassovka with her little girl of eight, a lovely curly-headed child, sweet and graceful, a living floweret. Ilia could not admire her enough, and was most lavish in his attentions, offering her flowers and fruit, inventing games to amuse her and trying by every means to make himself agreeable to her. The presence of this charming little girl caused him great joy and tender emotion; he wished that she might never go away.... But the visit soon ended, and this first idyll was short-lived; new impressions were not long in replacing it. Nevertheless the picture of the pretty child was so deeply impressed in his mind that he never forgot her.

The second time he fell in love was when he was already at the Lycée; one of his schoolfellows had a very pretty sister whom Elie used to meet on half-holidays. He admired her from afar, and tried to contrive opportunities of meeting her; she was the object of his dreams for the whole of one term.

But he was presently to be seized by a more serious feeling. When he was in the third class at the Lycée he came as usual to Panassovka for the summer holidays and found there a new inmate, his elder brother’s young wife. Soon, to his own astonishment, he found that the image of his last winter’s passion was being effaced by that of his sister-in-law. She, a pretty, fashionable girl, was bored with country life; she criticised the simple habits at Panassovka which formed a sharp contrast with her tastes; she soon became very unpopular and, feeling lonely and bored, tried to attract her young brother-in-law. Elie, at first a willing comrade, soon found himself harbouring a more tender feeling for his sister-in-law; she complained to him of the family’s hostility, declared herself misunderstood, and easily excited the pity and sympathy of the sensitive boy. He became her ardent defender and went so far as to fight her battles, even with his mother, whom he reproached with fancied injustice. For nearly four years he remained under his sister-in-law’s sentimental influence. He afterwards freed himself completely from it, but the fact remains that she was the first woman who inspired real sentiment in his youthful manhood.

[CHAPTER IX]

Journey to Germany — Leipzig — Würzburg — A hasty return.

During his later years at the Lycée, Elie had attended several courses at the Kharkoff University and had realised the inadequacy of the teaching and the impossibility of any personal research work in the laboratories. His greatest desire, therefore, was to go abroad to study. At that time, the German universities, being nearer, chiefly attracted Russian students. Their laboratories were widely opened to foreigners, and lectures were being given by a pleiad of celebrated professors.

In order to attain his object, Elie took care to secure his mother’s support. It was not very difficult, for she believed in her son’s scientific future and was anxious to help him; she succeeded in convincing his father and, by means of serious sacrifices, the necessary sum was procured. Elie, who was especially interested in the study of protoplasm, chose the University of Würzburg, where the celebrated zoologist Kölliker was lecturing. Thinking that in Germany the term began in September, as in Russia, he hastened to depart. The journey at that time was long and complicated; yet, in spite of much fatigue, Elie only stopped one day in Berlin and hurried to Leipzig, the centre of the book trade, in order to procure the necessary books. He reached Leipzig in the evening and was greatly embarrassed, not knowing where to find a lodging. A young German in the station offered him a room in his own family’s house and took him there. The next morning, very early, Elie ran out to buy his books and, in his haste, forgot to note the number of the house and the name of the street; it was with the utmost difficulty that he found the place again. Much disturbed by this misadventure, he hastened to start for Würzburg and, on arriving there, met with a great disappointment; all the professors were absent, this being the middle of the holidays, and the lectures were not to begin for six weeks. The poor boy, thus alone for the first time among strangers, felt completely lost. He was given the address of some Russian students and he hastily sought them out, full of joy and hope, only to be received coldly and distrustfully by his compatriots. After this discouraging reception, he sadly proceeded to look for a room, and having found one in the house of a disagreeable old couple, he brought his bag there. But, as he began to unpack it, he was seized with a feeling of such utter despair that he hastily put his luggage together again and announced to his elderly hosts that he was going. Surprised and indignant, they abused him so brutally that his distress only increased; he rushed to the station, took the first train, and returned to Panassovka without a stop. This hurried return disconcerted his family, but, seeing the state he was in, nobody reproached him. His mother had felt much anxiety on his account, and was in fact not sorry to keep him a little longer under her wing. Thus, in dismal failure, ended that first journey abroad, so ardently desired. The result might have been very different if Elie had reached Würzburg at the right moment, or if the Russian students had been more friendly. Too young and too impressionable to bear absolute solitude, he could only have been saved by his favourite studies or by a friendly environment. His plans and fair dreams had been overthrown by a series of simple mishaps.

[CHAPTER X]

Kharkoff University — Physiology — The Vorticella — Controversy with Kühne—The Origin of Species — The Gastrotricha — University degree.

There was now no choice and he had to resign himself to the Kharkoff University. There is not much to relate about this period, which was but a fugitive episode in the course of Elie Metchnikoff, for the “Alma Mater” did not have upon him either the influence or the prestige which it generally exerts upon youth.

