SPRING 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-parties to 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, even in 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 the
_entré_ into 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 his son, 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, his _hatred_--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
considered those 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, every _girl_, 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 Petersburg promise 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 to travel 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 French _entrées_, 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 objects appeared in a
clearer atmosphere, when young Gregoriev became half-owner of a charming
apartment in the irreproachable _Bashkov 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 the
_Serghievskaia, 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 leader as 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 better _lanceuse_ than 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 these things, 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 public place 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 so unused 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, heartless _mondaine_.
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 had ended 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,
_zakouski_ and sweets that had been consumed steadily since _déjeuner_.
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 is _then_ roused 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, if nothing 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 famous
_salon_. And it was through 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 her _salon_, 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 a _salon_ as 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, divined the 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, bare _salon_, 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
showy _virtuoso_. 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 the _Corps 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 themselves near the instrument. After this, the silence
became absolute.
A long, tense moment, and then,--a sound broke the stillness: a long and
delicate _tremolo_, 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 that _rubato_
or other affectation by which young Lechetizsky was already beginning to
mar his style. It was music pure, almost classical--the work not of a
_virtuoso_, 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 the _barcarolle_ trembling. 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 from the 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 conventional _cadenza_, 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. And then, 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.