CHAPTER XVENGULFMENT
It was this laugh, or, rather, the chaos of emotions which produced it as their synthetic culmination, that Ivan carried away from his father's house. So peculiar had been its tone, that even the soldiers at the gate who heard it were enabled to surmise something of its meaning. But only Ivan himself was fully conscious of how perfectly it epitomized the final disillusionment that had swept away from him the last of his youth. By that laugh, also, was engendered the mood that now rode him for many months, and was only thrown at last by means of a desperate strategy. Nor is that devil-haunted period to be reviewed in a single phrase.
Anger, disappointment, bitter regret, had driven him back to a mechanical performance of neglected duties. Thus, presently, his discarded comrades drew once more about him. Perhaps all save Nicholas Rubinstein returned at first out of a malicious curiosity; for Moscow still buzzed about the death of Ternoff; and Ivan's name had got itself mysteriously coupled with the affair. After their first visit to him five of his old friends, Laroche, Balakirev, Ostrovsky, Kashkine, and, inevitably, Nicholas, met together by common impulse to discuss their brilliant contemporary and the question of their relations with him. The five of them secretly admired, openly liked him, still. Two of them loved him, one confessedly. Of the remaining three, one was to become the closest companion of his famous years.Naturally, then, the decision arrived at was, that Gregoriev's nature was not to be forced. Theirs would be the loss should they repudiate him now. When he desired them, he would find them within call:—this last delicacy being the suggestion of Rubinstein.
Meantime, Ivan's nature, even in unhappiness, called aloud for solitude. He must struggle alone through his deep waters: waters of the soul, wherein float neither life-preserver nor raft, rope or even light; neither coral reef nor oozy grave, for such as he. Darkness and struggle alike lasted till the end of his strength; but, with exhaustion and the coming of dawn, came at last one mighty breaker, by which Ivan was thrown high upon the strand of a new country.
During the summer of this spiritual woe, Ivan was at Vevey: had proceeded thither as usual at the beginning of his vacation. He carried in his pocket a plentiful sum of royalties; and in his brain a hundred floating ideas. Moreover, the pretty town held two good friends of his: Kashkine and Balakirev, each one hard at his own work; but delighted at the opportunity of drawing Ivan a little out of his melancholy. In time, indeed, they came to think it banished, and the young man at peace. He was merely gathering strength to renew his battle: that intangible fight against circumstance and his own nature that has been waged by every fine and sensitive soul since the world began, and Abel bethought him of his lamb-offering. Meantime, Ivan's secret but ardent desire to work again worthily was fulfilled on a day that was to become one of the vividest of his memories.
It was a morning of mid-July, sweet-aired, hot-sunned, the waters of the lake just feathered with a breath that turned the pulsating satin to a white-sheened, crinkly azure velvet. About eight of the morning the three men, each brain teeming with its own ambitions and itspeculiar appreciation of the mysterious Mother, started off for one of their habitual rambles. Ivan was in a mood whimsically frank, but changeful; and he blew the conversation this way and that out of sheer wantonness, till presently it touched a point on which Balakirev suddenly laid a detaining hand. Gregoriev had been analyzing the character of Ophelia—the delicate, fantastic disorder of her pathetic mentality; and something, some specially delicate comprehension of this particular conception of the greatest poet, caused the burly Russian to say, softly:
"She is abstract enough—elusive, rainbow-hued enough, for your harmonies, Ivan Mikhailovitch. Behold a tone-poem ready to your hand!"
Ivan halted, quickly lifting his head, as an animal who scents something: "You think so?—An entire tone-poem?" The tone was alive with attentiveness.
"Why not?"
"Ah—a little too fragile—too—wanting in discord." A moment's pause. Then he broke out in another voice: "But you, Balakirev,—it is your idea: your theme. You felt it, therefore it belongs to you. Subjects borrowed—mechanically worked up—bah! It is the worst prostitution of art." And Ivan tried hard for conviction. Indeed it was quite true that he had no faith in other men's ideas for his own use. Yet within sixty seconds of contemplation,thistheme had suddenly taken possession of him in a manner joyously well-known. Already the necessary contrast, the shadow-background of Ophelia's silver brightness—the melancholy of her Prince-repudiator, was tingling through him. Could he really relinquish it to the other?
No necessity for this, fortunately. Balakirev, bigger, perhaps, in generosity than any other musician of any time, known purveyor of ideas for men even smaller than he in accomplishment, forced Gregoriev's eyes to meethis. All was said in that look, though presently, with a slow smile, these words were added:
"I call you to witness, Kashkine, that our Ivan herewith weds the Lady Ophelia for the space of one month; the condition being that we listen to the manuscript on the night of its completion.—Nay, you shall not refuse me, Gregoriev. I tell you no subjects but those connected with Russia can fire me. You are bigger—universal. Take this tragedy, then, and write it again for us in music."
It was thus that the young man gained the most congenial of the subjects that were to fill his summer months. The second, something bigger, though hardly more complex, was another opera—already bespoken by severalimpresarii, and founded on a translation of Keats's "Isabella." Into this subject he grew, slowly, but strongly and with full interest, till by August the tone-poem was nearly done, and the opera well under way: he having worked his six hours a day assiduously. And these hours of occupation gave him courage to bear the other eighteen, in which he was constantly forced to face—himself.
Ivan had, indeed, been badly bitten by the snake of the world. The poison, entering his system long since, had spread, slowly, till his present weariness brought him wholly under its malign spell. Disillusion, disappointment, distrust—they worked in him till he was in a fever of pessimism, denying the good of the world. The newest maggot in his brain was a bitter over-appreciation of the fact that, while, after long years of scoffing and revilement, his work had finally come to some little success, that success was only popular, hardly in any way professional. This fact every critic in great Russia had taken pains to impress upon the public and upon him; so that, while solvency was now his, the butterfly of lasting power seemed farther away than ever.Ay, truly, the bad blood that ran in his veins was his only inheritance! Family had he none. This appalling solitude must, plainly, be henceforth his portion: neither man nor woman should he trust again.
So ran the black reveries; for he was in the throes of his second severe attack of "Tosca"—theHerzeleideof the Russians: that national melancholy, borne of barren steppe and dreary waste, to which every giant intellect that race has known, has sooner or later become a prey, from the great Peter down to the littlest Romanoff; and from which more than the first Alexander have actually died.