Whilst the stream of new ideas had already reached the Lycée, the University of Kharkoff had remained extremely conservative; this was owing to the fact that the Lycée professors were young men, whilst those of the University were elderly and old-fashioned. Officials rather than scientists, they were content with ancient methods, and lectured without practical work, from obsolete and ill-chosen manuals. A few of them drank, others neglected their work. In the Medical and Natural Science Faculties, only two agrégés were newly appointed, Tschelkoff, the physiologist we have already mentioned, and a chemist named Békétoff. These two were indeed scientists and master-minds, and it was only under their direction that any one did any serious work; the other lectures were pure formalities. Elie wished to go in for medical studies but his mother dissuaded him. “You are too sensitive,” she said, “you could not bear the constant sight of human suffering.” At the same time, Tschelkoff suggested the Natural Science Faculty as being more appropriate to purely scientific activity. Elie accepted his opinion and began to study physiology under his direction. His great desire was to embark at once on personal research, and his teacher advised him to study the mobile stalk of a ciliated Infusorian, the Vorticella. The question was to determine whether this stalk presented any analogy with muscular tissue and whether it offered the same reactions. Elie set to work with ardour and found that the stalk of the Vorticella had no muscular character. His memoir on the subject appeared in 1863 in Müller’s Archives. It provoked a severe, even brutal, answer from the celebrated physiologist Kühne which deeply grieved the young scientist and, stimulating his energy still further, incited him to repeat his experiments. He obtained the same results as the first time, and answered Kühne in a somewhat bitter manner, the latter’s tone having stirred his combativity.

Meanwhile, Elie was yearning for independent and more general study. During his unsuccessful journey, he had acquired in Leipzig many recently published scientific books, and, among them, Darwin’s Origin of Species. The theory of evolution deeply struck the boy’s mind and his thoughts immediately turned in that direction. He said to himself that isolated forms which had found no place in definite animal or vegetable orders might perhaps serve as a bond between those orders and elucidate their genetic relationships. This leading idea made him choose for his researches some very singular fresh-water creatures, partly like Rotifera and partly like certain worms of the Nematode group. He succeeded in establishing a new intermediate order which he named “Gastrotricha,” and which was straightway accepted.

The whole of his first year at the University was given up to those special studies. As he was fully aware that the teaching of the University did not answer to his aspirations, he resolved to remain there as short a time as possible, and to get through the course of studies in two years instead of the four which were usual. In order to succeed in doing so, he provisionally gave up his scientific researches, attended the lectures as a free auditor, and spent the whole of the second year in cramming for the “candidate” examination, which answers to a Licentiate in Western universities. It happened again this time that the examinations coincided with the Opera season, but, though he indulged in his passion for music, he succeeded, by dint of a supreme effort, in passing them very brilliantly.

Having gone through the University at such an accelerated pace, he did not come into contact with other students, who, themselves chiefly preoccupied with politics, took little interest in a youth so exclusively absorbed in science. He therefore formed none of those attractive juvenile friendships which he had enjoyed at the Lycée. His hasty University studies necessarily left lacunæ in his general knowledge, a fact which he afterwards keenly deplored.

With the exception of Tschelkoff, his teachers had had no decisive influence on his career, and his two years at the University formed but a colourless episode in his life.

[CHAPTER XI]

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.

Elie still had his Licentiate thesis to prepare. In order to do so, he decided to spend two months in the island of Heligoland, of which the flora and fauna were very attractive to naturalists. In spite of his previous failure, his parents made no objection to his departure; they gave him the little money they could spare and Elie started, in 1864.

As soon as he arrived in Heligoland he became absorbed in his work. He proceeded with his idea of bringing light upon the genealogy of organisms through the study of isolated forms outside definite groups.[7]

His ardour in his work attracted the attention of several German scientists, one of whom introduced him to the celebrated botanist Cohn, who soon became interested in him. During the walks which they took together, they held scientific conversations full of interest for the youth. Cohn advised him to work under the celebrated zoologist Leuckart. Elie received this counsel with enthusiasm, but there was a great difficulty, which was the lack of money to prolong his stay abroad. He did not wish to ask for more from his parents and decided on the following plan, which he expounded in the following letter to his mother, the constant confidante of all his aspirations:

Heligoland, Aug. 12, 1864.

Dear Mamma, ... I am thinking of staying here another month, after which I shall go (at least that is my desire) for ten days to Giessen, where there will be a General Congress of naturalists and physicians from the whole of Europe. This Congress tempts me so much that I want to do my utmost to attend it.

Besides all the scientific benefit that I shall reap from conversations with scientists, I can also study Professor Leuckart’s rich collections. This would complete the studies which I am successfully pursuing at the seaside.

In order to realise my ardent wish to profit by such treasures, I must remain three weeks longer at Heligoland, travel to Giessen and live there for ten days; all that out of the money which was to keep me here until the 26 Aug. only.... Therefore, instead of living in the hotel, I have taken a room at a fisherman’s, for half the price; instead of a dinner and coffee I eat what I can get and I only spend 90 centimes a day for my food. (Food is dear, as all the provisions come from Hamburg and from England.) Instead of changing my linen two or three times a week, I only do so once or twice, which allows me to spend less on laundry.

The money thus economised, together with the sum which I had put aside for my first installation at Petersburg, constitutes a sufficient capital to provide the following joys and advantages: 1°, I shall stay three weeks longer at the seaside, which will allow me to get on with my researches and to increase my collections; 2°, I shall attend the Congress; 3°, I shall be able to study Leuckart’s collections and take advantage of his books and counsel.

I beseech you not to look upon this description of my present life as a complaint or a murmur; on the contrary I am delighted to procure so many advantages at so small a cost; I am happy, too, to be able to assure you in all conscience that I am not wasting the money that you have found for me with so much care and affection. I only wish I could find myself oftener in the same conditions.

