CHAPTER VINATHALIE
There is a certain maxim, unpleasant as it is prevalent, indulged in with great frequency by a certain class of stoical sophists, to the effect that there are many sorrows in life more difficult to bear than that separation from our nearest brought by death. But those men—and especially the women—who have experienced sorrow of both varieties, do not use that proverb.
In his after life Ivan Gregoriev was called upon to bear many burdens of grief; but none of them ever caused him to waver in the assurance that the death of his mother had brought him the bitterest suffering he could be called upon to endure. Before this time—for many recent weeks—he had believed himself cognizant of most forms of unhappiness. So, in a blind, insensate fashion, he was. But the night on which his mother left him opened his eyes to that land of grief where consolation waits on time; it shook from him the last vestige of morbidity; and, lastly, it brought him, too, in generous measure, perception of those beauties of thought and action to be gained by one who accepts his loss unselfishly, in a true and humble spirit.
During the three days that passed before the funeral, Ivan, his brain dulled and heavy with a kind of morbid despair, haunted the room where his mother lay, surrounded with candles the lights of which illumined and intensified the smile of transfiguration still remaining on her peaceful face. To the boy, waiting and watchingdumbly, it seemed intolerable that the stillness of that sacred room should be disturbed by the exits and entrances of strangers. In the beginning, he resented even the arrival from her Petersburg convent of his cousin Nathalie; and for the many members of the Blashkov family, distant relatives or mere acquaintances, who throughout her life had left Sophia to bitter loneliness, and came now to stare upon her empty frame, the son felt a hatred too fierce to be expressed in words. They, however, neither knew nor would have cared to learn how the boy heard their every word concerning him and his with wrath unspeakable, and shuddered with misery at their heartless insolence. Nevertheless, the wretchedness hidden under his set, strained mask, was divined by his aunt. Thus, she, for the time much softened by her grief, and feeling also a good deal of curiosity concerning the inner nature of this youth of the haunted eyes, presently sought, by every art of tact and seeming understanding, to open his heart to tears. The fact that she at length succeeded, must be put down to her lasting credit; it having been a deed directly opposed to the traits of her rather cold nature.
Upon the evening after the funeral Madame Dravikine, intensely wearied by the long walk to and from the cemetery, was lying on her couch, eyes closed, her head aching slightly. Nevertheless, when there came a timid knock upon her door, she answered with a summons to enter, and Ivan, responding, went to her impetuously, yielded his hands to her clasp, and allowed himself to be drawn to his knees, at her side, there to listen to gentle words about his mother's love for him, and her ambitions for his future, till she had pierced through the armor of his reserve, and he burst into a storm of sobs the violence of which at first frightened her.
It was the one possible means of relief, however; andMadame Dravikine, wise in her generation, let him weep his bitter revolt away. This lasted nearly an hour, and both were exhausted by the time the tears had ceased, and only an occasional, spasmodic sob gave evidence of the storm that had passed. It was at this juncture—Ivan upon the floor, half sitting, half kneeling, Caroline's arms clasping him close—that the door of the room opened again, quietly, and Nathalie appeared. At sight of the two she halted, uncertainly. But her mother, gently releasing the embarrassed boy, bade her come in; nor when, an instant later, he made the move, would she permit Ivan to go. It was, perhaps, unfair to her that this kindly act of hers should have borne, for all three of them, consequences so momentous, and, to the Countess, so unwelcome. Yet it was certainly this evening which saw the beginning of the single real passion of Ivan's life. Thereafter, in that little gallery of mental portraits carried by each of us in his intimate heart, the beloved form of his dead mother was given a companion picture: that of a girl's face, warm and living, upon which he often gazed with an ardor, a devotion, a longing, rather unboyishly sincere.
Certainly the picture thus enshrined was one not unworthy of strong admiration. For even at fourteen Nathalie Dravikine was very beautiful, in a delicate, flower-like way. Her complexion was clear and pale, the blood which ran beneath it showing only under the stress of some emotion, when it would suffuse her whole face with waves of exquisite color. Her delicate head bore a weight, almost too great, of fine, blue-black hair, just now hanging in a heavy plait to her knees. Her eyes, large and velvety as Ivan's own, were, however, of a shade indescribable, chameleon-like: one day varying between beryl and aqua-marine, anon of a light hazel, and finally, in moments of excitement, grief, or joy, of a deep, baffling black. Hitherto, Ivan had been undecidedabout their color; but to-night, as he saw them run their gamut from light to that tender dark, he felt a strange, quivering half-fear, half-joy, stirring his heart; and in one moment it had become impossible for him to look her in the eyes again and retain any sort of composure. Moreover, as he sat, red-eyed and conscious, in a chair between aunt and cousin, it seemed to him as if some one were pouring a cool balm over the burning wound within him: as if, already, his mother's strange promise were finding fulfilment, and she herself, or her fair spirit, stood at his side, her gentle hand upon his shoulder, a smile of the old, loving companionship in her deep eyes. He did not know whether it were minutes or hours before, with a long sigh, he rose, kissed his aunt, drew back with flaming face from Nathalie's tentative advance, but finally, with throbbing heart, just touched her cheek in the usual place, and then ran off, glad of the darkness in the passage outside. Unlike the traditional young lover, however, he was not destined to spend the dark hours in waking dreams of his love. Nay, the pretty child did him better service. That night, for the first time in ninety-six weary hours, he slept, soundly and dreamlessly, till Alexei came to call him, when he rose with a feeling of great strangeness, of irrevocable change, upon him, as he faced a final joyless day.
There was no help for it. He must return, that afternoon, to the Corps; where now there would be no weekly breaks in his monotony of unhappiness. So much he learned in a brief, uncomfortable interview with his father, immediately after breakfast. And when he was dismissed, he understood that it was Prince Michael's farewell to him for an indefinite period: a fact which troubled him very little in itself, however; the less so since, when he reached his room again, he found in his hand an envelope containing a princely sum of pocket-money—which was to last him through the spring.Wearily and drearily, however, the boy, with the aid of his serf, packed the few garments he had brought with him, and then went off to hang about the closed door of his aunt's suite of rooms, in which, also packing, was Nathalie: that strange, new Nathalie, born for him fifteen hours before.
He had reached a great depth of unhappiness when suddenly, about noon-time, the gate to fairy-land opened and he was admitted by Celestine, who had been sent, indeed, to seek him. In a few, whirling moments, he found himself eating an earlydéjeuner à la fourchettewith his aunt and cousin, after which he drove with them to the Petersburg station, and there, upon the noisy, crowded platform, reached his empyrean.