Ivan knew it young enough, and long. Moreover, it had now come upon him at a critical time, just as he was emerging into broadened manhood. His salvation probably lay in the fact that for his work, only, could he throw off the black mantle; for much of the time he was wont to labor at the white heat of what is called inspiration. His meditations, his analyses, were those of a mature mind, replete with human knowledge of evil and good. But because his belief in the power of evil had become tainted with morbidness, and because he governed the kingdom of his own soul with a rigid purity, the friction of the two forces produced in him an abiding melancholy: a melancholy abstract, almost impersonal, thoroughly Russian, and yet, because he was a type of the universal, all-comprehensive. By unhappy degrees his whole life, his every act, became leavened and tinctured with this melancholy, till it had risen to the height of his soul's acropolis, and invaded and overflowed—his work. Thus did it come about that the labors of the lonely soul given into the keeping of a yearning, lonely woman one New Year's night of long ago, came at last to reproduce for the world, in sound, the burden of the world. For who will deny that Gregoriev's music cries out with the dread cryof humanity in pain? It has come to be known as theHerzeleideof the Creation: the sorrow of the great, throbbing world-soul. And technique and conception had worked well together; for in this year both came to their fulness in him who used both wonderfully, artistically, yet always with the restraint that can come only through absolute self-mastery. It is the great reward of him who has made complete sacrifice of all things else: the act without which genius comes not into its own.
In the last week of August, the three artists left Vevey together: Kashkine on his way to Germany, for a concert tour; Balakirev to Kiev, the holy city of the Slavs, for inspiration; Ivan back to Moscow and the Conservatoire.
Throughout the ensuing winter he taught all morning six days in the week, reserving his composing for the hours of early morning and evening. After his midday meal, he came into the habit of taking long tramps through the streets of the poorer quarters, resting himself in littletraktirs, finding unhealthy companionship in the patent discontent, poverty, and misery of the laboring class. By five o'clock he was in his own rooms again, and from then till ten he worked at piano and desk, a samovar bubbling at his elbow. Promptly at the hour, the new manuscript pages, beautifully finished, were locked away; and the piano closed. Then, in the shadowy corners of his bedroom, devils began to stir, and creep about, uneasily, waiting for their victim's nightly attendance at his own torture, where he was set upon in some one of their hundred ways. Fevered brain, weary body, tumbled bed; loneliness, regret, heart-hunger, unsated ambition; most of all a longing for loving arms to close about him, words of comfort and courage to come through the darkness that thrilled only to his own stifled sighs—thus the night, with its long dance of horned, fire-eyed beings, who held captive allhis angels of mental health, faith, hope, joyous life. And so at last the presage of morning, when, for an hour or two, sleep would free him from the bondage of his inner life—that ugly prison, whose black walls were unbeautified by time, unsoftened by the clinging vines of memory; whose stones were but made darker by the shadow of the banner floating over all: the black flag of that "Tosca" that has unfurled itself above so many of the world's great.
Autumn bursts of rain had whitened into snow. Moscow was now a city of dazzling purity topped by steep roofs and domes of gold and azure and water-green, so filling the air with brightness that one minded less the persistent leaden gray of the vault overhead. But cold and grayness are bad companions for the morbid-melancholic; and Ivan took his tone from the clouds, steadily repulsing the gentle efforts of his friends to draw him from his dim retreat into sunny mental climes.
The holidays went by, and Ivan began to realize that a few more weeks would bring about a necessary farewell to two more of his brain-children. It was the 2d of February before the Ophelia tone-poem lay before him finished, polished to the last point of perfection. Another week and "Isabella"—Kashkine's translation, his own score—would receive its last stroke of the pen. Ivan waited till that moment came, then laid his two beloved companions side by side in their cabinet, turned the key, and left them there, while he fared forth into the frozen night, his brain at last as empty as his heart.
There remained, however, the fierce desire to place his children well. The Ophelia he carried to Balakirev and Nicholas Rubinstein, who sat over it one whole night examining, discussing, rejoicing at its splendor, its delicacy, the perfection of the reconceived masterpiece. Next morning Nicholas sent its composer wordthat he would play it at the fifth concert of his regular series, on the afternoon of March 4th. And Ivan was satisfied; for these concerts were the musical events of Moscow; and the new work was assured of a performance as perfect as he could desire: an audience as distinguished as it was ably critical.
This arranged, and one rehearsal—at which technical difficulties loomed large before both men and conductor—impatiently endured, all Ivan's mind was given up to considerations for the placing of his opera. Merelli, he knew well, was thirsting for it: would make it his feature of the next year's season. Should he insist, it would even be rushed through during the spring. But he was not in haste. Moreover, folly though it was, he had already, some time ago, begun to desire a petty triumph: a piece of retribution for the man who had more than once brought him dire suffering. He wanted unstinted praise for a new work from his old master, the implacable Zaremba. Since the success of "The Boyar" he could certainly not be put off with a hasty reading and a damning criticism of the new score. His peculiar style, many a time torn and ridiculed by Zaremba and the greatvirtuoso, had now been applauded by the entire Russian musical world: was beginning to be recognized beyond the frontier. Certainly it was no longer within range of one man's malice. So far, no ear but Ivan's had heard "Isabella"; no eye but his had beheld the pages of that score which, by the after-judgment of five nations, remains unsurpassed in the history of opera save by the music-dramas of one Richard of Bayreuth. Already, in his heart, Ivan knew the value of his work. But his nature, ever prone to self-depreciation, never wholly believing in his own power till another had assured him of it, cried out for confirmation of his secret hope. With the stamp of Zaremba's approval, Petersburg, first city in the land, would crowd to hear hiswork; and it would come to Moscow, to his father, with a double reputation.—In fine, on the morning of February 15th, a letter and a registered parcel left Moscow for the north, addressed to the Director of the Petersburg Conservatoire:—who was at present in a condition of nervous irritability that kept his every pupil in a state of petrified wretchedness throughout the working day.
Miserable Ivan! Zaremba too—even Zaremba, was in the throes of composition! He was attempting a work as far beyond his creative powers as are the harmonies of Wagner beyond the quaint simplicities of olden-time Scarlatti. Wretched Ivan! Relentless circumstance!—To this monster of vanity, vain ambition, malicious jealousy, went the masterpiece of an offendingpupil.
However, happily, Ivan was not clairvoyant. The satisfactory close of his long period of labor brought with it a state of passive languor. A quiet numbness replaced the acute sensitiveness of his nerves, and made him for the nonce impervious to his devils, though it could not prevent his inner sense of loss. For the creator who has lived for many months in daily communion with the living creature of his imagination, cannot, if he work as artists must, but come into a state of great and secret love for his dream-images. The feeling is sacred, indeed; for what dweller in Philistia but would scoff at such a sentimentality as love for work, and unhappiness at its conclusion? Nevertheless it is true that, when the hour of triumph, the finishing of a long, successful creation is accomplished, and eager Philistia waits clamoring to enjoy it, its master knows well that his hour is over: that his good-bye must be said. His child, stared at, listened to, conned by ten thousand eyes, ears, or tongues, is his no more; cannot return to him; for it is of the world, and the dream between them is dissolved.