Please also believe that my health is in no way suffering from my work. I give you my word that until now I have not had a single headache.

Moreover, I do not think work is at all detrimental to health; I see here several German scientists who could fell an ox with their fist! Altogether I beseech you not to be anxious on my account; you have quite enough painful preoccupations without that, and I am in such excellent circumstances that there really is nothing to worry about. I kiss your hands many times.

Yours affectionately,

Elie Metchnikoff.

P.S.—Write to me oftener. Every word from you is so precious to me!

He did not tell his mother that he never had enough to eat. Neither did he wish Cohn and his other acquaintances at Heligoland to notice it, and he carefully concealed his style of living.

He went to Giessen for the opening of the Naturalists’ Congress and read with success two papers dealing with his researches at Heligoland. Engelmann (who was to become well known as a physiologist) and he were the youngest members of the Congress, and their extreme youth attracted general attention. Elie at last made Leuckart’s acquaintance; he was charmed by him and definitely decided to begin at once to work under his direction, and, as his stay abroad had thus to be prolonged, he asked and obtained a bursa from the Russian Ministry of Public Education.

The results of his researches at Heligoland had led him to suppose that the Nematodes (of the worm type) formed an independent group; he now proposed to settle that question. Leuckart allowed him to work in his laboratory during his absence for the holidays; Elie immediately set to work and discovered a very curious and quite novel case of alternation of generations; hermaphrodite and parasitic Nematodes giving birth to a free bisexual generation.

Delighted with his discovery, he hastened to communicate it to Leuckart, who was incredulous at first but had to give way to evidence when Elie showed him all the intermediary stages. Still the German scientist was obviously annoyed that this discovery should have been made in his absence and independently from him. He proposed to the young man that they should continue researches in collaboration and publish a joint memoir. Elie accepted joyfully. In his ardour he worked too much, and fatigued his eyesight so that he was forced to limit his microscopical researches to a few hours a day, and Leuckart advised him to take a rest.

It happened that Elie’s brother Leo had just settled in Geneva and invited him to stay with him; Elie started to join him. The brothers had not met for a long time. Leo had been travelling and had resided in many different places. He was an extraordinarily gifted man, impulsive, brilliant, and artistic, but restless and incapable of adhering to a steady course of action; he scattered his activities and did not therefore produce all that his rich nature was capable of. He had a remarkable gift for languages; he knew not only a number of European languages but also several Oriental languages, having been in the East, where he had occupied a post of agent in navigation and commerce. He afterwards lived in Italy, took an active part in the Garibaldi movement and was wounded. A clever painter, he also had real literary talent; handsome, witty, agreeable, he was a most attractive personality. Elie had great affection for him.

He found him surrounded with young men and studying a map. They were discussing the acquisition of a piece of ground in Italy in order to found a socialistic community, and Leo, who knew the country, was to choose the locality. Elie was at once made acquainted with the political questions of the day; the young scientist was unfavourably impressed, for the whole reduced itself to party questions and dogmatic discussions founded on hollow grounds. Accustomed as he already was to positive scientific methods, vague and arbitrary theories could not satisfy him.

On the other hand, he was deeply impressed by the personality of the celebrated socialistic Russian writer, Herzen, who resided in Geneva at that time. The young revolutionaries considered him as too literary and too much of a theoretician; they themselves yearned for a direct-action policy. Leo Metchnikoff, however, admired him fervently. Meetings often took place in Herzen’s rooms; he used to read to his guests with wonderful effect his yet unpublished manuscript Passé et pensées. A great and powerful figure, the superiority of his intelligence was almost crushing, while his sparkling wit and the nobility of his whole being endowed him with an incomparable and irresistible personal charm. Metchnikoff often said that no man had left a deeper impression on his life. As a politician, however, he had not the same prestige in his sight.

This sojourn in a revolutionary centre interested him much, but had the result of confirming his conviction that science was immeasurably superior to politics, and he congratulated himself on the path he had chosen. After he had rested, he started to return to Giessen and stopped at Heidelberg, a centre for Russian students who gathered around Helmholtz, Virchow, and Bunsen. He hurried to the library in order to see scientific periodicals; one of the first that came under his eyes was a number of the Göttingen News, containing a memoir by Leuckart on the Nematodes which they had studied together; Leuckart described, in his own name, their common researches and also those personal to the young man, whom he only mentioned incidentally. Elie was shocked and indignant. On his return to Giessen he tried to obtain an explanation from Leuckart but in vain; the latter eluded his questions and gave him no answer.[8]

In his despair, the youth confided in Claus, a professor of zoology whose acquaintance he had made at the Congress, who told him that Leuckart was in the habit of such dealings, and urged Elie, as an independent stranger, to reveal the fact. He pressed this with so much insistence that Elie ended in following his advice; he sent an article stating the case to Dubois-Reymond’s journal. He then departed from Giessen without taking leave of Leuckart.

Having had a bursa of 1600 roubles a year granted him for two years by the Russian Ministry of Public Instruction, he was able to undertake a journey to the shores of the Mediterranean in order to pursue his researches.

