SELF-DESTINY
Ivan had begun to pay his price--not for a foolish escapade, but for his
sonship among the Great that labor and may not rest. It was, perhaps, a
tardy beginning for a career such as his must be: but it was a complete
one, at least. The world lay all before him where to choose:--a blessing
which he, however, at this moment, appreciated not at all.
During the past hideous days, it had seemed to Ivan that he was living
wholly in the memory of his cousin. It was the picture of her that had
borne him through the time of dreadful notoriety. But now, on the
morning after the receipt of that harsh telegram, Nathalie and all her
history with him, had passed completely from his mind, as something
belonging to a forgotten existence. He rose early, after a restless,
feverish night. During the fumbling toilet that followed, he stopped
short, more than once, to throw himself into the nearest chair appalled
and overcome by some fresh view of the situation which he was beginning,
only now, fully to realize. Moreover, he was suffering physically. All
through the late afternoon and evening of the day before he had sat
alone with de Windt, in the next room, drinking steadily, till, for
perhaps the first time in his life, he had lost consciousness, and could
remember nothing of Vladimir's putting him to bed.
By the time he entered the little dining-room, where the samovar already
hissed upon that cosey table, to which he had sat down upon so many
joyous, care-free mornings, the light in his eyes was softer, the new
lines in his face less rigidly fixed. He was remembering, bit by bit,
the details of his recent talk with de Windt, who, heart-broken over
Ivan's double ruin, and showing far more emotion than Michael's son
himself, had fairly gone upon his knees to his friend, begging him to
share his private fortune, and swearing that he should challenge every
officer in the army who uttered one word against their recent comrade.
Ivan remembered with relief how, even under the influence of nearly a
quart of _vodka_, he had gently refused Vladimir's generosity. From the
very beginning, when, in his numbness, the future had been still
unimaginable, Ivan's course had appeared perfectly clear to him. Cast
out on all sides, by friends and family alike, he would be beholden to
no one in the world. Starve he could, without a murmur, if he did not
find work. But charity--to the amount of one kopeck, one meal, even so
much as a cup of water!--he would accept from no man: no, not from
Vladimir de Windt, though he felt towards him as towards a brother.
Moreover, he had spent his last night in these dearly familiar rooms;
and he had accomplished the difficult task of putting his friend away
from him without rousing that friend's antagonism. So much Ivan had
decided, before, as he sat sipping his first cup of tea, de Windt
appeared, starting to see his comrade in civilian's dress. Ivan saw that
start, and understood it; but his voice betrayed no emotion as the
customary good-mornings passed between them, and de Windt, seating
himself and beginning to prepare his tea, said, quietly:
"Ivan Mikhailovitch, you have not told me how you are going to begin in
the work you were talking of last night. How are you to get a
start?--It's not very paying at best: the least lucrative of all the
arts--because it's the highest, I suppose. Now, old fellow, I
understand your general stand; but, for Heaven's sake, don't hurt me by
refusing to let me _lend_ you a rouble or two, till you get
started--have made a little headway, you know!"
Ivan looked up, seriously: "Thank you, my friend. I'm sorry, but even
that I can't take. It'll be no easier, starting in three months hence,
and with a debt on my hands, than now--will it? I've been so pampered
all my life, that I declare it's going to be absolutely a pleasure to
appreciate the value of a kopeck I have _earned_. Don't you know,
Vladimir Vassilyitch, that most of us would be infinitely stronger men
if we had to act men's parts?--Bah! How many thousands are in just my
state to-day, except that, besides themselves, they have a wife and
children to feed, clothe and shelter?--That _might_ come hard! But if I
can't earn my own living, I have no right to live at all. Why the devil
should I pity myself?" And he gave a short, rather hard, laugh.
"You might pity yourself, Ivan Mikhailovitch, because you have just had
three blows about as big as the average man is called upon to bear
throughout his lifetime. The mere fact that you haven't gone under
altogether, says a good deal for your manliness.