This had come to Ivan. His two friends were gonefrom him to other men. His whole being cried out for rest; but his heart was empty.
A week's desultory waiting, however, suddenly brought an episode that turned his mind in another direction. Nicholas Rubinstein sent him a troubled missive, asking his presence at the next rehearsal of Ophelia. Anxiety stared from every line of the brief note; and, after some hesitation, and a very bad half-day, Ivan presented himself at the Grand Theatre; where he instantly found himself the centre of an uproar. The new tone-poem was impossible. Concertmeister, head of second violins, all the heads of the other bodies, swarmed to him, each pointing out the various passages deemed by them either unplayable or unmusical; and, finally, the whole number came to an agreement of scorn regarding one fantastical episode—an analysis of Hamlet's yearning to know the mind of his father, and a suggestion of his own indecision and unbalanced mentality. This, a passage of some thirty bars, was universally declared to be contrary to every known law or license possible to composition.
To this superior, scoffing company of weaklings Ivan, always gentle-mannered, shrinking from argument or petty conflict as other men from a nagging woman's tongue, undertook, by rehearsing, to explain his heart's work. Had it not been for Nicholas, he would soon have left the field to his opponents. Upborne by the conductor, he did manage to endure two rehearsals. The evening after the second, however, found him, haggard and white-faced, in the old apartment, pleading with Rubinstein, in the presence of Laroche, to give the whole thing up, to strike his name from the programme.
Rubinstein stoutly refused; and, the more he was entreated, the more stubborn did he grow, till he had actually argued himself from a position of doubt into amulish insistence that if they played nothing else that day, Ophelia should be properly rendered. Indeed by his yielding, Ivan had unconsciously brought about the thing he had in his own heart desperately desired.
At a little past midnight he left his former home, somewhat comforted in heart and mind. However, he went to no more rehearsals; and speedily gave his associates to understand that he wished the subject avoided; though he failed to notice that his wishes were also Rubinstein's. Nicholas, however, was harassed to a point of fury with all the world. Never in his life had he encountered such insubordination among his men. He set out to quell it persistently but tactlessly, regardless alike of the temper of his prospective audience, and of the highest interests of the boy whom he had taught, protected, and now unselfishly admired. He was perhaps more wretched than Ivan. For that youth had temporarily thrust this subject away from him and was dreaming day and night of his opera, and of the word that was to come from Zaremba; that word of absolute capitulation that should make the performance of Ophelia a mere episode, barely worth considering.
All too speedily for the unhappy conductor came the afternoon of his fifth symphony concert. By two o'clock pit and stalls were black with people. By half-past, even the boxes were noticeably full; and at that hour Nicholas Rubinstein appeared, bowed to the tumult of applause, lifted his baton, and drew forth the opening notes of the second "Lenore" overture. Ivan, very still and pale, troubled and apprehensive, sat in one of the stalls near the front, between Balakirev and Laroche, with Kashkine just behind: both of his Vevey companions having journeyed a thousand miles to hear their joint tone-poem. Never afterwards, however, could Ivan remember a single incident of the early afternoon. The "Italian Symphony," something of Glinka's,one of Anton Rubinstein's short orchestral commonplaces, were played with the usual brilliant finish. With the intermission came palpitation, a dry mouth, and a vague impression of Laroche's biting truths anent Anton's stupidity as a composer, and his strange influence over hard-headed Nicholas. Then there was one, last, terrible moment of dread, as the conductor remounted his daïs and paused. Obviously he was addressing his men. More than that, he was pleading and admonishing; for yesterday's rehearsal had been a piece of wanton cruelty. But now the baton must go up, happen what might. And immediately the twenty-minute practical joke began.[1]
The orchestra played their tone-poem faultlessly as to notes. Like so many machines, the instruments performed each its allotted part. But, oh, Heavens!—the effect! Expression: fire, poetry, understanding—piano,fortissimo,crescendo,rubato—there was absolutely none. Never had thing so dead, so stiff, so hideous, so discordant, been heard in that opera-house. People stared, looked at one another, frowned for an instant, smiled; at length, tittered, openly. In all that great building, but one little group sat silent. Ivan and the three gathered close at his side, were like men dead. Long before it was over, Nicholas had flung his baton to the floor and left the stage; but still the orchestra went on—and on. In the silence following on the last chord—a silence broken by no demonstration, either of applause or of hissing—Ivan the composer rose, pushed his way to an aisle, and hurried blindly out into the streets. Thus he knew nothing of the remarkable sequel of the affair: how Rubinstein, an instant after the cessation ofthe horror, had rushed back upon the stage, addressed a dozen wild phrases of explanation to the house, and then, at the end of a sudden clamor demanding Ivan, turned to his men, audibly fined every one of them a month's pay, after which, once again rapping the desk with his broken baton, he drove them, cowed and shamed, into a twenty minutes with Ophelia that was destined to fix Ivan's orchestral fame forever with the Moscow public; for it was a quarter of an hour after the piece ended for the second time, before the people would accept Kashkine's frantic assurances that the young man was not in the house.
Utterly oblivious of the turning of the tables, wrapped, as by a shroud, in that dire silence, Ivan was walking—walking—out into Moscow, through the frozen streets, under the leaden sky, the terrible anger and rebellion in him fading slowly to a numbing stillness—a stillness as of death. Was it really by accident that, on his homeward way, he passed the post-office to which his letters went? Without hesitation he had gone into the building. When he came out again there was an expression of fear in his eyes, and his heart was beating wildly. Nor were his steps any longer aimless. Taking the nearest droschky, he directed it first to a chemist's shop, then to his own room, where Sósha opened to his knock, and noted, as he passed, the envelope in his hand, across which sprawled Zaremba's old, familiar writing. But the pink package with its crimson danger-label lay hidden in a pocket.