Madame Dravikine and her maid were in the carriage reserved for them, arranging their bags and rugs. But Nathalie had remained—ah, was it not of her own choice?—outside, for three minutes longer. Their few words were as simple and as awkward as inexperience could make them; but they were afterwards gone over, a hundred times, at least, by Ivan, who, at each repetition, became more impressed by the brilliance, the wit, thesavoir-faire, the repose of Mademoiselle Nathalie's brief and stumbling formalities. Then—then Madame Dravikine was calling her daughter. A whistle blew. The second bell rang loudly. Officials jangled hastily down the platform; and Ivan, his heart throbbing in his throat, suddenly caught his cousin's slender figure in his arms, held her for one endless instant, found her lips with his own, and found himself, five minutes later, gazing blindly down an empty track, while the footman at his side stared at him in stupid wonderment. So, coloring with shame, joyously angry, broken by the long prospect of ensuing grief and longing—not for one being loved and lost, but for two—he entered the carriage which was to carry him across Moscow, fromheaven to hell: from the Petersburg station to the stone buildings of theCorps des Cadets, where, in the ensuing weeks, Ivan Gregoriev, already an adept in enduring the various forms of school-boy misery, was about to begin upon a lesson before which more than one grown man would have visibly shrunk; and under which Ivan himself, before it was finished, had become appalled at his own capacity for suffering.
During every age of humanity, in every state and stage of human civilization, there have been certain great-souled beings who, for the sake of a totally inadequate reward, have delivered themselves over, bound and helpless, into the hands of a task-master severe, relentless, all-demanding, but wise and just beyond every other teacher of mankind. The greater number of these daring persons have, in the end, accomplished their schooling, done their tasks, and reached their goal; because, once in the toils, they must needs go forward, or die. A very few of these toilers, Hindoos ascending towards Arahatship, Christians aspiring to certain heaven by way of certain martyrdom, have been given beforehand an exact estimate of the price they were to pay. But all others, the vast majority of those demanding of nature her divinest gifts, have mortgaged themselves blindly for an amount, and at a rate of interest, unknown, undreamed of. Of these, Ivan was one. At the age of sixteen he first felt his power, made his demand. Consciously or unconsciously—probably both—he cried to Fate: "Behold me! I hold a message for mankind! The Spirit of Music will deign to make use of me as her instrument. I am summoned to the world-service. Give me, then, that which shall make me great enough to bring this gift of mine to its highest issue, that my mistress may find her priest worthy of acclaim and of advancement!"
This is a cry that Fate is bound to answer, for it is the cry of assurance. Hearing his words, the Great One stood before the boy and considered him thoughtfully. It may be that he was given secret warning of the meaning of his demand. This it is not for us to know. But, knowing or unknowing, he repeated his cry, and was answered. There and then, with this mysterious, perverse wisdom, his task-master began his training, blinding the eyes of the pupil to all save the few immediate steps along the steep road that lay before, permitting him to advance only step by step, under her guidance. Ivan yielded himself as clay to those powerful hands; but the clay was pure, and, because of its youth, more pliable than are those who know themselves only in later years. And now, had he wished it, his master would not have let him go.
Poor Ivan! My poor hero! How was he lashed through that long spring, and the summer that he spent alone at ghost-haunted Klin, where every corner of house and garden spoke to him of his mother. How pitilessly was he dragged through depths of grief and solitude and hopeless longing; till he stumbled, half fainting, deep in the slough of despair! Hopeless and heart-sick, forgetting, and, he believed, forgotten by, every living joy, he fought his battle of temperament hand to hand, imagining every contest lost. Nothing of his past, his present or his future, was clear before him. He was as one crying in the wilderness; and no echo of an answer caught his ear. So numb was he from emotional experience by the summer's end, that, in the second week of September, he returned to Moscow for his second winter in the Corps, with hardly more than a dull and throbbing sense of dread.
The cold weather set in early that year. October and November passed in a whirl of powdery snow and winds that cut through the heaviest furs. As the time ofChristmas fasts and feasts drew on, Ivan began to long for what he believed would not be granted him—the spending of his holiday week in comparative freedom at home. He was, however, too proud to beg such permission; and not one word from Prince Michael did he receive. It was, then, not till the very hour that his companions were gayly rushing off to their various conveyances of departure, that Ivan, standing ruefully in the snow-filled court-yard, perceived Piotr tramping through the outer gate, looking about him, undecided as to the right entrance.
That night Ivan slept beneath his father's roof for the first time in nine months; and in the gray of early morning there came to him an idea of radiant promise. The pocket-money sent him in September—five hundred rubles, the existence of which his companions had fortunately never surmised, remained almost untouched. Ivan was extravagant only in the purchase of music-paper and harmony-books, which are not matters of great cost. Why, then, should he not drive to-day to the Tverskaia, and there select Christmas presents for those few to whom it would be a delight to give? The custom, not at that day so prevalent in Russia as now, was still by no means unusual. And though Piotr and Alexei and old Másha, besides, as a matter of duty, his father, were the names on Ivan's written list, they were all of them meaningless compared with that one gift for her for whom no gift in the world could be sufficiently fine or costly.
Through that whole morning he dragged the sleigh and patient Alexei up and down the Tverskaia, while, the other presents long since selected, he went from shop to shop, dismayed anew at every place by the price asked for those gems which alone seemed fitting for the object of his gift. Still, in the end, he was comparatively satisfied; nor was his choice one likely to displease anyfeminine soul the world over. For the little, pearl-studded bracelet that lay in a blue-velvet case in the breast-pocket of Ivan's coat was, considering the boy's inexperience, in astonishingly appropriate taste; and well calculated to recall him to the mind of the girl of whom he had dreamed through nine long months.
The remainder of the day belonged to the gods; for Ivan managed to devote more than two hours in the penning of a moderately long, rather stiff little letter addressed to his cousin Nathalie, at the Catherine Institute for the Daughters of Nobility, in Petersburg. Moreover, this done, there was still the bracelet to be wrapped, tied and stamped. Then, after his return from the nearest official registry, there remained the dear delight of dusk-dreams, which, to-day, concerned the probable reception of his gift, the reading of his letter, and, climax of climaxes, the probability of an acknowledgment!
Ivan's holiday week passed slowly, and there came no word from Petersburg. On each of the last three mornings he rose tremulous with hope; on each of the nights retired praying for a speedy morrow. But instead of any joy, these days brought him only unexpected trials. His father, it seemed, had suddenly become much interested in his son's straight, strong presence, and took opportunity to keep him, for long periods every day, in his company, discussing with him the details of his life at the Corps, and the possibilities of the future. Each conference brought only strengthened conviction of his father's insistence upon a military-diplomatic career for him, and of the futility of the slightest hope of leading that musician's life for which he had been created. To-day, the least suggestion of his secret desires might bring upon him a storm which would, then and there, forever annihilate them. At this day his own, spiritual guide had become a thing of little importance, in Ivan'smind, compared with the relentless strength which his father could exhibit at an instant's warning. And, because he had not yet learned that supreme faith in destiny to which he afterwards did attain, Ivan carried this curious trouble with him through many a long day, nor cast it wholly off till the world had changed for him.