"I've been thinking, half the night, about your future: trying to put
myself in your place. And I swear, Ivan, by the Holy Synod, that, if I
were you, I should not do what you intend about that money. A few weeks
more, and your semiannual allowance is due. The five thousand roubles
that you've saved and tumbled into a bank, don't belong to Prince
Gregoriev. He hasn't asked you for anything that he gave you while you
were--in your rightful place. And good Heavens! Haven't you surrendered
enough, without the quixotism of returning to him what he doesn't either
want or expect?--You might as well try to return him your
baby-clothes!--So, if not for your own sake, then for me--for us--for
the sake of those that care for you, give yourself, at least, this one
little chance!"--De Windt's voice, as he stopped, was shaking; and he
turned his red face away that Ivan might not notice what was happening
to his eyes. Nevertheless Ivan had seen, and had been touched to the
quick. His hand shot out, impetuously: and his voice was nearly as gruff
as de Windt's as he began:
"Old fellow, I _am_ giving myself a chance. I've a lot of expensive
trash in these rooms that I sha'n't need now. I shall sell the greater
part of that and make use of the proceeds. Most of the furniture here
belonged to my mother. My own stuff was bought with the little money she
left me.--As for the other affair,--if I had anything else in the world
for which--my father paid, I should certainly return it to him, as I am
returning this money.--You can't possibly understand my feeling; because
you don't know--the man."
"Well, well! You see, Vladimir, that I should have some hundreds of
roubles, in spite of everything. And that will be enough to keep me for
six months, with economy. By that time I shall prove my
manhood.--Meantime, I intend that one week shall see me settled in my
new world."
Thus ended their conversation--and with it de Windt's last effort to
prevent his friend from, as he considered, deliberately ruining himself.
Yet, in the end, he did help Ivan, much to that young man's secret
chagrin. And the little affair was managed so adroitly, that it was
impossible to refuse the presentation of two hundred and fifty roubles
which had been obtained in a perfectly business-like way. The rent of
the young men's apartment, which was by no means low, had always been
divided evenly between them, and payed, quarterly, to their landlord.
Immediately upon the decision that Ivan was to leave this fashionable
quarter of the city, a young ensign of the Second Grenadiers, one to
whom both young men had taken a great fancy during the winter, offered
to take Ivan's share of the apartment off his hands. As he entered
before the 1st of June, he naturally insisted upon paying the two
months' rent, which, however, Vladimir did not send Ivan until
twenty-four hours after that quixotic youth had mailed his father a
check for every kopeck of money saved by him from his large allowance.
The rent-money, added to that accruing from the sale of his personal
effects, which were extravagantly rich, was certainly acceptable to him,
in his otherwise penniless situation; and, stiffly as he acknowledged
the receipt of young Frol's check, de Windt perceived that he was deeply
sensible of the kindliness and friendly feeling that had inspired the
act. This was at least a crumb of comfort to the unhappy Vladimir; who
had been overwhelmed by bitter regret at the series of misfortunes which
now ended forever his friendship with the one intimate companion of his
life. For de Windt, so speedily and so easily attracted to Gregoriev,
was the most difficult officer in the regiment to know. This
peculiarity, indeed, he carried with him through life: for from boyhood
to death, he was always unhappily swift to read the meaner faults of
men; and pettiness, hypocrisy, selfishness and vanity, were stamped, to
his piercing eyes, upon the faces of ninety out of every hundred with
whom he came in contact. By the time he had reached twenty-five, his
inbred pessimism was so deeply rooted within him, that mankind, always
interesting and to be studied as a theme, was to be fenced with, and
generally avoided as a living entity. He rose in his time, did Vladimir
de Windt, to be the Premier of Russia. But never again, throughout his
magnificent career, did he find in the eyes of any man the clear
truthfulness, the unselfishness, and the pathetic faith that he had
known and so loved in his lost friend, Ivan Gregoriev.