Ivan sat at his bedroom window for twenty minutes before he found courage to open his communication. For the first time, doubt of his opera began to stir in his heart; and the memory of that other long-past day of disappointment, when Nicholas had found him in this very room, and had tried to hearten him, came to him as a premonition of doom. How was he to be heartenednow—after so many more years of failure? Nay—with a half-smile, Ivan laid his recent purchase on the window-ledge, and slowly drew the letter from its envelope:
"St. Petersburg,Monday, March 10th."My dear Pupil:—Despite the fact that your manuscript score arrived at a time most inopportune, I having recently renounced all but my most pressing lessons to plunge myself entirely into an atmosphere of profound creation, I have conscientiously performed the task you imposed upon me. That this task proved very little worth while, I write with double regret—my own time being of considerable value to our world;—though it should not greatly surprise you, since it is thoroughly evident that 'Isabella' is a hasty, ill-thought-out, unfinished composition.—You will remember my constant reproaches of your excessive carelessness, even when you were directly under my own eye. And you will not expect me to think you very serious in your work when, on the very first page of your overture, I discover two unpardonable blemishes—an empty fifth (the first error of harmony mentioned in all text-books), and one of those monstrosities called, I believe,chords of the ninth diminished—a license actually tolerated, I believe, by a certain preposterous German school. Need I have read further to learn that, as a composer, you can never achieve asuccès d'estime, and that your classical ideals are gone?"To be brief, my dear Gregoriev, your 'opera'—I give it your own grandiloquent appellation, is unworthy the signature of a pupil of mine; and, after a careful reading, I feel that the greatest service I can do you is to keep the score pigeon-holed here till you are able to laugh at your wild idea of its possible performance."Accept, my dear pupil, the remembrances of,"E. Zaremba."
"St. Petersburg,Monday, March 10th.
"My dear Pupil:—Despite the fact that your manuscript score arrived at a time most inopportune, I having recently renounced all but my most pressing lessons to plunge myself entirely into an atmosphere of profound creation, I have conscientiously performed the task you imposed upon me. That this task proved very little worth while, I write with double regret—my own time being of considerable value to our world;—though it should not greatly surprise you, since it is thoroughly evident that 'Isabella' is a hasty, ill-thought-out, unfinished composition.—You will remember my constant reproaches of your excessive carelessness, even when you were directly under my own eye. And you will not expect me to think you very serious in your work when, on the very first page of your overture, I discover two unpardonable blemishes—an empty fifth (the first error of harmony mentioned in all text-books), and one of those monstrosities called, I believe,chords of the ninth diminished—a license actually tolerated, I believe, by a certain preposterous German school. Need I have read further to learn that, as a composer, you can never achieve asuccès d'estime, and that your classical ideals are gone?
"To be brief, my dear Gregoriev, your 'opera'—I give it your own grandiloquent appellation, is unworthy the signature of a pupil of mine; and, after a careful reading, I feel that the greatest service I can do you is to keep the score pigeon-holed here till you are able to laugh at your wild idea of its possible performance.
"Accept, my dear pupil, the remembrances of,"E. Zaremba."
Slowly at first, then with more rapidity, Ivan read the letter through. Even after he had noted the signature, he continued to hold the sheet in his hands, while his eyes fixed themselves on some distant object. Two, three, five minutes passed. Then he placed the paper carefully on the table, dropped into a chair by its side, and seemed to meditate.
After a time, there came a clamor at the door of the living-room; and Ivan recognized friendly voices. Instantly he glided to the door, turned the key, drew the bolt, and returned noiselessly to his place just as Sósha knocked. After a pause, the knock was repeated. Then the door was tried, shaken, and pulled. In vain. There came no sound from within. Ivan heard his servitor inform the would-be condolers that his master had evidently gone out again. There were muffled good-byes and so—silence.
Twenty minutes later Sósha, dozing in his tiny kitchen, was roused by his master commanding tea at once, and enjoining him to let no one into the rooms that night. At the acknowledgment of this command, Ivan returned to his bedroom, to wait. Ten minutes passed. Then Sósha came, set down the samovar and a plate of food, prepared his bed, and hobbled off to a quiet evening, a pipe, and the companionship of the oldconciergewho came up to sit with him nightly.
Meantime, Sósha's master had not yet moved, but sat at the table where the water in the copper pot now bubbled merrily, his eyes still fixed on some far-off vision of night. There was about his appearance and his occasional slight movements that mechanical unconsciousness that is a strong signal of danger. For, when burdens grow unbearable, when one is taxed beyond that point at which nature sets her limit of endurance, there comes a condition of mental numbness in which men are apt for deeds quite transcending their normal natures. And this was the condition to which, by a long series of mistakes and accidents all similar in effect, Ivan had been reduced. Many years had passed since the time when, by the folly of a fortnight, he had been stripped of youth, gayety, wealth. Since then, balanced only by his little success of the previous winter, had come a countless string of disappointments and misfortunes,which, striking him always in one spot, had rendered him exquisitely sensitive. Now, in one afternoon, he had lost the fruits of eight months of sincere and careful labor. In his heart he knew that it was at last too much; and he felt himself driven, with a wild rush, down towards the valley of the shadow.
Tea had come; Sósha was gone; he was alone with the night. The samovar hissed and steamed, comfortably; and to its accompaniment the man filled a glass with the amber liquid, tore the wrapper from his chemist's package, and poured into one hand a dozen yellowish pills. In the other hand he grasped the tea-glass. There was an instant's pause. He smiled and his lips moved. Then, suddenly, he lifted his hand to his face, gulped down the morphia pellets, following them with the steaming tea.—In that instant all his chains, loosened, rattled down about him to the floor. Brave man or coward, he felt a sudden mighty wave of relief over-sweep him. The set, strained look left his face. His eyes softened. Once or twice he paced across the room. Then he went to his arm-chair, threw himself into it, and leaned back with closed eyes.
The period of waiting seemed long. He remembered so much that he ought to have done: papers that should have been destroyed.—Still, it was too late for that.—After all, this languor was very pleasant. He was glad his eyes were closed. Back of them—behind sight—there appeared to be a most charming country.—What was it he must see there? Out of the silver mist there was surely a form emerging?—a creature slender, delicate, crowned with a weight of fragrant hair! Clothed in rose-red, she; and her lips were smiling, her arms out-stretched to him:—Nathalie!—Naturally he went forth to meet her, to melt with her into that radiant light. And there came a great roaring in his ears—the noise of many waters rushing. Ay, they were closingnow above his head. He was down.—And so—night.—Oblivion.
There passed an endless time. In the darkness the soul of Ivan, ready poised, waited for the summons. No summons came. Must it indeed return within itself, unfreed? Yes, for the senses were stirring even now. Out of the void came a vague murmur of human voices—a sharp exclamation. Then blackness once more; this time complete.