On the day after New Year's Ivan returned drearily to the Corps, where, after a week of aimless dejection, that institute, following its invariable custom, brought him an unlooked-for blow. It was in the form of a small packet, bearing the Petersburg mark, which, on opening, he found to contain a little pearl-studded bracelet, and a note that ran as follows:
"My dear Ivan Mikhailovitch,—The mother-superior of the Catherine Institute has forwarded to me a gift and a note designed by you for your cousin Nathalie."I very much regret that you should have made such a mistake as to think that little girls either receive jewelry from any persons other than their parents, or, indeed, at my daughter's age, receive it at all. Nor do the pupils of the Institute accept communications from any persons but those whose names are upon a list prepared by the parents of the inmate."Wishing you the compliments of the season, and health under the blessing of your patron saint, accept, my dear nephew, the considerations of my sincere regard."Caroline Ivanovna Dravikine."
"My dear Ivan Mikhailovitch,—The mother-superior of the Catherine Institute has forwarded to me a gift and a note designed by you for your cousin Nathalie.
"I very much regret that you should have made such a mistake as to think that little girls either receive jewelry from any persons other than their parents, or, indeed, at my daughter's age, receive it at all. Nor do the pupils of the Institute accept communications from any persons but those whose names are upon a list prepared by the parents of the inmate.
"Wishing you the compliments of the season, and health under the blessing of your patron saint, accept, my dear nephew, the considerations of my sincere regard.
"Caroline Ivanovna Dravikine."
Ivan read this short missive till he had it by rote. At each repetition it struck him as more cutting, more cruel, more unjust. His aunt had certainly intended a rebuke; but she hardly realized either the over-sensitiveness of Ivan's nature or the extent of his boyish feeling for his cousin, whom he concluded to be responsible, by some unfathomable pique, for his humiliating discomfiture.
As a matter of actual fact, Nathalie had never received either letter or gift. She, like Ivan, had left her school during Christmas week to spend the festival withher father and mother. It was not till two days after the departure of Mademoiselle Dravikine from the institute that the packet and the letter from Moscow had been placed in the hands of the mother-superior. That worthy woman, examining the list of her pupil's correspondents, found upon it but one person from Moscow—Madame la Princesse Gregoriev, lately deceased, whose name she now took the opportunity of erasing from the authorized list. This done, it remained for her to ponder upon the subsequent conclusion of this very unusual incident. Undoubtedly something must be done, if not with the letter at least with the packet, which, even to her unworldly eyes, had about it a suggestion of gold and gems that could not but bring a flutter of interest to a heart which, long as it had been consecrated to unworldly things, was still of the eternal feminine. It was not till the good, stupid soul had resorted to earnest prayer, that she hit upon the inspiration of casting all responsibility upon the capable shoulders of her pupil's mamma, the worshipful Countess Dravikine.
This august lady, though it did not occur to her to seek council with the Most High, found adequate means of disposing of the undesirable gift. It was a matter of considerable satisfaction to her that Nathalie had not been made cognizant of the little affair. Yet the watchful mother would have been not a little amazed could she have read the depths of her demure daughter's mind, and found there a vague but unquestionable disappointment at having in so many months received neither word nor message from her Moscow cousin. It was odd that Madame Dravikine should not have realized, by this time, that her daughter was the child of her own heart: and, since her childhood, Caroline Ivanovna had certainly never failed to recognize the least of her own conquests. Was it possible that the womannow high in the favor of a second reign, should have a dunce for a daughter? Yet the mother would probably have felt something other than satisfaction had she suspected how keenly Mademoiselle Nathalie had studied her tact and her tactics. It might be flattery of the sincerest order; but it must, nevertheless, prove rather too trying for comfort.
It had been in the August of the year 1843 that the court journal of Petersburg announced, at the head of its budget from Tsarskoë-Selo, at which fashionable resort the Dravikines were wont to spend part of each summer, the birth of a daughter to the popular and fascinating Countess, Caroline Ivanovna. Within the month there began to pour in upon that lady a flood of congratulations which, upon the occasions of the first calls, were astutely turned to tactful condolences, it being at length understood that, while the Count was satisfied with the sex of his child, the Countess daily vibrated between rage and tears that she should not have given her house an heir. And since it was unquestionably madame who ruled the family, young Mademoiselle Nathalie, despite her remarkable eyes, her curling black hair and her rose-leaf skin, came to spend her babyhood in the care of the Dravikine serfs; until at the age of six she talked like a kitchen-maid, and had the manners of a stable-boy—or a Grand-Duke.
Now, in the autumn of 1849, Count Dravikine, whose promotions came about as regularly as his wife's allowance was paid, had just been created Assistant Minister of Public Works; and the dignity thereby superinduced in him was in exact proportion to the height of his upward step. Upon a November afternoon, then, as his Excellency was returning from the Council, he came suddenly upon his daughter, standing in the court-yard of his house, bare-headed, arms akimbo, feet spread apart in the attitude of a jockey, her white bonnetthrown upon the muddy flags before her, her shrill voice raised to a scream, as she pelted her helpless nurse with a string of oaths that would have done credit to his Iron Majesty, all for presuming to interrupt her game within doors in order to take her for the prescribed daily walk in the gardens of the Tauride.
Count Dravikine, his eyes narrowing with anger, approached the furious child, lifted her, now kicking frantically, in two powerful arms, carried her straight to his wife's boudoir, and flung her before her mother. Then, in a voice that Caroline had heard only twice before, he expressed his opinion of the up-bringing of his child, finishing with certain forceful suggestions of change for the future.
Countess Caroline listened without a word; but when her husband left her, he was well aware that his orders would be obeyed to the letter. The Countess, indeed, respected her partner and had continued to obey his rare commands simply because she was aware of the existence of that very voice and manner. And from that hour the education of her tomboy became with her a matter of considerably greater moment than the planning of the winter's campaign, or the choice of a costume for the first court ball of the season.
It followed that Mademoiselle Nathalie passed through two extremely trying years. At the end of them, however, she was a child transformed. No one now could possibly mistake her for a boy. She could read and write, spell fairly, had some knowledge of arithmetic and the conjugation ofAmo: and, finally, her knowledge of intricate profanity had materially lessened. Nowadays, when she was left alone in her rage, her most forceful expressions seemed to be "Dieu de Dieu de Dieu!" or "Sapr-r-risti!" of her mild little tutor or her more vigorous French maid.
