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] [5] _Chronicle of John Neculua._ 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.