He had heard of a very talented young zoologist, Alexander Kovalevsky, who also knew him by hearsay and had written him a letter full of enthusiasm concerning the rich Mediterranean fauna and the facilities for work in Italy. He therefore went to Naples on leaving Giessen. Though the journey in itself had but a secondary attraction for him, he had expected to receive a strong impression; but his imagination had painted such grandiose pictures of the country that he had to cross, that the reality disappointed him, and Italy, like Switzerland on a former occasion, fell very far short of his expectations. He stopped at Florence, which made but a poor impression on him. Museums fatigued him, for he saw a great deal too many works of art all at once without any previous preparation. Architecture and the plastic arts in general did not take any hold of him. During his rapid journey he only saw the country quite superficially and had no time to become impregnated with its beauty. He therefore hastened towards Naples, where his work and Kovalevsky attracted him far more.

He found in Kovalevsky a young man with shy but cordial manners and the clear sweet eyes of a pure child, obviously an idealist. He had for science an absolute cult, the sacred fire of the worshipper; no sacrifice was too great, no difficulty too repellent for his ardour. On a closer acquaintance, the small, timid young man proved to be a hard fighter where science was concerned. The two young men formed an excellent impression of each other, and a friendship was started between them which was to last a lifetime. Though very different from each other, they met on common ground, a passion for science. They worked with the greatest energy, going together on zoological excursions, exchanging their ideas, discussing their aspirations; a similarity of tastes lent great attraction to their friendship.

At Giessen, Elie had read Fritz Müller’s For Darwin, a book which had a decisive influence on the future direction of his researches. Fritz Müller, in his embryological works on certain crustaceans, had been the first to confirm in a concrete manner Darwin’s evolutionist theories; he had thus demonstrated that it was chiefly in embryology that precious indications were to be found concerning the genealogy of organisms.[9] Under the influence of this work, Elie, who until now had limited himself to introductory researches, resolved to concentrate all his efforts on the comparative embryology of animals. He started to work in that direction, and his researches confirmed him more and more in the opinion that the key of animal evolution and genealogy was to be sought for in the most primitive stages, in those simple phases of development where no secondary element has yet been introduced from external conditions. In those primordial stages, essential characters, common to all, reveal the analogy and connections between animals from different groups.

Every animal begins by being unicellular, for the egg-cell, the reproducing cell, common to all, corresponds to a unicellular being. It is only after fecundation, when it has become an ovum, that this first cell evolves by dividing itself into consecutive segments, each of which is a new cell. This phenomenon is analogous with the multiplication of unicellular beings through division; only, those segments of the ovum do not separate but constitute a whole under the aspect of a hollow sphere, called a blastula, which is the first manifestation of a multicellular being. This blastula is formed of superposed layers, each of which gives birth to specialised organs in the embryo. The outside layer, or ectoderm, produces teguments and the nervous system; the internal layer, or endoderm, gives birth to endothelial cells, the digestive and internal organs; between those two layers comes a third, intermediary layer, the mesoderm, from which the skeleton is developed and also the muscle and blood tissues.

The evolution of these layers in Vertebrates was well known, but very little so in Invertebrates, though it is only through the development of inferior forms that the origin and general evolution of living beings can be elucidated. That is why, during many years, the principal theme of Metchnikoff’s researches was the comparative study of the embryonic layers of inferior animals and the ulterior fate of their constituting elements. By following this train of thought, he was able to demonstrate that the development of lower animals takes place on the same plan and follows the same laws as that of higher animals; thus, that there is a real communion between all living beings, which is the concrete confirmation of the theory of evolution.

By their work, Kovalevsky and Metchnikoff contributed to the foundation of Comparative Embryology. The comparative study of cells produced from the divers embryonic layers, and observations on the ulterior development of the functions of those cells, gradually led Metchnikoff to his theory of phagocytes and to pathological biology. An uninterrupted thread can be followed right through his life-work, from the beginning until the end.

In spite of his absorbing work he took great interest in his surroundings, and during this first stay in Italy he became acquainted with two interesting personalities, Bakounine the anarchist and the celebrated physiologist Setchénoff. Both resided at Sorrento. Kovalevsky and Metchnikoff, who greatly desired to know them, decided to call on them, after much hesitation.

Bakounine, a giant with a leonine head and a thick mane of grey hair, struck them as being a fiery enthusiast but an intolerant sectarian, easily roused; for instance, any small and unimportant local meeting was enough for him to predict an imminent revolution in Russia. His theories were epitomised in these words, “We must not leave stone upon stone”; but when asked what should be built up on those ruins he could only say, “We shall see later.” Elie looked upon him as a force powerful by its fire and vitality, but thought his mind neither judicial nor profound.

Very different was the impression produced on him by Setchénoff. He carried great weight through the depth of his intelligence, his persuasive eloquence and general thoroughness. He was of a Mongol type and his features were plain, but his splendid eyes, deep and intelligent, shrewd and yet kindly, illumined his face with an unforgettable inward beauty. When Elie went to see him, it was with the uneasy feeling that his own knowledge of chemistry and physics was very restricted, having been very superficially acquired during his rapid passage through the University. In spite of this cause for bashfulness, a mental compact and exchange of ideas was immediately established between the two, and a sympathy was born between them which developed into a lifelong friendship. Elie expatiated upon his plans for the study of the embryology of inferior animals from the evolution point of view, and received from the older scientist much encouragement, for which he never ceased to be grateful.