In spite of this conventional training, Nathalie, whosetemperament contained a strong dash of masculinity, was quite eleven years old before she began to turn her vivid imagination to dreams of distant débutantism or still remoter officers, who, in the most brilliant of uniforms, should appear at miraculous moments in her career, bringing shame and jealousy to armies of ill-mannered rivals. After the first three months in the Catherine Institute, this style of amusement also changed, and she was overcome by a religious mania which, being encouraged on every hand, might possibly have become really dangerous. It was by finally emerging from it unscathed, and having, at the age of thirteen years and six months, resolved herself into an agreeably normal young person whose quiet manners covered a swift and keenly feminine brain, that Nathalie Dravikine proved herself worthy of her mother's steel.
This, indeed, Countess Caroline came herself to perceive. After their long winter's separation, during those few days together in the sorrowing house of Gregoriev, during the April of 1857, mother and daughter came closer together than ever before. Madame Dravikine was softened by grief; and the consolation she found in her daughter's presence was as great as it was unexpected. Nathalie's tenderness and gentleness were certainly traits of the Dravikines, rather than of the Blashkov family. But Caroline, absorbed in memories of her beloved sister, failed either to analyze these, or to pay much heed to the two or three brief scenes between her girl and Ivan, which should have been summarily checked in their infancy. As it was, Mademoiselle Nathalie gained some relief from gloom and loneliness in the open admiration of her cousin; and, after the first day of novelty, found herself taking a quivering delight in this, her first affair.
The little climax of it all, that five minutes on the platform of the Petersburg station, which ended in amost uncousinly kiss, flamed scarcely less hot in the memory of the maiden than in that of Ivan. Nathalie carried back with her into the gray Petersburg Institute such a host of flagrant dreams as kept a dozen chums about her through the long twilights of as many afternoons. For the damsel was an erratic priestess of Eros; and, at this dream-age, she and her comrades gave to the technique of forthcoming flirtation a patient analysis that promised adequate devastation among the courtier army awaiting their acknowledged young-ladyhood.
Thus comes it that we take a final glance through two childish prison-houses, in far-separate Russian cities, wherein a youth and a maiden lie nightly dreaming the same dreams: one of them a spirit already bonded to the service of mind under the whip of circumstance: destined to storm rocky heights, from which hard-won eminences he shall command great views of sweeping plains and far-off mountain ranges; the other a pretty chrysalis on the eve of her change into a butterfly of butterflies; who is, nevertheless, to attempt flights overhigh and overfar for her frail wings; venturing to unfriendly lands whence she must return with frayed and tired pinions and a bruised and bleeding little soul. And their two destinies, so divergent, are yet fated, ever and again, in the swift swinging round their orbits, to approach, touch, and bound away again in opposite directions, strive though they may to maintain for a while some parallel course.
Kinder, most surely, just to leave them there: well-guarded children, walled securely away from the black, bleak world; oblivious of all things save the white innocency of their dreams of first, most fragile, high-romantic love.
CHAPTER VIISPRING AND THE ROSE
The summer of 1860 found Ivan Gregoriev at the end of an experience so long, so difficult, so seemingly unendurable, that, up to the last few months of its continuance, he had never indulged in any anticipations of its conclusion. Like all things, however, his four years' battle came finally to an end. One, two, three, four: despair, unhappiness, resignation, and, lastly, some sort of authority as the recognized leader in his work, at least, of the grandiloquent first form: so passed the years of his cadetship, till, in the June of 1860, he graduated, honorably, and went off to spend the summer at Klin in his own fashion, giving very little thought to that impending commission which was once again to reorder his existence. Many were the pleasures possible to him now in that quiet spot. Some part of gilded Moscow—the very best of the clubs, would have opened to him had he displayed any passion for baccarat, or the kindred games indulged by the vast majority of his class. Cared he naught for these, there was yet another, phase of mannish existence to which he might agreeably be introduced. But when aspiring sycophants, members of the great mass of impecunious people of "family," found that this eccentric son of Prince Michael failed to appreciate the charms of a single member of the opera ballet (now indulging in the delights of their summer vacation, and expending part of their savings of fifteen rubles a week upon champagne suppers or coaching-partiesto the various fashionable suburbs), they left him disgustedly to his own devices: which consisted in pouring over the orchestro-harmonical works of Monsieur Berlioz; and evolving strange progressions upon his new Érard.
Meantime, behold Prince Michael, alone in his sanctum, diligently studying the hieroglyphics on his map—of which the last corner, under the heading of "Alexander II.," was gradually filling—and otherwise working most zealously towards a new end. Nor was zeal unnecessary; for it took him four months to make a certain lofty nobleman see the unavoidable consequences of the translation and publication of a certain portion of that map. It was October before a peremptory telegram brought Ivan, with all his paraphernalia (consisting principally of much-worn musical scores and a considerable pile of crude manuscript-music), back to Konnaia Square. That night the young man slept once more in his boy's room in the west wing; and nine o'clock next morning found him, for the first time in his life, in his father's innermost cabinet, facing the powerful form and the difficult eyes of Prince Michael.
The interview was a long one, but contained little repetition, and made good use of every minute of its three hours. Ivan's whole problematical future was laid before him, clearly and in detail, as it had been constructed, during years of consideration, in his father's brain. It was the one plan of Michael Gregoriev's life which was destined to prove an absolute waste of energy. Still, there were to be two years of it literally fulfilled, wherefore we touch upon its preliminaries. Moreover, as Prince Michael spoke plainly, so we; though Ivan expended little amazement on the revelation, and appreciated remarkably little of the powerful influence that had been already brought to bear on his unimportant behalf. Michael himself was keenly aware that, evenin the face of his map, he dared attempt nothing more till he had accumulated at least another twenty-four months of—um—ah—inner official history. But, for the present, he was satisfied with his accomplishment. Ivan, as graduate of one of the Corps, had been entitled to an ensignship in a line regiment. Influence, however, obtained for him a first lieutenancy in the Mounted Grenadiers—the finest regiment of the imperial guard in Petersburg, and the Emperor's favorite; whose uniforms, moreover, were calculated to capture the faith and fancy of any damsel, not of blood royal, in the whole Empire. Last, and, from Michael's point of view, most important of all, such a position would give Ivan at once theentréinto the best clubs, and, with them, the "smartest" society of Petersburg.
Using these facts as a preface, Prince Gregoriev proceeded to sketch out, to his silent auditor, the lines of an ideal (!) social-politico-military career, untrammelled, at last, by the traditional ostracism of his race. For his commission would do much for him; and Madame Dravikine was practically pledged to provide some sort of reputation for her nephew, being not unaware that the celebrated map of her brother-in-law contained more than one item of interest centering about her own most sacred name and title.