Complete though it had seemed, when Ivan opened his eyes again upon the scanty furniture of his bedroom, it was with the sense of many days gone by. His head was iron-bound; his tongue dry and swollen; life a series of horrible retchings. After a time his dull eyes travelled slowly round the room. Kashkine was near, and Rubinstein, and two strange men. On every face was an expression of relief, of joy. Ivan marvelled at the reason. Then his eye encountered the table, and he thought he knew. For there, in a pile, lay the manuscript pages of his opera; to recover which, indeed, Balakirev had, during the five-day battle with death, journeyed to Petersburg and told his tale to the frightened Zaremba. But this and certain other things—the fact that there were men in the world who loved him, and a place in the world that demanded him, Ivan was to learn by faint degrees, and with some sardonic humiliation.
[1]The incident here recounted, like that of Ivan's failure to conduct his symphony, is not imaginary. It occurred in Moscow, in the winter of 1865, with one of the early works of Peter Illich Tchaikowsky.
[1]The incident here recounted, like that of Ivan's failure to conduct his symphony, is not imaginary. It occurred in Moscow, in the winter of 1865, with one of the early works of Peter Illich Tchaikowsky.
CHAPTER XVIJOSEPH
It was in the November of that same year—1870—that "Isabella" had its initial performance, in Moscow, under Merelli. The original intention had been to open the season with the new work. But, at the last moment, the leader, despite his memories of "The Boyar," repudiated his promise, deeming the honor too great for a Russian, and chose instead to present his other novelty, Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette." Ivan, resenting the act, promptly removed the score of "Isabella" to his own rooms; and it cost theimpresariosix weeks of persuasion and apology, besides a thousand roubles' damages, before he could come to terms again with the young composer, who, under Rubinstein's advice, was rapidly becoming worldly wise.
In the end, thepremièreof the new opera was made under highly auspicious circumstances; but, to the amazement of every one concerned,—it being a far finer work than its predecessor,—"Isabella" made only a moderate success. Ivan's style was still a matter of endless discussion among the critics; and in the new opera he had let himself out fully, repudiating all those Italian traditions which, at the time of the composition of "The Boyar," still largely governed him. Time has proved his wisdom, however; for, while to-day "The Boyar" is seldom given, "Isabella" is a standard work in therepertoireof every opera-house of note in thewhite empire, besides having won laurels both popular and critical in Paris and at Covent Garden.
Gregoriev bore this little disappointment far better than his friends had feared. The long fit of depression, thoroughly broken by his attempt at suicide, had not yet returned. The summer had been spent on a walking tour through Finland, with Lechetizsky and Sérov and he came home full of animal vigor. On his way back he had had a fortnight in Petersburg, and there spent two evenings in the company of Nathalie and his aunt, who was now suffering from a secret but probably incurable malady. The ladies, while keeping him at rather formal distance, had none the less shown genuine interest in him and his work; and he carried away one or two very precious memories of her who still remained the one woman in the world for him.
During the autumn he had done some excellent work; and confided to Rubinstein his decision that opera was, after all, not hismétier, but that henceforth he should spend his time on orchestral forms, with the exception of an occasional group of songs, for which he had a special gift. Finland, with its stretches of pine forest and gray waterways, had made a powerful appeal to his peculiar imagination; and the "Songs of the North" form the first of his many tone-pictures of that country.
A week or two after his return to Moscow, he began to find himself haunted by the memory of his aunt's face, which brought up inexplicably vivid pictures of his beloved mother in the last year of her life. Moreover, he had, in her presence, read upon the face of his beloved lines of a soul-tragedy that was to bear him glorious fruit. For it was actually at this time, through these means, when he was barely past twenty-nine, that there was born in him the seed of that final effort of his genius, to be dreamed over for twenty years, and finished only as the shadow of death lengthened overhim: his first faint vision of the master-work to be known to the music-loving world as the Tosca Symphony.
Autumn, and the first fortnight of December, proved a busy, fruitful, pleasant period to the workman, who was now well out of the heyday of his twenties and glad to settle down to the steady harness-work of man in his prime. He was beginning to be satisfied with the simple fact that he himself was sure of his own powers; and it was more than he asked when some incident showed how fully the outer world was beginning to acknowledge him as one not to be judged by ordinary standards. Surely he who has come to this at thirty has small right of complaint!
It was not often now that Monsieur Gregoriev, the professor who appeared so worshipfully experienced to his pupils, allowed himself to reflect upon the episode of the previous spring, when he had swallowed what he believed to be a death-dose. Yet, in his inner consciousness, hovered always the knowledge that he possessed a sure and unfailing refuge from that terrible "Tosca" whence escape was certain only through extremest measures.—Nor did the exquisite vision of the young Nathalie—his last living remembrance of that black night—often leave him, sitting through solitary evenings with pipe and samovar, quite unchallenged. Indeed there were already times when it seemed as if he need hardly wait for the excuse of the "Tosca" to turn refuge into indulgence.
Thus come we to the afternoon of the 18th of the holiday month: a gray day, and a windy; and bitter, bitter cold; when all dreams of Christmas cheer were frozen in the forming and replaced by some breath of the shrivelling air. Ivan came in from his morning's work, partook of a solitary luncheon, and was standing at his window, puffing at his pipe and absently staring into thestreet, reluctant to turn to work. He had been calculating, rather cynically, during his meal, on the meagre returns paid by the world for any labor requiring the cream of thought and talent: work priceless, indeed, so far as roubles went, but comparing badly in actual recompense with mere, mechanical labor. The subject still occupied him in its way, when his attention was drawn from it to the behavior of the only person to be seen in that little-frequented thoroughfare. This was a young man, clad in much-worn sheepskins of the cheapest variety. His hands were uncovered—actually bare, in an atmosphere of thirty degrees below zero! Little wonder that Ivan's eye was caught by, and that it remained fixed on, that figure of poverty. The stranger's gait was slow, and perceptibly unsteady. More than once he halted, looking about him, vaguely, as if for some resting-place. And yet, under his left arm, he was carrying, unwrapped, a good-sized canvas.—Was he delivering it?—Or was he—Impossible! No such person could be glorified by the title of artist! The questions passed swiftly through Ivan's mind, and then were suddenly broken off. As the youth came into line with Ivan's window, he reeled slightly, caught himself, and then dropped upon the frozen walk, letting his burden fall at his side, as his head sank into his arms.
Bah!—Onlyvodka, then. Some drunken artisan, who faced discharge on the morrow. Ivan turned from the window; but quickly returned to it. Vulgarly drunk the man might be. But even the fires of alcohol form scant protection against such cold as reigned to-day. The man might be frozen ere an officer perceived him. Moreover, as Ivan looked again, something in the recumbent figure suggested the abandon rather of despair than of debauchery.—An instant's hesitation. Then the watcher caught up his own fur coat and cap, ran from the rooms, and, a moment later, was bending overthe lonely figure and placing a friendly hand upon his shoulder.
