Читать книгу Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 - Olga Metchnikoff - Страница 12

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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.