Through the period of explanation Ivan sat motionless, eyes down, brows knit, apparently attentive to his father's words. At the end, when the Prince had handed him his commission and half a dozen introductory letters, he bowed to his father, but uttered not one word of thanks or of understanding:—he—Sophia's son, though he had just received the gift of such a career as three-fourths of the young men in the country would have gone on their knees to obtain! Michael was half disposed to be pleased at the fellow's insolence. But he did not have the fineness of intuition to dream that hisson, watching him closely through half-shut lids, had felt his blood pounding so furiously through his pulses that he dared not permit his lips to open for the fraction of a second lest he should fling some expression of his deep disgust, his anger—nay, hishatred—into his father's face, follow it with his commission, crushed into a ball, and rush forth from that ghost-haunted house, never to re-enter it again. Instead of this theatrical performance, then, Ivan chose silence and inaction. And finally, with bursting brain, he escaped to his own room, where he found Piotr—ostensibly waiting with tea.
But, unfortunately for Piotr, the young master was as uncommunicative as the old; and the door to the inner sanctum had, throughout this interview, been shut and bolted. Thus mere speculation was all that found tongue in the serf's quarters that night.
For many hours that afternoon—in fact, till darkness fell—Ivan sat over the samovar, drank glass after glass of tea, rolled cigarette after cigarette, and found himself at last still staring at a blank horizon-line, upon which not one picture consented to appear. Yet, reason with himself as he would, he knew that the heart within him was surging with joy. He was going out into the great world of Petersburg, his own master at last. He was going into the world of light, of gayety, of wealth; of the army, the court, of—of Nathalie Dravikine! Ay, it was true! That little love—that first, foolish love—lived in him still, having survived all the changes of his past changing years. Was it then to die, now, when his passion was about to be fired afresh by the presence of its living object?
Pondering thus, Ivan inhaled his cigarette-smoke, and felt the fine thrills of a subtle intoxication creeping along his nerves till, at length, his thoughts took a new turn. Standing, as he did, upon a threshold, looking through an open doorway out upon active life, he consideredthose things which he should force from the world for himself; and first of these, in his desire, was that knowledge which results only from experience. Kept all his life in the shadows of an unscalable wall of officialism, there had, nevertheless, reached his ears the first inarticulate rumors of that great movement of the youth of Russia towards enlightenment, towards education, towards individual understanding—a movement unique in the annals of the educational history of the world. From this period for many years all the youth of that tremendous Empire—every boy, everygirl, from the highest to the lowest, was to rise up, alone, uninfluenced, demanding of age and guardianship the right to go forth into the world to work, to study—to learn, in fine, how a great country might in the future be developed. For a long time, even at Klin, within the walls of the Corps, Ivan had heard tales almost incredible in their strangeness of bitterness and rupture among the finest families between father and son, mother and daughter:—the members of the old regime against the self-constituted advocates of the new. Nor did a few months put an end to this incomprehensible movement. Sonya Kovalevsky, in the company of her chivalrously nominal young husband, had left her parental estate and was at work in Heidelberg, perfecting that mathematical genius that was to make her known throughout the scientific world. Following her brilliant example, went a small army of young, upright and earnest women and girls, by whom half the universities in Europe were presently invaded, by no means, as was soon learned, to the detriment of the collegiate standing, either in ethics or in learning. And as college after college opened its doors to these young seekers after truth, bigoted Russia stood aghast at the incalculable prospect of the future.
More knowledge of these facts, and information of and experience in half a hundred other matters, did Petersburgpromise its new lieutenant; and the more he thought of it all, the more eager did he become to embark at once upon this new existence. Nor was the time of his departure far away. He was just a month past his twentieth birthday when, upon a bitter October morning, he was admitted once more to his father's sanctum, this time to say good-bye. During the brief interview, Michael exhibited a touch of feeling, perceiving which Ivan felt a brief pang that he could not match it. But when a roll of twenty-five hundred rubles was placed in his hands as the allowance for his first six months, the young man's gratitude was sincere enough and deep enough to satisfy the father, who knew more than his son of the expenses entailed by a life in one of the crack regiments of the guard, and who informed Ivan a little sarcastically that his lieutenant's pay ought not to do more than keep him properly gloved and shod.
By the time he emerged from that celebrated closet, with his commission, his passport, and three letters of recommendation, together with his money, in his uniform pockets, Ivan found that his hand-luggage had already been carried out and placed in the sleigh that was to carry him on the first brief stage of his journey into the great world. And, as he left the palace and entered the square, his officer's swagger was just a trifle overdone. For he had shot up, as it were, in a night: he was twenty and a personage at last!
The journey northward across the snowy flats was all a delight to the traveller. Those odd little first trains that ran over the famous "ruler line" between the two Russian capitals, were still sources of wonder and delight to the peasants of the scattered villages now beginning to spring up along the railway; and each stopping-point found the train surrounded by a throng of fur-clad individuals, many of whom had travelled some versts to see the train: perhaps accompanying a friend who was totravel a short distance therein; perhaps to get a load of merchandise or freight destined for a distant town; or, perhaps, just for the sake of seeing the engine, the cars, and the crowd that would assemble about them. Many of these last were country priests, idle on weekdays, desolate enough in their unique isolation, glad to seek any sort of distraction for its own sake, and even more eager than their peasant inferiors for the distinction of a single word of greeting or command from one of the lords of passage. Ivan was pleased to alight frequently; get a brief walk in the sharp air; address a word or two to some adoring native; and scatter a handful of kopecks among the occasional children of the station-masters. But these paltry happenings were all forgotten, and his heart full to bursting, when at last, on the evening of the second day, there gleamed, far ahead through the dusk, the red lights of St. Petersburg.
The first week of a young man's independence: his entrance into the exalted rank of high-born bachelorhood—can it ever again be brought up out of the past a distinct, coherent memory? Hardly. For Ivan and the capital spun together in the wildest of dances, during the first days of their meeting. Ivan's mind whirled in a chaos of regimental introductions and instruction, wearying hunts for suitable bachelor quarters, long afternoon hours filled with the pungent smell of tanbark and the careerings of a horse with whom he never came to be on terms of absolute equality; evenings spent in the glamour of strange restaurants, the discussion of Frenchentrées, and the contemplation of much-dressed denizens of the high and the half worlds; and, finally, retirement in a room at the Hôtel Bellevue, where a young lieutenant with only two thousand rubles in his pocket was not a person of any special importance.