He worked a great deal during this first stay at Naples, in spite of periods of great fatigue. As a relaxation, he plunged into philosophical reading. After Kovalevsky’s departure, he joined Bakounine’s circle, the members of which took their meals in a restaurant which rejoiced in the sonorous name of Trattoria della Harmonia. In the autumn of the year 1865, a cholera epidemic broke out in Naples. Every one was nervous and depressed, and this general depression was increased still more by some of the customs of the country—continuous lugubrious church bells, funeral processions in which penitents took part, carrying smoking torches and wearing hoods over their heads with holes for their eyes, etc. Elie, on whom the epidemic had made a great impression, was even more disturbed by the death of one of the members of their little circle, a popular Englishwoman, liked by everybody. She had no fear of cholera and was bright and merry. But one day she did not come to the Trattoria della Harmonia; she had been struck by the scourge and was dead the next day.

Elie was so struck by her death that his nerves, already very tense, gave way and he left Naples, being, moreover, worn out with overwork.

He started for Göttingen, for he wanted to begin the study of Vertebrates under the direction of Professor Keferstein. Keferstein straightway gave him a valuable lizard specimen to anatomise. Elie was not good at technique, on account of his nervous temperament; he used occasionally to lose his patience and his temper, to that point that he flung his material across the room. It happened so on this occasion; having completely wasted the valuable lizard, he conceived a still greater horror of technique and soon left Professor Keferstein for Henle, the celebrated anatomist. He worked with him for a short time at the histology of frogs’ kidneys, a subject chosen by the Professor. Soon the young man realised that he was no longer capable of submitting to school discipline and resumed his independent researches. When he had to do with those problems which absorbed him he was always able to conquer his aversion for technique and to do what was required. He studied the embryology of the green-fly from the genealogical point of view, and went to Munich for the summer term in order to work with the celebrated zoologist von Siebold, a typical and venerable old German scientist. The latter was too old already to be troubled with pupils, and Elie studied his insect embryology independently; however, he visited the old man assiduously, and they had long scientific conversations. Their relations were always extremely cordial, and they even kept up a regular correspondence for many years.

During his stay in Germany, music was the young man’s only recreation. He did not play any instrument; his parents, discouraged by the failure of their elder children, had not had him taught, and besides, his precocious vocation would have left him no time. Yet he certainly had a natural talent for music, which he passionately loved. He could only whistle, but with that feeble means succeeded in reproducing complicated compositions. Having assiduously attended excellent concerts, he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with classical music, and Beethoven and Mozart always remained his favourite composers. His stay in Germany taught him to appreciate the great capacity for work of the scientists of that country; he admired the organisation of their laboratories, allowing every force, great or small, to be utilised and making useful collective work possible in those complicated researches which demand the collaboration of divers specialists. On the other hand, he felt a great aversion for the manners and customs of German students. Their corporations, duels, and long sittings in beer-houses were distasteful to him; he could not understand how these coarse “Burschen” could become transformed into cultivated intellectuals and respectable scientists. People to whom he expressed this wonder merely said, “Youth must have its fling....” Moreover, scientists themselves were not particularly courteous to each other. More than anywhere else personal questions held a foremost place, and kindliness was rare between colleagues.

After staying some time in Munich, Elie returned to Naples, war having broken out between Northern and Southern Germany. This time, in order to spend less on the journey, he took a steamer at Genoa, but with fatal results, for a storm was raging; he suffered a great deal, and, when he reached Naples, violent fits of giddiness made him incapable of doing any work at all for some time. Cholera reappeared, and the landlady of the rooms he shared with Kovalevsky died of it. Much depressed, the two started for Ischia, but Elie soon realised with terror that he was not yet well enough to work; in order to recover quickly, he went to Cava, a pretty little place, renowned for its salubrious climate.

There he met Bakounine again, and they saw a good deal of each other in a friendly way. Bakounine nicknamed him “Mamma” because of his almost maternal attentions, a nickname which, for the same reason, was given him later, quite independently, by other intimates. Yet, though their relations were cordial and even affectionate, there was not really much in common between the two. Elie thought Bakounine’s ideas superficial, and disliked his sectarian mentality; they ultimately drifted apart.

His health having gradually recovered owing to the rest, he returned to Naples in the autumn, after the epidemic had abated, and at last resumed his work.

Whilst studying the history of the development of Cephalopoda he found that they had embryonic layers similar to those of Vertebrates; this was the first time that the fact was established. It was extremely important, for it constituted a concrete and indisputable proof of the existence of a genetic connection between inferior and superior animals. Metchnikoff chose this subject for his thesis, and, having completed his researches, he returned to Russia in 1867.

By this time he had made great use of his three years’ stay abroad. Though he had not showed himself a docile pupil, yet he had become initiated into the organisation of scientific work in Germany; he had carried out independent researches and had been able to choose with full knowledge the future path of investigations which he was to pursue for many years in the field of Comparative Embryology.

Already the observations he had made had in themselves a real importance. For instance, his studies in divers specimens of the worm type, a type which offers very heterogeneous forms, had permitted him to establish links of continuity between certain groups among them. Whilst studying those animals at Giessen in 1865, he had discovered the capital fact which proved to be the starting-point of all his future work—the intercellular digestion of an inferior worm, a land planarian, the Geodesmus bilineatus. He had compared this digestion with that of the superior Infusoria and had seen in it one more proof of the genetic connection between the type of the Protozoa and that of worms.