The end of Ivan's brief and brilliant career was like its beginning:
meteoric. On the 20th of April, a whisper against him whirled through
the _salons_. On the 30th it had become a murmur. From May 5th to May
19th, Petersburg had stood, with open mouth, craning its neck to catch a
glimpse of this monster of vice and crime. On May 21st, as Ivan walked
from the court-room, every eye had been averted from him, every skirt
drawn back from possible contact with that uniform which he had no
longer the right to wear. By the first of June, occasional furtive eyes
were seeking the chance to look through him once again; and their owners
wondered what signs of shame and misery they should have the joy of
reading upon his face. But, none of these eyes perceiving him, whispers
began once more to creep slowly round: in a weak-voiced inquiry about
the criminal. But, among all of those that asked, there was not one who
received an answer; though it was not till the middle of the month that
society, on the eve of departing to defile the country-side, paused for
a moment to lift its brows over the discovery that Ivan Gregoriev would
never be snubbed again. He had disappeared, absolutely, completely, out
of the ken of his former world; though it took infinite repetition to
convince everybody that even Vladimir de Windt did not know his address.
Certainly Ivan had accomplished a very unusual thing. Living still in
the midst of the world, he was lost to mankind; had vanished utterly
from sight or hearing.
Yet poor Ivan's decisive action might have been more difficult had he
known that, though his romance was over, there was yet to be a
postscript to society from Nice--an epilogue, as it were, to the
finished romance that had so inconsiderately turned itself into a
tragedy. Princess Shúlka-Mirski, the intimate friend of the Countess
Dravikine, had received a letter, written in the first heat of the news
of the court-martial's verdict. To be sure, she tried to hide her real
motive, by giving a brief description of Nathalie's wedding, and then
introducing the delicate topic by uttering fervent thanks that her
princess-daughter should have been preserved from marriage with that
infamous creature--Sophia's son!
Old Princess Shúlka-Mirski had lived long in the world; and reading
between lines becomes to some women as much second-nature as calculating
the cost of a neighbor's gown. Madame Dravikine, then, had been shaken
by the news. Although it was plain that she should always resent any
accusation of him: probably even references to his name, in her
presence, she had still not been able to refrain from inquiring after
his physical health. And the reader guessed how she longed for full news
of him; his reception of his disgrace; his attitude towards the world;
his present whereabouts; and his plans for the future. In her own mind,
the old noblewoman wondered how much of Caroline's odd letter had been
prompted by the mental condition of Caroline's daughter. But she had the
grace not to repeat this mental query aloud, in her world. As for
others' thoughts--well, why should the ecstatic young bride, full of the
delight of her title and the Féodoreff sapphires, take the least
interest in the fate of a miscreant with whom, in the period of his
success, she had indulged in an ephemeral flirtation?
Thus for nine days more they chattered. And then, as Tsarskoë-Selo
filled, and the Nikitenko divorce proceedings came thundering down the
broad corridor of scandal, Ivan Gregoriev, his youth, success, trial,
disgrace and disinheritance, melted away into the utter oblivion of the
twice-told, the old, and the stale.
Ah! Could Ivan himself have gained something of indifference! Could his
senses, his jangled, shattered nerves, his bruised and bleeding pride,
have acquired that callousness of stupidity, how well would it have been
with him! But Ivan was Ivan still: high-strung, keenly apperceptive and
receptive; his spiritual, like his physical, nerves, alive to every
emotion, every pain or pleasure that rose up into his present. Only to a
certain natural extent had he changed. The sudden violent revolutions of
his wheel of life, had strengthened his character, though they had
temporarily shocked both mind and body. His mental state, during the
weeks immediately succeeding his change of residence, was one of blank
depression. The hand of inheritance lay heavy on him now. The
hypersensitiveness of Sophia Blashkov, during the months before his
birth, reproduced itself, with startling similarity, in the youth whose
sensibilities had been so sharpened by long pampering in the hot-house
atmosphere of luxurious idleness; and an attitude of constant flattery
and suavity from the men and women in whose eyes he was always haloed by
a crown of thousand-rouble pieces. To-day, how different his estate! He
saw his world now with the eyes of the outsider. And what a thing it
was!--This stolid dummy, from which both tinsel robe and leering mask
had now been stripped for him, exposing the brutal, heartless machine
that had taken such delight in crushing a fallen man!