This haze of memory terminated, finally, and objectsappeared in a clearer atmosphere, when young Gregoriev became half-owner of a charming apartment in the irreproachableBashkov Peréolouk, ten minutes' walk from his barracks, in partnership with a fellow-officer, one Vladimir de Windt, destined to become his friend of friends. And shortly after this momentous step, Ivan took another, by presenting his card in theSerghievskaia, numéro 843, where his aunt, Madame Dravikine, vouchsafed him ten minutes of her much-besought time, it being the afternoon of one of her receptions. In her small, but admirably arranged drawing-rooms, were gathered the cream of a certain set of Petersburg society, now met for the first time this season, and making the rooms echo with their particular variety of scandalous, intensely personal news acquired during a long summer, and apparently having been held back for exploitation at this special hour. Unintelligible as it proved to Ivan's unsophisticated ears, he listened with awe to the sound of royal, and other lofty and sacred names bandied about with a familiarity that was the opposite of respect.
By some imperceptible means, Madame Dravikine saw to it that her nephew came in contact with those people who could be useful to him; and she was satisfied, if slightly surprised, to see the ease with which he talked. Ivan himself wondered that he felt so little embarrassment in entering into the mood of the hour, and, while he talked, drank a great many cups of tea, each of which contained a considerable quantity of rum. But all the time he kept an eye over his shoulder, in the hope of catching some glimpse of his cousin Nathalie. Time passed, and the young lady did not appear. Ivan longed but did not dare to inquire about her. So, at last, he walked back to his apartment, arm in arm with de Windt, who had been no less surprised than pleased at discovering him in the house of so established a leaderas Madame Dravikine. De Windt, himself a celebrated dandy, began, as they left the Serghievskaia.
"You are an enigma—a deceiver, Ivan Mikhailovitch! Here it is a week since you arrived. You profess to know no one. But you managed immediately to join quarters with me; and now "—he stopped, turning from the wind to light his cigarette—"now, on the first afternoon you are left alone, you immediately appear at one of the best-known houses in the Admiralty quarter, where you seem as much at home as—I myself!"
Ivan echoed his companion's laugh. He had gauged the real depth of de Windt's conceit, and knew him to be, at bottom, both sincere and just in his estimates of men and things. "I ought to be at home there, at least," he observed, quietly. "Caroline Ivanovna—Madame Dravikine—is my aunt."
"St. Serge!—And you let us dub you 'bonhomme nouveau'!—Grand Diable, Ivan Mikhailovitch, had you had the choice of Petersburg, you could not have selected a betterlanceusethan Countess Caroline! On my word, your saint favors you!"
And Ivan, who shrugged away the whole affair, found Monsieur de Windt perfectly right. Fortune had stationed herself at his shoulder, at last; and the young man did well docilely to obey her whispered directions. In a month, there were a thousand young men about town, far above the station of a Gregoriev, who would have given half their prospects for Ivan's present position. But the fickle goddess loves well to show her face to him who has never sought to lift her veil; and to Ivan, whom she had hitherto served so ill, she chose suddenly to shower with all the things that youth desires. The young man found that, many and varied as had been his dreams of the new life, reality surpassed them all. Work, consisting of regimental duties and musical study, had taken a large place in his mental picture of the present; and thesethings, with an occasional holiday spent in exploring the new city, or, better, alone in the company of his aunt, were to constitute all his work and recreation. Moreover, he had, perhaps, secretly pictured himself neglecting his prescribed duties for those musical studies which he had hoped at last to undertake seriously, at the recently founded Conservatoire: perhaps under its founder and chief instructor, the great Rubinstein; at least under the second professor, the worshipful Zaremba, whilom conductor of the opera.—These occupations, conceived during long, wakeful nights in the dormitory of the Corps, at Moscow, had seemed to him, at that time, details of a nearly perfect life. But Lieutenant Gregoriev of the imperial guard, man-about-town and nephew of Countess Dravikine, could afford to laugh at his childish ideas of a "manly" existence.
First of all, Ivan soon discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a certain astute Moscow official) by working in the Artels that ply their various crafts in the Russian cities throughout the winter season. The chief duty of the officers, then, was to act as escort to members of the royal family when they took formal outings, or made short journeys to Peterhof or such of the country palaces as were within driving distance of the Hermitage. Also, certain mornings of each week were spent at the riding-school; and others in the practice of fencing and shooting, or the perusal of the drill manual. The afternoons and evenings were free, in so far as a member of smart society can ever be free, considering the necessity of being seen in every private or publicplace of amusement considered "the thing" at the moment. And, though Ivan was far too much of a novice to perceive any iron underneath the flowers on the chains he had voluntarily donned, he soon discovered that regular study of any kind was impossible for him in that atmosphere.
Ivan's regiment had always been a popular one in the capital; and, at the end of the first six weeks of the new season, there was in it no officer more sought-after than young Prince Gregoriev—"a nephew of the Dravikines, you know." And this "young Prince"—who had himself never been known to use his title, lost no time in picking up the manners and the jargon of his small, new world. The thing that, in the beginning, amazed him most, however, was the attitude towards him of his aunt; whom he viewed with deep respect as the mother of Nathalie. He was slow to understand Madame Dravikine's habit of surrounding herself with young men; or the fact that she had had it assiduously whispered about that her sister, the mother of Ivan, had been married when she was herself a child scarce out of arms. But he wondered to find how very few of his aunt's intimates remembered the age of her daughter, now for many years convent-wrapped. His first moment of disillusion came on the day that his aunt informed him, with considerable asperity, that his pretty cousin was not a person to be mentioned in their circle—the reason given—that "she was not yet out,"—sounding rather flimsy even to his trusting ears. Still, he was given to understand that, in all probability, Nathalie would be presented next winter, at one of the court balls; on which day, Caroline admitted, wearily, to herself, her special reign must end. But to her, seasoned through fifteen years of unavoidable pretence, it was impossible to see the effect of her customary fiction of existence, upon a mind hitherto sounused to feminine subterfuge as that of Sophia's son.
Ivan, troubled at heart by these and several other details of society life, made certain cautious observations to de Windt which sent that sophisticated young man into tempests of mirth. But guileless Ivan, who had used no names, never realized that he himself was responsible, by his insensibility, for the failure of Madame Dravikine's latest attempted flirtation, which took the drawing-rooms of Petersburg by storm that December, and set men and women alike laughing cruelly over the fall of Countess Caroline's carefully constructed age, which was announced,en haute voix, by her nephew, at a ball. At the same time, it was also, in all probability, this same incident, that saved poor Nathalie another year of seclusion and prayers. For, had not the world already found her out, it is scarcely probable that the gay Countess, arrived at the actual hour of abdication, would have had the courage to bid her youth good-bye, and take up her place behind an exquisite débutante.
It was odd, perhaps, that Ivan was not at once banished from the sunshine of his aunt's favor. But, for some reason, she chose to retain him among her circle of devotees, sore as was his heart and disabused his mind, of all illusion concerning the woman whom he had hitherto looked up to as the single true companion, gay counsellor, gentle philosopher, of his unhappy mother; and whom he now saw, perhaps rather unjustly, as a mere, deceptive, heartlessmondaine.