He did not then realise the full bearing of this observation, which really constituted the basis of his future phagocyte theory; this was only to appear eighteen years later.

He had also made researches on numerous specimens of insects and on the scorpion, establishing the fact that they all had embryonic layers; he concluded that he was “entitled to extend the theory of embryonic layers to Arthropoda.”

Finally, he had discovered embryonic layers similar to those of the Vertebrates in inferior Invertebrates, the Cephalopoda (Sepiola). This established a link of continuity between the higher and lower animals.

[CHAPTER XII]

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.

During his stay abroad, Metchnikoff had successfully carried out several researches, and this allowed him to apply for a post of docent at the new University of Odessa, which he had chosen on account of its proximity with the sea and its marine fauna. Whilst awaiting the result he went to Petersburg in order to pass his thesis and to prepare himself to become a professor. He received a pleasant welcome, for his lively and sociable disposition had made him many friends. The brothers Kovalevsky, with whom he was already on friendly terms, offered him hospitality; he also made the acquaintance of Professor Békétoff, and soon became a member of his family circle.

He was well received everywhere, for his scientific precocity excited general interest. He was even elected magister[10] by the Faculty, without having to pass an examination, on account of the work he had done. He and Kovalevsky halved Baer’s first prize, and they were invited and treated with the utmost kindness by Baer himself. Metchnikoff had certainly entered upon a successful phase; his friends nicknamed him “the star.” As soon as he was made a magister, he received his appointment at the Odessa University, and, the holidays drawing near, he was at last able to return to his home. Needless to say how joyfully and lovingly he was received by his family. He spent two months with them, utilising his leisure in preparing himself to teach.

In his hurry to arrive in Odessa in good time in order to take his bearings before starting his lectures, he went there much too soon and found nobody at the University; he then decided to go to the Crimea for some preliminary studies on the fauna of the Black Sea. Before long, he made the acquaintance of the celebrated botanist Cienkovsky, who invited him to stay in his villa. Though the scientist was already 46 years old and Elie only 22, they soon became fast friends. Cienkovsky was a man of great European culture; passionately fond of science as he was, his critical mind submitted everything to a close analysis. He took great interest in young Metchnikoff and showed him a marked predilection, but that did not prevent him from criticising him severely. He reproached him with a lack of self-control, and undertook the paternal task of civilising the impulsive, fiery, sometimes even violent young man. He preached to him tolerance towards the opinions of others, a strict self-discipline, and the absolute necessity of bowing to certain social conventions against which Elie blindly rebelled. Cienkovsky acquired great prestige in his young friend’s eyes; years later, even, Metchnikoff took pleasure in quoting his axioms and in trying to conform with them.

He worked with ardour during his stay in the Crimea; though the heat was great, 50° C. (122° F.) in the sun, he undertook zoological excursions and surprised every one by his endurance and energy.

At the end of the holidays, he returned to Odessa and began his professorate with much zeal and success. His lucid, living lectures stimulated his pupils, third-year students, who were all older than himself. Friendly relations soon reigned between them and their young lecturer; he organised practical studies, and his laboratory became a very active centre of work.

Thus everything was going well, and perhaps he might have remained at Odessa for a long time if it had not been for the following incident, due to his passionate and intolerant disposition. A Congress of Russian naturalists was to take place in Petersburg at the end of the year 1867. Elie eagerly wished to attend it as a delegate and took steps for that purpose; this brought him into conflict with his chief, who desired the mission for himself. Knowing that the old Professor had no real scientific interests, Elie thought himself justified in insisting, and counted upon Cienkovsky’s support, but the latter was of opinion that the younger man should give way. Elie, becoming more and more excited, lost all sense of proportion and committed the grave error of telling his pupils about what he considered a serious injustice. The latter, out of sympathy for their young lecturer, hooted the old Professor, which naturally embittered the quarrel. However, all the agitation ended in both zoologists being sent to the Congress in the quality of delegates.

When he reached Petersburg, Elie hurried to the house of his friends B——, who received him with open arms; it was a great joy to him to find himself in friendly surroundings after the recent strife. Impulsive and impressionable as he was, the disagreeable incidents he had traversed made him yearn to leave Odessa, a desire which was to be promptly realised. His communications had great success at the Congress; the President even invited him to read a paper at the general meeting; but, though strongly attracted by this proposal, which would have allowed the young scientist to expose his ideas on the comparative development of the embryonic layers, he refused it, considering that that complicated question was not yet sufficiently matured.

Nevertheless, the Congress had brought him into prominence and was the cause of his obtaining a Professorship of Zoology at Petersburg. Moreover, he had the additional good fortune of being given a scientific mission and went abroad to work until the autumn term.

He went to Naples in the spring of 1868, thinking to find Kovalevsky there, instead of which he found a letter from his friend awaiting him. The latter had had to go to Messina for urgent embryological work and begged Elie to look after his wife and new-born child. Metchnikoff did so most willingly until he was able to send them off to Messina. He himself followed soon after, for Kovalevsky wrote him that zoological specimens and conditions of work were far better at Messina than Naples. This time, Metchnikoff undertook the study of Sponges and Echinodermata. The two friends worked unceasingly, but Elie’s sight was too weak for such excessive fatigue; he was again obliged to interrupt his studies for a while, and during that period of enforced rest he felt for the first time the need of a sentimental affection in his life.