Metaphors such as these are stale enough: yet Ivan, in his soreness,
concocted many an unlovely allegory, during those first days of his
lonely exile. He had been at this useless occupation for some time on a
certain afternoon in June, when all his soul seemed crying to him for a
breath of country air. He was sitting in his single rocking-chair, by
the open dormer of his attic-room, in one of the narrow dwelling streets
on Vassily Island--the poorest quarter of Petersburg. Day after day had
he sat thus, coming, by slow, rather timorous degrees, face to face with
himself and his new surroundings. Just now his eyes were closed; but the
noise of the street, in which most of the inhabitants passed the greater
part of their time at this season, and the fetid smells of the baking
city, came up to him from below, reminding him constantly of his
neighborhood.--Ay, he had got his wish!--The half-gods had gone, indeed.
But the gods--how should they honor such a spot as this by their divine
presence? Nay; he was alone in a strange land. Alone, yet known to many,
all too well! Deserted by his own class, how should the poverty-stricken
creatures who must henceforth be his neighbors welcome among them one
repudiated by his father and his nearest relatives?--Ah! In this last
thought lay, indeed, the keynote to poor Ivan's mental state. All
through the recent, dreadful weeks, he had held in his heart a hope,
however faint, that there would reach him some message, some word, some
hint, even, that she--Nathalie, did not utterly condemn him: had still
for him a thought of sympathy and understanding of his reckless deed.
But day after day had come and gone. The trial had ended. He had left
his old haunts: had severed himself completely from all former
associations; and without knowing whether the woman he loved--she for
whom he had virtually ruined himself,--was a happy wife, a wretched
bride, or--dead. Nathalie, like all the rest, had passed out of his
life. And night by night he laid him down, clasping in his arms the
gaunt figure of despair, before whose dread embrace courage and manhood
alike fell back, wavered, and seemed to fade from him forever.
* * * * *
The chronicle of a human life can never do justice to nature; for the
reason that, for every man and woman, there come long periods of quiet
labor or inaction when for months, perhaps years, scarce one untoward
incident comes to break the slow routine of existence. The doings of one
day repeat those of the day before, anticipate those of the morrow. What
shall the chronicler do? Send his reader yawning to bed over the
unfinishable tale? Or pass over, in a word, some period in which his
subject is growing and changing, day by day, for better or for worse,
till he emerges from that long, monotonous stretch, a creature
startlingly different from that of the last chapter?--It is to such an
_impasse_ as this that we have arrived with our penniless Ivan. For four
years we find scarce a single mile-stone of event along his highway. And
yet the development of Ivan's secret self was swift; unusual;
tremendous. During this period he grappled frequently with mighty,
rising passions; crushed rebellions; bowed to revolutions carried on
within the kingdom of his soul. Yet he was no weakling, to keep a diary
of moods. And our only testimony of him, is from--let us say--his
landlady, the excellent Elizabeth Stepniak:
A tall fellow, growing a little stooped: silent, unobliging, unsociable;
yet a good lodger in his way, in that he paid his rent, and never
disturbed families below him with the carousals and other performances
common to young bachelors. When he had first come, he had, indeed, spent
an entire summer in shocking idleness; and she, Frau Gemälin, had
worried, from time to time, about her money; and again sometimes, when
he had paid it without a word, felt inclined, by boldly raising it, to
discover what were really his means. However, in the autumn she did find
out his work. He was a kind of _musiker_; and not only played one or two
simple instruments in the orchestra of a small, third-class theatre near
by, but also copied orchestra parts from original scores, corrected
music proofs, and orchestrated many an ambitious attempt at composition
sent him by over-enthusiastic students of the Conservatoire. Moreover,
towards the end of his first winter, the recluse began to have an
occasional caller; and at such times was wont to make disagreeable
demands that he get the amount of wood and peat for his fire that he
paid for: not those customary odd scraps of fuel which she usually found
him willing enough to accept. It was not as if his visitors had been
worth anything!--They were simply musical fellows like himself; and
dressed as such--without even so much as a touch of gold on cuff or
lapel!