There were, however, in the society of the Russian capital into which Ivan had been so swiftly drawn, an infinite variety of other types who amused, pleased, occasionally interested, their new companion and observer. Petersburg was still under the stimulus of its changed rule. Nicholas, the Iron Czar, a man stern, unlovable and unsocial, was dead. With him hadended alike the horrors of a dreadful war and the lifeless formalities which, throughout his reign, had served as the only court functions. Just now a young Emperor, delight of his people and his court, husband, moreover, of the most charming of Princesses, was manifesting as much interest in evening gayeties as he did during the daytime in those gigantic, newly projected reforms to which his wife and his favorite minister were so ardently urging him. The six months' court mourning, now thrown back, had revealed a lining of glowing rose. St. Petersburg, from humblest serf to Czarevitch, was filled with life and joy. And the society of the capital had plunged into a fever of gayety unknown for twenty years. Amusements began at noon and ended the following dawn. The first entertainment of the day was the second breakfast:—for everybody naturally followed the French mode. Afterwards there was skating on the lakes of the Tauride; then the traditional drive down the Nevskiy Prospekt—a ceremony that shall endure till St. Petersburg is forgotten; then a round of calls at the houses of those old and noble families whose names demand that they open their doors daily to the younger of their class. Later, between eight and nine o'clock came dinner—a meal by no means neglected because of the tea,zakouskiand sweets that had been consumed steadily sincedéjeuner. And at ten o'clock, dinner over and the theatre begun, Petersburg began to grow really wide awake and to enjoy itself. For of all nations in the world, the Russian is the latest. Your true Slav nobleman is always a night-owl. Languid at luncheon, he endures his drive, enjoys his dinner, enthuses at the opera, scintillates at supper, and isthenroused to a full sense of the real business of life: dancing, gambling, or prolonged calls upon his friends; after which there is usually some sleighing-party to the ice-palace on the Neva, or, ifnothing better offers, a round of the music-halls, which open only after the opera is closed. Yes, truly, after one month in this land, no one will deny that Paris has held too long the reputation that should belong to St. Petersburg: that of the gayest of all the gay cities of the world.
Thus, for some months—from October to January—Ivan lived, nor paused to reflect on the questionable usefulness of such a life. The boy had known too many wistful years to be easily inoculated by any reactive poison in his stimulant. All the quieter dreams of that secret, inner life of boyhood, were temporarily laid by. He failed to appreciate the real value of the life he had led; the gift that he had begun to develop in the finest, highest way. Had any one questioned him—though no one of his present world would have dreamed of so doing, he would doubtless have laughed at the suggestion of returning to the old ways. But whether such questions would or would not have set him, afterwards, to some furtive weighing of respective values, it is impossible to say. Still, one may be permitted to hope the best of one's hero; or how impress a languid public with his qualities?
Madame Dravikine, despite her little discomfiture, would nevertheless have declared the season from October to January perfect—save, possibly, for a single gap in the royal coterie, and that in a spot that she did not habitually frequent. As a matter of fact, it was only in January that there returned to the capital, after nearly a year's absence, possibly, the Empress excepted, the finest woman in Petersburg: sister of the Iron Czar, and aunt of the present Emperor—the Grand-Duchess Helena Pavlovna, voluntary leader of the reform party in the capital. This great lady, immediately upon her return, doffed her prolonged mourning and threw open once more the doors of her famoussalon. And it wasthrough her—sister of kings—that Ivan, flocking with the rest of his world to her famous drawing-rooms, returned after a little, back to his best self.
Her Royal Highness was a pattern of energy in all she undertook; and it had been the habit of her lifetime to receive three evenings a week. On Monday, on Wednesday, and on Friday she was at home: on each night to a different world. On Mondays, with Milutin throned on her right hand, she received the homage of the various members of the Council, each with his pet bundle of intrigues; and deftly encouraged the clamor of controversy sure to be roused among these ministers of varied persuasion. On Wednesdays she sat alone in the centre of hersalon, laughing at and with the pretty world that came to flutter about her, in its richest plumage and most changeable humor. Finally, on Friday, she rewarded herself for duties done. Dressed quietly in black, with merely a scrap of old point on her high, white head, she gave her hands, her brains, and the refinement of her fine senses to—the musicians and the music of Russia. For music was her recreation and her passion; and she had created for it and for herself such asalonas is scarcely to be equalled in history. No caste save that of ability was known on these nights. Artists, uncouth and shy, who would have flown at the thought of a royal command, flocked hither, sure of a genial welcome, artistic appreciation, and absolute freedom from the dreaded fashionables of the unknown world. For the Emperor himself could hardly have got an invitation to his royal aunt's Fridays "at home."
It was Vladimir de Windt (who, upon further acquaintance, betrayed many hidden and unexpected talents,) who carried Ivan, experimentally, to one of these Fridays. For de Windt, who had in him, deeply hidden, tenderly cherished, that germ of artistic comprehension that is not to be acquired by any means, divinedthe same thing in his new-found companion, and took a great risk to prove his surmise true. Ivan had not an inkling of what Vladimir ventured in taking him to that exclusive little palace, where, did his protégé prove a boor, he knew well he should never find a place for himself again. But Vladimir had spent many an evening at the opera with Ivan; and had studied well the expressions that Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, even Flotow, at his best, could bring out upon his companion's mobile face. And her Royal Highness was well known to reward the discoverer of any new man of talent in her special art.
On that mid-January evening of Ivan's first appearance at the palace on the quays, the scene that greeted his eyes was the same that afterwards became so familiar to and so beloved by him. In the centre of the square, well-lighted, baresalon, which, used only for these evenings, contained not one of the customary hangings, or any medley of useless toys and ornaments, stood a great Érard, its shining top raised, flanked by two long stands heaped with music of every description. At the right of the instrument, willingly accepting second place, stood the arm-chair of the Grand-Duchess; and about her, in an informal circle, each one quite at ease, sat or stood twenty or thirty men, young and old, with possibly half a dozen women. At the piano, engaged in marking a sheet of manuscript music, was a short, heavy-set person, with a leonine mane and deep, brilliant eyes: a man known all over Europe, and to be known throughout America: one Anton Rubinstein, pianist, a maker of music. At his elbow, but talking to a frail-looking woman, was his brother, Nicholas, destined always to be overshadowed by Anton, but to whom the cause of Russian music was to owe far more, in the end, than to the more showyvirtuoso. In the knot about Madame Helena's chair were Zaremba, Sérov, Glinka, Balakirev,Stassov, Lechetizsky—for the moment a special protégé of the Grand-Duchess, and even young Rimsky-Korsakov, at this time merely a Conservatoire pupil. Finally, far away, at the end of the room, stood a long table, whereon were two unlighted samovars, flanked by golden platters of sandwiches, cakes and caviare, together with piles of untouched plates.