There was a slight start. With an effort, the head lifted. Ivan was gazing into a pair of clear, blue eyes, and realizing that there was no taint ofvodkain the other's breath. Nay! That face spoke of very different things. Youth was there, and hardship, and suffering, and discouragement. More than that, the gaunt pallor of face and lips, the sharp outline of jaw and cheek-bone, told of want, great and immediate. They were signs that Ivan knew well. The fellow was in the final stages of starvation.
In an instant, Ivan had lifted the canvas from the frozen snow, and was helping the unhappy man to rise. When he spoke, his voice had the tenderness of a woman's:
"My friend, you have been unfortunate! I am a worker myself, and have needed help in my time. Come to my rooms with me. I am all alone; and you must have rest and food."
"Food!" There was a note of elemental savagery in the weakened voice. "Food!—My God! My God! Give me food!—My gloves only got me half a loaf the day before yesterday—or—three days ago it was,—I think."
"Are you strong enough, yet? Are you sure you can?—You see, you've been through a fearful ordeal."
Ivan spoke rather anxiously as, two hours later, he bent over the young man, now lying on the divan in Ivan's living-room and looking even whiter and wearier than before he had eaten the meal just finished.
But the stranger smiled; and at sight of that smile Ivan felt a thrill of surprise. The eyes and features lighted up till the gaunt signs of want were forgotten and the face looked like that of some cherubic boy. Itwas a revelation so pleasant that a faint suggestion of weakness—resembling the cloying after-taste of a saccharine beverage—went, for the moment, unnoticed.
"I want to talk to you. You see, you're the only one that's done anything for me.—You are an artist, too. I guessed it before you told me.—But you can't have had the struggle I've had: everything against me from the beginning: unknown, and terribly, terribly poor: ambitious, but with nochancefor success!—But you've saved me—and my canvas. That was the last thing I had to sell; and without it there was no hope."
"Paints and brushes and knives—what could you do without those? Were they all gone?—You see, I've been pretty near where you are myself, in the past."
It was a surprise to see the sudden look of petulance that crossed the other's face. "Oh, my working-tools!—You see you can't understand. You, of course, only need ink and paper. But we painters must have plenty of implements to work with.—Why, I kept them and starved! Could I do any more?"
Ivan shook his head, slightly puzzled. "You've had a very bad time of it. If you feel able, tell me," he said.
The stranger elbowed himself a little higher, and took a mouthful of wine and water from the chair beside him. Ivan settled close by, cigarette in hand, facing him; and, during the hour that followed, his thoughts never strayed. The tale he heard interested him deeply, stirred his admiration, and, at the same time, vaguely troubled him. It was evident enough that this boy had endured an experience from which only indomitable determination of some sort could have brought him out. Nevertheless, ever and again, came suggestions of egotism, selfishness, love of luxury, that were naïve in their unconsciousness. But so foreign were these things to Ivan's own simplicity of nature, that he ended by repudiating his first doubts of the boy before him who had borne so much.
"My name," began the youth, "is Joseph Kashkarin. I was born in Poland, in the spring of 1848, just after we had moved from Lodz to the outskirts of a little village near Chölm. All my life we have been horribly poor. But my grandfather—I am of family, you see—was wealthy, one of the first citizens of Lodz, but a fierce patriot. My father and mother were married in that city, and lived there very well till the uprisings against the Russians in 1847. My family had the folly to take part on the side of the nation; and when the strikes were put down, my grandfather was transported, my father exiled from the city, and all the property confiscated. Thus, when I was born, we were as poor as the serfs that were our neighbors; but we lived decently, because my mother was a lady.
"Our village was on the estate of Ladiskowi: the country-seat of the great family of that name. Before my birth, Prince Ladiskowi heard of my father from our Staroste, and came to see him. After that we were sometimes received at the castle—discreetly, of course, for even the Ladiskowi were under the espionage of Russian spies. But the Prince appreciated us, and wished to do more for us than our father permitted. We had books always when we wished them; and my sister Marie learned to play on a spinnet that they had up there, and had belonged, they said, to the Leczinski themselves.
"I wasn't interested in spinnets. That castle held something better for me. I can scarcely remember the time it first began; but I was not more than seven when I told my mother one night what I was going to be. She, I remember, hoped I would say a soldier, to fight for Poland when the final struggle should come. But I had seen enough of patriotic ruin. Besides," he went on, a little hastily, "I knew in my heart, even then, that art is greater than all other things.—That's not cant, Ivan Mikhailovitch! It's not hypocrisy!—Listen.
"Princess Ladiskowa had been the daughter of a noble artist; and she had her father's love for form and color, though she didn't paint. Instead, she filled the upper gallery of that old fortress with a collection of pictures that would make any gallery in Europe famous. And she added to it continually, until a quarter of all her husband's wealth hung in that room.
"Those pictures were the things that drove me to this pass. I don't know where my talent comes from; but I soon found out how much was in me. I would sit in that hall by the day, looking, studying, puzzling out the secrets of line, and color, and technique, and conception, in the best—always the best, things, you understand; till I felt that Imustbegin work myself. So I went to my father one day and asked him for paints and pencils, brushes and canvas. At first he didn't believe in me. But I begged so long that at last he sent to Chölm for a little outfit, and I took them up to an empty room in the castle, where Marie and I always played in winter, when the family were in Warsaw; and there I worked in secret, at my picture."
Here Joseph paused to finish his wine, and then lay back rather wearily, while Ivan replenished the glass. He was plainly exhausted again; and his host, interested as he was, suggested that the tale be finished later. Joseph, however, protested. He felt himself a trespasser both on Ivan's time and on his charity. Yet he sorely needed help, and Ivan, if he were to give it, must know all his history.
"It was spring, sir, when my first picture was finished; and I had come to feel that the winter and my hopes were wasted. I was terribly disappointed in myself; because I had never dreamed that imagination, love of the work, and tremendous confidence, cannot produce finished paintings. My father, though, had come to be interested in what I was doing, and insisted on seeing what Ihad accomplished. I stood with my back to him, sick with mortification, till I heard him whisper one word of high praise. Then I found, to my amazement, that he was astonished at my success.—I was only fifteen; nevertheless, I was furious, because, you see, my portrait of my sister had not the qualities of the Velasquez, the Guido, the David, or the little Vandyke that I had worshipped, each in its turn.
"But from that hour my father became enthusiastic about my talent. He grew as eager as I for the return of the Prince, in order to get his advice about my future. We were both sure of his help and patronage when he should arrive. But we could not know that my personal misfortunes were to begin at once. It was August before the Ladiskowi came that year; and they remained in the country barely two months. The Prince was ill, and the Princess spent all her time in nursing him, till they started for Baden to take the waters. We saw them scarcely at all. They did hear of the picture, and the Prince sent for me to congratulate me. But I was not alone with him for a moment, and so got no opportunity to ask for help more useful than praises.