The second summer proved a trying one to the good landlady. If her
lodger had not been with her so long, she vowed she could not have borne
with his actions--bringing home a new musical instrument every week;
from most of which he drew forth noises that either set one's teeth on
edge, or made her so mournful that she would be forced to ease her
feelings by a visit to the cemetery; where her faithful Makár lay
sleeping his last sleep. And yet, for all his preposterous
caterwaulings, on not one of these various instruments did Ivan really
learn to play! Long before he attained any proficiency upon one, he
would take that back to wherever it came from, and bring home another;
till at last she felt it a duty to remonstrate with the fellow upon the
fatuity of not getting something one wanted at first and then sticking
to it. Not that she wasn't well aware how little real liveliness was to
be got out of any of his instruments! She could understand his disgust
with them. But let him get something really musical, and he would see.
She was musical herself, and liked a tune as well as anybody. Now, "In
Berlin Sagt Er," on a concertina, say;--ah! There was something
possible, to be sure!
But all her advice to the silly fellow was soon seen to be completely
wasted. The idiot thanked her, solemnly, and with an air; but
immediately spoiled it all by explaining that he did not want to learn
to play any instrument; but was finding out the kind of sounds made by
each one.--As if any but a person born silly could care to learn
that!--And she did not think Mr. Gregoriev exactly a fool--or, at least,
weak-brained.
Well, he had gone on, and lived with her till four years rolled round,
and it was May again--the May of 1866; when Ivan, who looked thirty and
more, was not yet at his twenty-sixth birthday.
So much for Madame Stepniak, and her account of her lodger's simple
existence: one which furnishes us no little insight into the process and
progress of that inner impetus towards a career so far from his
inherited position: a yearning, from which he had suffered acutely up to
the time of his sudden freedom. It is, then, somewhat curious that,
throughout his former life, through his boyhood, his years in the Corps,
and the brief period of his society life, Ivan should have been on terms
of genuine intimacy with himself; whereas, after the dissolution of all
artificiality in his surroundings, when at last he stood before himself,
face to face with his naked soul, he became suddenly disturbed,
uncertain, afraid of that self-confidence on which he had hitherto so
prided himself. For many months he had turned from the self-analysis
which would finally have developed into morbidness. And his act had met
its reward. Slowly, at length, there emerged, out of its veiling mists,
that long-neglected animus, which, bearing no malice for neglect, came
to Ivan, and took him by the hand, saying:
"We meet again. Henceforth let us traverse together the appointed road."
In that hour it seemed as if a great wave of understanding and of
welcome overswept Ivan; and when it had passed, he knew that the soul of
him had undergone a change: the great change for which he had not dared
to hope. The evil consequences of his long months of pampering
disappeared. Regret for what had been grew faint. He was glad of the
present: he held out glad arms to the future--that future of labor,
possibly thankless, which he was to dread no more. In fact, he was
become a man, honest and clean and strong; and, for a time, he dwelt in
peace with his best self, and believed his struggle finally ended.
The belief was premature. Evil habit dies not in a day. A few weeks, and
lo! it was upon him again: his coward self, with all its black legion of
habit, laziness, love of ease, gluttony, and petty vice. Thenceforth his
spirit was become a battle-field, whereon, long and long, the two
leaders, angel and devil, manipulated their forces, and held conflict
upon conflict, not one of which appeared decisive. Yet, gradually, it
seemed to him who waited, the standard of intellect rose high and
shining over the white, luminous lines; while that of the animal grew
frayed and faded, beginning to betray the rottenness of its material
beneath the gaudy ornaments. Victory was finally acknowledged when, upon
a November day of his year of disgrace,--1862, Ivan, braving scorn,
rejection, even deliberate non-recognition, entered the doors of the
Conservatoire over the dead body of his false pride, and asked to see
the director, Monsieur Zaremba.