At the entrance of the two young men, de Windt grasping Ivan by the arm, the Grand-Duchess turned, in time to hear their names announced. And after a moment, she summoned them to her, with a slight gesture. Then, breaking off her argument with Ivan's future biographer, she held out a hand for de Windt to salute.
"Vladimir Vassilyitch, I expected you.—Have you enrolled yourself under Zaremba yet, for proper instruction?"
De Windt laughed. "Your Highness should get his Majesty and my Colonel to claim less time of me!"
"Bah, Monsieur Impertinence! The yacht club's green tables see more of you than your Colonel, as we all know.—Whom have you brought me?"
"My brother officer and good friend, Lieutenant Ivan Mikhailovitch Gregoriev, lately of Moscow."
Her Highness started and straightened. "Gregoriev!—The son of Gregoriev of Moscow, here!—Are you aware, sir—" Suddenly she stopped, her gaze meeting that of Ivan, and noting the deathly pallor of his face, the sudden fire in his eyes. With an effort, she restrained herself, and presently observed, in a different tone:
"I have heard of your father, Lieutenant.—Are you a musician?"
A shred of color crept back into Ivan's lips; but his voice was unsteady as he said, in a low, rather rough voice: "I ask the pardon of your Royal Highness, and beg leave to go.—The fault and the mistake of my presence are entirely mine!"
At these words, de Windt turned towards him, sharply; but their hostess interrupted his first syllable:
"You have made no mistake, sir. Vladimir Vassilyitch is responsible for all that he does. You are, I presume, a lover of music?"
"Indeed yes, your Highness!"
"You play?"
Ivan, glancing towards the piano, encountered the keen look of the world's master-pianist. "I have played at home, as a boy, for—my mother," he answered, the last word uttered very low.
A brief silence followed his speech. The little scene was unusual, and had by this time caught the attention of the room. Ivan felt the hostile fire of many eyes fixed on him, and perceived dimly what they had resolved:—that he was to be tried, here, as others had been before him—rather cruelly.
Finally the Duchess herself glanced towards the piano. "Anton, have you marked your expression?"
"That is finished.—But I have not as yet suggested a fingering for the cadenza."
"No matter.—Ivan Gregoriev, Monsieur Rubinstein has brought us a new manuscript—a barcarolle, you said, Anton?—finished to-day, and brought here to be played to me. He writes a clear hand. Sit down, then, and let us hear you interpret it."
"I, madame!"
"I said so."
Ivan flushed crimson, and then went white again. An instant later he smiled: smiled as on the night of his initiation at theCorps des Cadets, when his tormentors could not make him cry out. Without another word he walked to the piano and seated himself in the place vacated by Rubinstein, who, angered at the thought of having his new creation murdered by a tyro, speedily betrayed his mood to the company, who regrouped themselvesnear the instrument. After this, the silence became absolute.
A long, tense moment, and then,—a sound broke the stillness: a long and delicatetremolo, high in the treble. Instinctively, Helena Pavlovna closed her eyes. The vibration increased, descended an octave, continued an instant alone, and then was joined by a second tone by which the melody was begun. It was a passage simple to read and played simply, but with both delicacy and understanding, and without any of thatrubatoor other affectation by which young Lechetizsky was already beginning to mar his style. It was music pure, almost classical—the work not of avirtuoso, but of a composer. And Rubinstein, leaning against the wall, his eyes on Ivan's face, felt his humor change. His work, if better than he had hitherto believed it, was certainly not being spoiled as yet. Still—he must wait till the turning of the page, where began some of those elaborate pyrotechnics that cheapen so much of his work. Could this modest youth accomplish anything intricate? Probably not. And yet—the fellow was calm enough. Even Rubinstein failed to divine the extent of the strain under which he labored.
Ivan had begun thebarcarolletrembling. The first page successfully accomplished, however, he lost himself a little, and began to feel the old, musical, sixth sense creeping through him, and emerging, gloriously, at his fingertips. Confidence increased. He had turned the page. Ah! Here, truly, was need of it. The ensuing passage was utterly beyond his rusty skill! One hurried glance told him that. Afterwards—he went calmly on. Rubinstein, listening more at ease, was seen to give a sudden start, stare an instant at the performer, and then, catching Nicholas' eye, lift his brows in protest, to the only man who had heard the composition before. Ivan was retaining the melody, picking it unerringly fromthe mass of blurring notes, and substituting for the difficulties of the accompaniment, a simple, graceful set of broken chords.
At the beginning of the second part of the development the performer, exalted, even a little intoxicated with his sense of success, essayed a bit of improvisation considerably more important than the first. This time he ceased absolutely to follow Rubinstein's harmony, and, retaining simply the melody, changed, however, to a minor key, he produced an odd, rhythmical little series of syncopations so rich, so strange, and withal so unlawful that when, omitting the conventionalcadenza, he plunged into a coda of his own, Rubinstein flew furiously to the piano and would have struck the youth's hands from the keys but for a gesture from her Highness so imperious and so unmistakable that the great pianist's angry protests died upon his lips, and he joined, perforce, in the tumult of applause that ended the unparalleled performance.
Ivan found himself the centre of an intensely curious throng. Congratulation, commendation of a two-edged sort, questions and ejaculations, flew round him like hail. Then there fell a sudden silence as the Princess, leaning heavily on her cane, approached the piano through a little lane respectfully opened for her in the throng. But it was to Rubinstein, not Ivan, that she addressed herself:
"What has this young man been about, Anton?—Your style is certainly very much improved!"
"Your Highness, it was not my barcarolle you heard, but a clever bit of improvisation on my theme—my own development having proved, no doubt, too much for Monsieur Gregoriev's technique."
Helena Pavlovna cast one answering look at this man whose musical talent was surpassed only by his well-known, frantic jealousy of every possible rival. Andthen, taking the abashed Ivan by the hand, she turned and faced her guests:
"My friends, we have listened, to-night, to the début of one of Russia's talented sons. I introduce to you, in Monsieur Ivan Mikhailovitch Gregoriev, a new composer; one who, a Russian of Russians, shall, I predict, carry the songs of our country beyond herself, and proclaim them over civilized Europe!"
A smile of self-forgetfulness, of an enthusiasm that betrayed the beauty of her royal soul, shone upon the lips and from the eyes of this true Princess, as Ivan, his heart beating to suffocation, fell impetuously upon one knee before her and raised her frail hand to his lips.
It was indeed his début in the Russian world of music; and alas! it gained for him fewer friends than enemies. For, of all types of men and women upon earth, those into whom Euterpe has breathed her spirit, are certainly the most practised in envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness.