76 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



waves, he realised that the beach fauna must be very 

 poor ; his only refuge, research work, was likely to be 

 denied him. 



He was advised to hire a small house, which would 

 be cheaper than a boarding-house, and he did find 

 a pretty furnished villa with a garden ; it was beyond 

 his means, but a young Russian named Mertens, who 

 had been a fellow-traveller, proposed to share it with 

 them. The arrangement proved highly satisfactory, 

 and Mertens, at first merely an agreeable neighbour, 

 became a close friend. 



Before leaving for Madeira, Metchnikoff had 

 obtained a scientific mission and a subsidy from the 

 Society of Natural Science Lovers of Moscow, and 

 felt it a moral obligation to obtain some results. The 

 scantiness of the marine fauna was a bitter disappoint- 

 ment ; he had to fall back upon what little he found, 

 and embarked on the study, hitherto unknown, of 

 the embryology of Myriapoda. But this research 

 work brought him a new source of torment instead of 

 satisfaction : he could not master the technique, which 

 proved to be very difficult, and this irritated him ; 

 his failures disappointed him, made him vexed with 

 himself ; his nerves, already strung to the highest 

 point by suffering and anxiety, made the disappoint- 

 ment unbearable. On the other hand, the external 

 aspect of life formed a striking contrast with the state 

 of his mind. A wealth of natural beauty, all flowers 

 and perfumes, in an incomparable site, congenial sur- 

 roundings and home comforts formed the frame for 

 these two young lives, of which one was waning whilst 

 the other was spent in a useless struggle to save it. 



MetchnikofFs natural pessimism was growing under 

 the influence of these painful circumstances. His 