He emerged from that building, a little later, with a radiant face, and
a heart throbbing with gratitude. Not only Zaremba, but both Rubinsteins
had come from their classes to greet him; showing in their manner
respect, interest, nay, almost, he believed, pleasure! And, before he
had made his simple request, more than he had dreamed of asking had been
suggested--proffered to him: so generously, moreover, that he could not
possibly take it as patronage. He had now, under his arm, a roll of
manuscript music to be copied into parts--for which work the pay was
good. Such tasks, he was assured, could be promised regularly. But
there were already other plans in his brain--plans suggested by Nicholas
Rubinstein and developed by the others. Ivan must re-enter the harmony
classes; and there would be no charge, during the winter, since he could
surely, by a little exertion, win one of the scholarships given after
the annual competitions in June. With one of these--or the money he
should earn in later years, all obligations might be cancelled--if he
chose. For these musicians recognized their kind: and, since that
long-past evening of the _barcarolle_, had marked Ivan for a future,
according to their lights. As for the events of the past May--what was
the army, what was a pretty woman, to them? To their minds, the whole
episode had been singularly fortunate; since it delivered Ivan from a
useless and foolish life; and gave them an opportunity to push the
youth, willy-nilly, into revealing the final quality of his undoubted
talent.--And they were to discover it, indeed. After which, according to
their inconsistent consistency, Ivan having attained some slight
reputation, they might turn upon him, one and all, and score him,
bitterly, in their jealousy.--Which fact, with many another equally sure
and equally unpleasant, remained unsuspected by the happy man who
ascended his four flights of stairs that snowy night to light a
sacrificial fire to the arbiter of his soul, the first of the promised
gods, who had stolen in upon him unawares, and now cast off his whole
disguise: the god of labor loved.
At last Ivan's days began to be full: full of a dry work that contained
many sources of keen interest to him. Certainly the greater part of it
was the merest drudgery. Each afternoon he bent over a desk, laboriously
copying manuscript music; meditating upon his morning of study at the
Conservatoire; or seeking to hear the music the notes and signs of which
he had been writing down. And this last exercise, idle though he thought
it, in time bore excellent results. In the evening he still played in
the orchestra of the Panaievsky Theatre--though he had now risen from
"all-round man" to the sole charge of the kettle-drums. Even the
performances on the shallow stage above him held for him keen interest;
and, without other tuition, he gained here a knowledge of dramatic
construction that served him well later, during the creation of his few
operas. For, in Ivan, great talent found itself mated to love of earnest
work:--a union to which the world has, through all time, owed its
greatest masters of art and science.
During eighteen months--until the autumn of 1864, Ivan's working-day
averaged fourteen hours. He studied constantly under Anton Rubinstein;
and had the privilege, during that time, of many a private lesson under
the master who at that time looked upon him as his special discovery.
During the summer, he took a few pupils from the poorer ranks of the
Conservatoire: students, who, by means of coaching during the summer,
and double work in the winter months, managed to shorten their years of
study, that wage-earning might begin as soon as possible.
At the beginning of the new winter season, Ivan passed through an
experience deeply dreaded, and found himself the recipient of a
happiness greater than he had dreamed possible. At the earnest
solicitation of his master, he once more made his appearance in the
_salon_ of the Grand-Duchess Helena: this time as a paid accompanist.
The moment in which he crossed the once familiar threshold, seemed to
him the most difficult of his lonely years. And then, in another
instant, he was in a new country! Her Imperial Highness greeted him with
a cordiality such as she had never before shown; and the assembled
company only waited for the royal greeting to crowd about him, hands
out-stretched, with a welcome that brought a lump to his throat. If his
playing was very bad that night: if his cold, damp fingers could
scarcely move across the keys, no one noticed it save, perhaps, his
hostess, who surely, in her beautiful wisdom, understood it well.
Years of hard study and constant mechanical training had kept Ivan safe
for a long time from immature and damaging attempts at creative work.