He dreamed of a helpmeet who would conform with his tastes. At Petersburg he had become very fond of Professor B.’s young daughters, the eldest of whom was about thirteen years old, and he wondered if he could not train one of those little girls to become the realisation of his ideal. He was too active by nature, however, to linger very long over reveries or over a prolonged rest; he therefore undertook a short journey through Reggio and Calabria, on his way towards Naples.

His eyesight being now restored, he began work again as soon as he arrived. This period, however, was not a pleasant one: to begin with, he obtained in the study of Ascidia a result which differed considerably from that obtained by Kovalevsky,[11] and this scientific controversy grieved and preoccupied them both. Besides, Elie’s nerves suffered from his constant anxiety about his eyes, the tropical heat and the noisy life of Naples. Incessant serenades used to keep him awake at night, and, on one occasion, his exasperation reached such a point that he poured a bucket of water over the head of some persistent musicians. Tired with all these things, he left Naples for Trieste, where he carried out successful researches into the transformations of Echinodermata, from the point of view of Comparative Embryology and genetic connections between inferior animals.

Having obtained results which interested him, he returned to Russia and joined the B. family in the country, near Moscow. Their young friend Mlle. Fédorovitch, whom he had already met in Petersburg, was staying with them, and she and Elie became very good friends. His affection for the B. children led him to ponder over general educational questions. He was struck for the first time by the lack of harmony in human nature, which was due, he thought, to the considerable difference between the organism of the child and that of the adult, a difference which does not exist in animals to the same degree.[12] As soon as he returned to Petersburg he tried to study this subject, and made comparisons between the brain of a man and that of a dog at various ages, but without result.

He was not long in realising that the conditions of work in his new post were extremely unsatisfactory. He had no proper laboratory and had to work between two specimen cases in a non-heated zoological museum; there was no room for practical work. All his enthusiasm, all his aspirations towards scientific activity and rational teaching struck against indifference, lack of organisation, and lack of means. He protested with his usual vehemence, but could obtain nothing; being equally unable to adapt himself to his uncongenial surroundings, he found himself getting more and more discontented and unnerved. Moreover, his everyday life was most uncomfortable, for he wished to do without servants, on principle and in order to economise, and to do his household work himself; but he soon tired of taking the necessary care of his rooms, which became a regular chaos. He left off preparing his own meals and went out for them to an inferior restaurant in the neighbourhood. Yet, in spite of all his efforts and privations, he never seemed to make both ends meet. He resigned himself to giving lessons at the School of Mines in order to increase his resources; the school was a long way off, he had to walk the distance in the coldest weather in order to lecture to students who did not interest him. The work wearied him without giving him any moral compensation. Altogether, the life in Petersburg, on which he had founded great hopes, brought him nothing but disappointments and made him become more and more pessimistic and misanthropical.

[CHAPTER XIII]

Slight illness — Engagement to Mlle. Fédorovitch — Marriage — Illness of the bride — Pecuniary difficulties — Spezzia — Montreux — Work in Petersburg University — The Riviera — Cœlomata and Acœlomata — St. Vaast — Panassovka — Madeira — Mertens — Teneriffe — Return to Odessa — Bad news, hurried journey to Madeira — Death of his wife — Return through Spain — Attempted suicide — Ephemeridæ.

It was only in the house of his friends the B.’s that Elie felt at his ease. He was devotedly fond of their children, whom he used to take for walks on Sundays and to the theatre now and then; he was always ready to read to them and to indulge them in every possible way.

He continued to entertain the dream of marrying one of them some day, and was particularly interested in the eldest, a girl of thirteen, intelligent, gifted, and lively; however, as he knew her better, he realised the incompatibility of their respective tempers, an incompatibility which brought about frequent disputes. These were generally smoothed down by a mutual friend, Mlle. Fédorovitch, who invariably showed Elie a marked and cordial sympathy. He became ill at this juncture and she nursed him with a devotion which brought them together even more, as will be seen from the following letter to his mother:

Dear Mother—I have just had an inflammation of the throat which lasted two weeks; it is quite gone now and I would not even have mentioned it to you if it had not been connected with what follows.

When I fell ill, the B.’s, knowing me to be alone and uncared for, brought me to their house. During my stay with them, I acquired the conviction that my darling little girls did not love me, especially the eldest, who interested me even more than her three sisters.... The dreams I told you of have vanished!

It was a grief to me, for, apart from my scientific interests, I cherished them more than anything. I have no acquaintances and do not require any, but I long to have some one with me to whom I could become attached and who could share my pleasures and leisure.

My grief would have been greater still if I had not seen that Ludmilla Fédorovitch, whom I mentioned to you this summer, showed me much sympathy in all my troubles.

We were already very good friends, and have now drawn nearer together; who knows? perhaps the 800 roubles which are going to be added to my salary will be very useful.

I will keep you informed of everything, dear Mother, for I am sure of your sympathy; I love you better than the whole world and I have full confidence in you.

Au revoir, dear Mother, I kiss your hands.—Your

Elie Metchnikoff.

