LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 69 



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 a propos of my afEair. 



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 affec- 

 tionate son, E. Metchnikoff. 



As Elie learnt to know his fiancee 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 im- 

 proving : her supposed bronchitis was assuming a 

 chronic character. Yet the marriage was not post- 

 poned, 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 