But with the ending of this winter of 1864-65, the spring began to bring
him a renewal of dreams and aspirations too vivid and too strong to be
written off by any fury of exercise, work, or self-deprecation. Melodies
of long ago began to ring again in his ears. Old bits of harmonization,
half forgotten, returned upon him with new meaning in their crude
successions. Vague ideas grew clear. And there was a turmoil within him
which he recognized, instinctively, as the creator's imperative summons.
Still he held off, remembering the warnings of attempting work without
tools--of production before the acquirement of sufficient technique. No
use! The more he fought, the more did his brain seethe--fired by the
events of his dead life, its incidents, its dramatic climaxes, its final
tragedy, all of them turned into a new form, a new meaning: resolving
themselves persistently into his one means of expression. Thus it was
that, before he understood the significance of the change in him, he
realized at last the great fact that his first great work had risen to
completion, as it were, in a night, and lay now awaiting only the
mechanical transcription to paper. It was ambitious, this first
work--the "Symphony of Youth." Its first movement was _allegro agitato_,
_adagio_, and _allegretto scherzando_, picturing each vivid phase of
early boyhood; next came the requisite _andante_,--a dreaming melody,
expressing all the yearning, the vague melancholy of pre-adolescence;
then the third: a rippling _scherzo_ of youthful pleasures, gayety,
young loves and joyous dances; finally a tempestuous _finale_:
_allegretto sforzando é appassionato_--the rising of the burdens of
manhood, of new ambitions; the descending of the sadness of man's
responsibility, the reluctant passing of the careless, heart-free joys
of youth.
The idea and its possibilities took possession of Ivan so much to the
exclusion of all else that by mid-May he capitulated to it, announced
his intention of taking a holiday for the summer, and secreted himself
in his old room, confiding in no one, instinctively afraid of
discouragement from his master and benefactor. But it was a reckless
business, this resignation of all means of livelihood. He had very
little money saved; and, do what he would, he could not hope, if he was
to keep out of debt, to buy much nourishing food. Through stifling days
and pitiless, white nights, he labored, alone, incessantly; sparing
himself in no way; foolishly refraining from exercise and out-door air,
because both of them sharpened his constantly unsatisfied appetite. What
more natural, then, than that September should bring with it fever,
delirium, bad nursing, heavy bills; and October a convalescence rendered
doubly slow because of persistent malnutrition. From this he passed, at
the end of this month, into a haggard semblance of health, accompanied
by that black depression which cries aloud for rest and complete change
of scene.
Neither of these, however, could Ivan get. Doggedly he returned to his
duties, and began, bit by bit, to pay off his debts: those debts which,
five years ago, would have appeared so absurd; and which were now the
nightmare of his existence! But, though he managed to accomplish the
usual amount of work, and had even occasional snatches of a brilliance
which astonished himself, it was not difficult to read in his face the
signs of approaching breakdown. He had lived too long upon his nerves.
The Rubinsteins, consulting together, shook their heads over him,
wondered how his pride was to be circumvented, and finally hit on a
scheme which was, for them, more than usually tactful. Anton created a
new medal and scholarship, to be presented thereafter annually for the
best musical setting of a classic poem which was to be the same for all.
It was an exercise in which Ivan delighted; and there was little doubt
as to the destination of the prize of the first year. Fate treated him
kindly, at last; for he managed to keep up till after the contest. His
setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" was incomparably the best of the
sixty efforts. So, with five hundred roubles, he paid the remainder of
his debts, and found himself, one week later, in Vevey, a nervous wreck,
truly; but free at last from mental worry, and drawing in hope and life
with every breath.
It was September before Petersburg saw him again--penniless, but full of
such vigor and energy as were equal to a fair-sized capital. And he had
not been in the city more than a fortnight, before he discovered that
one more stage upon his rough road was over; and that the bend beyond
the half-way house hid tremendous possibilities.
It was the afternoon of the 16th of the month. Ivan was at his table,
bending over some half-finished parts for an orchestra overture, when
the door of his old attic opened, unceremoniously, and Nicholas
Rubinstein strode in.