Mlle. Fédorovitch became ill in her turn; the sympathy which Elie showed her on this occasion brought them still nearer to each other, and he soon decided to marry her. He informed his mother of this; much alarmed, she tried to dissuade him, for she feared that by marrying a girl in delicate health, her son would be assuming too heavy a task in his difficult circumstances.

He answered as follows:

I received your letter to-day, dear Mother. It grieves me very much. My project inspires you with doubt, you counsel prudence and, though you say you believe me to be reasonable, yet you fear that I am acting on an impulse. If I really am reasonable, why fear a blind impulse? On the other hand, if I am blindly carried away, it is not likely that I shall listen to reason.

I did tell you that I had great affection for the B. girls, and it was true. But did I ever tell you that they had the same for me? You are mistaken in thinking that I did not like Ludmilla Fédorovitch at first. I was not in love with her but we were very good friends, and whilst I did not consider her as my feminine ideal, I was sure of her absolutely honest, loyal, and kindly disposition. The very fact that I knew Ludmilla for a long time before I thought of marrying her, should prove to you that there is some chance of my being neither blind nor partial.

Her love for me is beyond doubt, as you will see when you know her.

I also am very fond of her, and that is a solid basis for future happiness.

Yet I will not answer for it that we shall spend our life like a pair of turtledoves. A rosy, boundless beatitude forms no part of my conception of the distant future.

Yet I do not see the necessity of waiting till I become a thorough misanthrope, and I am already inclined that way.

Please do not believe that, if I do not dream of a rosy happiness it is that I feel none at all; that is not the case; I am in a happy medium.

I like Ludmilla and I feel comfortable with her; but at the same time I preserve the faculty of feeling every trouble and worry in life. I do not at all think that it is enough to love in order to be happy. Therefore I have begun to take steps to obtain a Professor’s chair, and I am very desirous of being successful in that financial operation.

Soon after that, he wrote the following letter to his mother:

Dear Mother—In my last letter I had already spoken to you of Ludmilla Fédorovitch. I can now give you information about her which will surely interest you.

She is not bad-looking, but that is all. She has fine hair; her complexion is not pretty. We are about the same age, she is a little over 23. She was born at Orenburg; then she lived for a long time with her family at Kiahta (Siberia), after which she was abroad for nearly two years and finally settled in Moscow. Ludmilla, or Lussia, was, as you remember, a very zealous intermediary between me and the B. girls to whom I was so attached.

She loved me already then, though she said to herself that I had too much affection for the B. children ever to return her feelings.

And she was perfectly right, as long as my affection for those children lasted.

But, when it ceased, I naturally took more notice of Lussia’s sympathy for me, and I am not surprised that I have acquired much affection for her.

She has faults which must seem graver to me than to you, but what is to be done?

Fortunately she herself sees them. The greatest of her faults is a too great placidity, a lack of vivacity and initiative; she adapts herself too easily to her surroundings. But, being placid, she is also firm; she can bear a great deal whilst preserving complete self-control. She is extremely kind and good-natured; I have not yet found a vulgar trait in her character.

I have told you of her faults, you must therefore not think me partial if I find qualities in her.

The fact is—and I cannot forget it—that always, when I had any kind of trouble, she soothed me by her attitude towards me.

Even though I have dark previsions for the future (as you know, I am not given to seeing life through rose-coloured glasses), I cannot help thinking that by living with Lussia I should become calmer, at least for a fairly long time.

I should cease to suffer from the misanthropy which has invaded me lately.

I intend to have no children—it is an embryologist who is speaking. On the contrary, I want to preserve the utmost liberty. Nevertheless, one must conform with certain legal conventions, which will probably take place in January.

Lussia has no fortune, but we shall be entirely guaranteed by the increase in my salary.

It is very regrettable that the event should be retarded by the customary formalities; in any case it will certainly end by taking place.

I beg you to write to me, dear mother that I love, anything that comes into your head à propos of my affair.

Rejoice that I am now very happy and wish that it may last.

I ask the same of Papa, whom I beg you to salute from me. I embrace you, dear Mamma, and I remain your very affectionate son,

E. Metchnikoff.

As Elie learnt to know his fiancée better, he became more and more attached to her. Their happiness seemed likely to be complete, but a cruel Fate had decided otherwise. The girl’s health was not improving: her supposed bronchitis was assuming a chronic character. Yet the marriage was not postponed, and the bride had to be carried to the church in a chair for the ceremony, being too breathless and too weak to walk so far.

Elie did his utmost to procure comforts for his wife, and hoped that she could still be saved by care and a rational treatment. It was the beginning of an hourly struggle against disease and poverty; his means being insufficient, he tried to eke them out by writing translations. His eyesight weakened again from overwork, and it was with atropin in his eyes that he sat up night after night, translating. There was but one well-lighted room in his flat, and he turned it into a small laboratory for the use of his pupils; his own researches he had to give up, his time being entirely taken up by teaching and translations.

He hid his precarious position from his parents in order not to add to their heavy expenses nor to confirm their previsions concerning his marriage. His wife’s illness, the impossibility of carrying on scientific work, the lack of friendly sympathy to which he thought himself entitled, all this weighed on him, making him bitter, suspicious, and distrustful; he thought himself persecuted. The situation became intolerable and, in spite of his pride, he forced himself to apply for a subsidy to take his wife abroad and to go on with his researches. Having obtained it in 1869, he immediately left Petersburg, which he now hated.