"When they went away, I knew I must wait another year for my chance. But even that was not to be. For, next year, they did not come at all to the castle. Prince Ladiskowi's illness had become incurable; but it took terribly long to kill him, and he had to be kept in a higher, drier climate. On his death, two years and five months ago, we found he had left my father one thousand roubles, and firewood from his forests forever. This money was left tous. Well then, saying nothing of the wood, my share as eldest son was at least two hundred and fifty roubles. With this I determined to set out for Moscow, enter the school of painting, and work so hard that, by the time my money was gone, Icould sell pictures enough to support myself. Later, I believed I could send for my sister, have her keep house for me, and perhaps give her piano lessons, thus relieving my parents, who were all but destitute, now, through the loss of their patron.
"When I spoke to them of my plan, they made some difficulties about the journey and my life in a Russian city; but I waved them all away. They offered me half the money then; but, though perhaps you will say it was an artist's due, I wished to be more than fair, and did not take it. I waited one week for my mother to prepare my clothes. My furs I left to my father, since I could not carry them all the way in August weather; but my first purchase in Moscow had to be this wretched coat and cap, and some woollen gloves. You are amazed, I see. But, though it was only August 18th when I left Chernsk, it was mid-October before I entered the streets of this city of the enemies of my race. For alas! I am a Pole; and the very sun that shines in Russia refuses to give me warmth.
"From Chölm to Moscow, by the straightest road, is thirteen hundred versts. Not one step of this way did I go by train; and but a hundred or two in passing carts. Twice, at Minsk and at Smolensk, I stopped and worked for a week, till I had gained an extra rouble or two for food or beds along the way. True, there was charity among the peasants; and I found many a meal left on the window-ledge for wanderers. But the food of convicts and beggars!—it was long before I, the son of a gentleman, could touch it!—More than once, truly—Ah well, I suffered! I suffered every fatigue, every hardship, that I might reach my destination with my bag of roubles as little depleted as possible.
"Two terrible months of hunger and ceaseless fatigue!—Didst thou as much for music, sir? But no. No. You are already an artist, and famous, while I—oh, itis too much! God is not good!" And Joseph sat suddenly up, excited by this remembrance of by-gone misery, forgetting the sudden exhaustion so recently relieved. Two spots of red flamed in his cheeks; and his blue eyes began to shine, feverishly:
"Who are those that succeed? Only the ones that have shelter for their heads, clothes to keep them warm, food to give them strength to work!—more; who can hire the right models, buy good paints, good brushes, flawless canvases;—who can afford to study, to dream, to wait! But to start at the very beginning—nay, with certain faults tounlearn—and expect to win fame on a fortune of two hundred and fifty roubles! Why, Ibeganin terror! My first talk with the professor at the Institute showed me my situation.—And all the other students had so much! They spent, in a day, an hour, what I stretched out to two weeks, to a—a—"
Ivan sprang up, ran to the sofa, and caught the lean figure in his arms. Kashkarin had wrought himself up to a wretched pitch. The last words had been uttered in a tone high and wavering; and, as Ivan reached him, the life left his body, his cheeks grew gray, his eyes dulled, his breathing became fast and light. His rescuer plied him with weakvodka, chafed his hands, bathed his temples, would have summoned a doctor, but that Joseph soon began to revive, and in another twenty minutes seemed more or less himself again. Indeed, he presently unclosed his eyes, murmuring:
"I must go on, my friend. It is not long now.—Will you—hear me?"
And Ivan, who had become a little restless with his desire to get to work, answered, after an instant's hesitation, in the affirmative.
"It took me a month to find a place where I dared stay; and it's taken two years to find out just how horrible life can be. We had always been poor enough; but atleast I had had shelter, clothes, a bed, and food. Here nothing comes naturally; and I could buy only two hundred and ten roubles' worth of everything. One comfort I had. I was in the art-school, free; and they thought I had talent, and was doing well. When I worked I was happy; I could forget. But at the end of one year they said: 'Two years more. Then you can begin to exhibit, and will have the right to sell.' And now only one of those two years is gone; and—I am here,here, alive only through charity!—No, do not speak! I must tell you. I owe much money, for my rent, for food, for paints; and I was carrying my last canvas back to the dealer's to-day, to ask him to give me back half of what I paid for it. My room-mate, Wencislaus Wendt, has done what he could for me. But the one who, in the beginning, did most—who once helped us all in the Students' Quarter—Boris Lemsky—was taken away in the first spring after I came. He was a university man; but he was good to me. I owe him my life: everything I have. And now they say that—what is it, Ivan Mikhailovitch?—Why do you look so? Do you know what became of him?"
Ivan had bent his head forward on his arms. "Boris"—the voice was muffled and unnatural—"Boris was shot through the heart, trying to get to the rooms of Sergius Lihnoff, eighteen months ago."
"By—by whom?"
"The police."
"A—ah!—And his brother—Féodor?"
"In Siberia."
There was a moment's pause. Then, after a little, the youth said, dully: "Yes, it is like Poland here. Only, in this country, it seems they kill their own patriots.—Boriscouldnot have done a wrong!—Ah, Ivan Mikhailovitch, my story has been no story. It hurts me too much to think back through the last months. I fought with starvation, and lost. Now I am here. I can donothing; can be of no use. I am sick. I am tired. I am discouraged. Better have died on the street before I was fed again!—I can never go back to my family, to burden them with my wretched existence—a failure added to failures.—I have in me the blood of Titian—of Rubens—of Raphael! I see, I feel, I create! Color is life to me: form is the bread of my soul! But I cannot get beyond my body. Hunger and cold and fever—then all the visions go!—The soul of an artist, mated with the existence of a serf!—Almighty God! Do me justice at last, and free me from this useless torture of life!"
Once more carried beyond himself by this fragmentary outpouring of his long and unsuccessful battle, Joseph sank back on his pillows, weak and shaken, but evidently at the end of his confession.
Ivan was deeply moved; and in more ways than one. He pitied, profoundly; yet he wondered at much in this ethereal, fair-haired youth that was utterly foreign to himself.—He had had no more than Joseph to start with; and he had not starved.—But what use in saying that?—Instead, he returned to his chair, and sat lost in thought, rapidly adding, the while, to the pile of cigarette stubs which were thrown upon the table at his side. Joseph, meantime, lay still, watching him with weary expectation, while the clock ticked slowly round the hour.
