90 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



entering the church under the eyes of all the guests. 

 My little brother tried to reassure me by offering to 

 hold my hand, and my mother made me drink some 

 chocolate to give me courage. 



Elie was awaiting us at the entrance ; my shyness 

 increased when I heard people whispering around us, 

 " Why, she is a mere child ! " The ceremony took 

 place in the evening, after which Elie wrapped me 

 carefully in a long warm cloak and we set off, the 

 sledge gliding like the wind, towards our new home. 

 In spite of the day's emotions, I rose very early the 

 next morning in order to work at my zoology exercises 

 and to give my husband a pleasant surprise. He was 

 now free to superintend my education, a very difficult 

 and delicate task when having to do with a mind as 

 unprepared for life as mine was. 



The scientific methods which Metchnikoff applied 

 to everything might have constituted a grave error 

 at this delicate psychological moment ; yet, in many 

 ways, he showed himself a strangely clear-sighted 

 educator. He made it a principle to give me entire 

 liberty whilst directing me through the logic of his 

 arguments. It is with deep gratitude that I realise 

 how he, so superior to me, took care not to stifle my 

 fragile individuality but to respect it and to encourage 

 it to develop. Like all Russian young people of the 

 time, I was very enthusiastic concerning political and 

 social questions that I was not mature enough to 

 understand, and my father forbade us to frequent 

 political circles with which he had no sympathy, fear- 

 ing that we might be influenced by them. Elie, on 

 the contrary, left me full liberty, though he himself 

 disapproved of my tendencies. He considered that 

 political and social questions belonged to the realm of 