As distant Ivan Veliki boomed the half after four, and the increasing echoes oftroikabells without, announced the advance of the fashionable driving-hour, Sósha entered with tea, and lighted the big table-lamp that presently mingled its soft radiance with the last glimmer of the dead day. Then, when the old servitor had shuffled out, Ivan rose, cigarette in hand, and, gazing down upon the stranger's white face, said, gently:
"My brother, Russia has used you hardly. You must, therefore, let me, not only a Russian, but also a fellow-workman, a lover of art, try to make amends foryour unhappiness here. I can give you your chance—a fair one this time. It will be a joy to me as well as a duty to help you as others helped me in my time of need.—To-night, however, you are too weak for further emotion. You shall sleep here; and to-morrow, when you are more yourself, we will arrange for your future.—And now, if it will not be disturbing to you, I shall play for an hour. You have given me an idea, and the mood to work it out.—Perhaps you will understand—or it will soothe you—"
Joseph's face brightened. He answered, with a note of eagerness in his still shaking voice: "Ah, I had not dared ask you to play to me.—But indeed I shall understand!—Music brings pictures of heaven."
Thereupon Ivan seated himself at his instrument. When, as he expressed it, he was in the mood, few men could improvise more exquisitely, with a technique more Chopinesque, than this man whose orchestral work was so tremendous: so filled with the rolling grandeur, the passion, the energy, the gigantic climaxes, the seething, troubled depths, of a nature titanic in its conceptions, overpowering in their presentment.
For a time Ivan played, so delicately, so melodiously, and, withal, with an individuality so elf-like in its quaintness, that Joseph's quivering nerves were stilled and relaxed as by the caresses of a woman's hands. Then, when count of time had ceased, when the room was filled with velvet shadows, and the rich, dim glow of the crimson-shaded lamp touched only the seated figure and the ivory keys his fingers pressed, Ivan's low voice added itself to the melody. He began to speak, accompanying his words with music like the tracery of fine gold that sets forth and enriches the deep beauty of perfect jewels. What he said came from him spontaneously, without any previous arrangement. It was as if the long-locked door to the inner sanctum of his soul hadswung open, betraying all the wealth of a treasure-room the very existence of which was unsuspected by any other man: for the treasure it contained was the gathered store of his many years of labor, moulded now into theCredoof his working life: the creed by which he lived; which was slowly writing itself upon his face.
"Art," he whispered, softly, arabesquing the beloved, misused word with a ripple of vagrant melody, "is a high goddess, one supreme, all-sufficing, all-embracing, absolutely jealous. Her priests may serve none and nothing but her; and she is worthy of such worship.—Beauty of Aphrodite of old—chastity of Artemis of the crescent moon—wisdom of high Athene, of the silver spear—integrity of Hera the quiet-browed, giver of laws—these she combines in her perfect whole; these are the virtues we are bound to emulate who serve her. Let them that are weak, that understand not, complain of constraint under these rules. Such are unworthy of the trust. Those things that we need—imagination, independence, courage of conviction—every quality bespeaking her one great requirement in the characters of her chosen ones—originality—are to be fostered in a hundred ways not unpleasing to her. But this first quality, which may not be bought either by labor or by gold, has been made the mark whereby she knows and claims her own. Once self-ordained, a man finds himself subject gloriously to her: divinely driven to prayer and fasting, to unceasing labor, to the long and beautiful vigils of the night that bring him her highest rewards: inspiration and love of her and of her service. For us she is lady of night and of day, of sun and sky and the green earth. Through her eyes we see and marvel at them all. Of her many favors to her chosen ones, which is more perfect than that power of inward vision that brings forth secret beauties in every corner of our earthly dwelling-places? How small aprice to pay for this alone:—the absolute fealty to her that is her one demand?
"Yet there have been many unfaithful: many that have been called, and found wanting.—Bitter enough their self-wrought punishment! the yearning, never to be crushed, for her gifts once known and now removed. These in their anguish do her much despite: paint her as devil, call Philistia down upon her in wrath. They call us blasphemers who serve her. Yet what is she but the great Goddess of Truth, holding by one hand the All-Father; by the other her Mother, and ours? And by this Union of which she was the first-born, cometh also all we can know of perfect beauty, all our heritage of creation and creative power. Shall it not be for us to make this known to men? to the unbelievers? Showing them that, in working for our Lady, we are likewise serving their God, who is also ours?
"Thou, Joseph, hast been chosen her priest. Thou and I together know how little is any reward but those she gives: how vain that petty applause of the Philistines for which many an artist has betrayed both his art and himself. But we who remain long at our apprenticeship, learn well how petty is the outward and visible of success.—Have we not been led up into the high place of communion, where, for a little, the veil is lifted, and the image of Truth shown blazing in the splendor of Her shrine? These are our moments of fortification and of revelation. No man who has stood before that vision has failed to understand why the laws of Truth and the law of the mass of men can never be the same. In the communion we gain the strength that bids us disdain all applause of man given for things other than the highest and best. And it is our secret sense of this, which, through humiliation and defeat, through mockery and revilement, through want and privation, shall keep us steadfast and of good courage!
"Look you, Joseph, even now she stands, Immaculate One, radiant upon her height, searching, with fearless eyes, our hearts, and those of that multitude that kneel, and lift their arms to her in supplication!—And some can raise their eyes to hers and smile; and some—look you, alas, how many!—must shrink and cower away beneath the scrutiny before which no deception will avail.—Those now withdraw themselves, to begin their bitter journey backward and down—down to their native Philistia: but never again will they rejoice among their fellows, for they have beheld that which has lifted them far towards the stars; and the companionship of clods must be hateful to them even in their fall.—But the rest, oh Joseph, see how they are gathered into those great mother-arms, and given comfort and good courage, power to continue on their upward way, strength to fight all battles, face all mockery, kill all slander, till the day dawns when they shall receive both the homage of the low, and the loving applause of the Most High; when they shall sit enthroned, wearing the double crown of man and of God.
"Oh Priest, oh Painter, such is our Law."
Ivan, moved beyond himself, struggled slowly out of the vision in which he had been enwrapped, his mind still soaring in regions of the imagination, where melodies sky-born did, indeed, surround him. But his return to earth came with a quick shock. When at length his reluctant hands fell from the keys, Ivan turned, instinctively, to the couch where the stranger lay. The gaunt form there was motionless, the head thrown back upon the pillows, one hand hanging limply to the floor. Something in the attitude, and the faint sound of quiet, regular breathing, brought a flood of scarlet over Ivan's face. The Pole's lips were parted in an angelic smile. Joseph the painter was fast asleep!