THE MOSCOW CONSERVATOIRE
Ivan rose from his place, smiling a welcome. In spite of himself he had
always liked Anton less than the unfamed brother whom Petersburg
supposed just now to be in Vienna, attending Anton in his new series of
electrifying recitals. But the rough, strong, kindly face, short,
muscular figure and genial smile of Ivan's visitor were unmistakable.
He, then, after shaking hands with the younger man, put down the huge
water-proof portfolio that he bore under his arm, shuffled out of the
alpaca overcoat that he persistently wore, summer after summer, threw
his hat upon the bed, and, with a face more than usually serious, drew a
chair to the other side of the work-table, and sat down.
"I'm interrupting your work," he remarked, as Ivan shoved his copy to
one side and seated himself also. "Yes, I'm interrupting; but you can
spare the time, I believe, considering my errand."
"I've plenty of time.--But--there's no trouble in Vienna,--no accident,
I hope?" Ivan's tone took on a shade of anxiety.
Nicholas, who was engaged in lighting a very black cigar, did not answer
till the blue smoke was rolling up satisfactorily. Then he replied: "No,
I left there a week ago. Anton is with Bruckner and one or two others,
and didn't need me. But I--well, there's a most annoying business about
this Moscow affair!"
"What? The new Conservatoire?"
"Yes. You know Serov signed a contract to take the intermediate classes:
theory and orchestration, you understand."
Ivan nodded. "In June, before I left, he was full of it."
"Um--yes. And he signed the contract, remember!--But that was before
they began to fill his pockets and his head with the success of
'Reseda'--that new opera of his--very mixed style, and too light.--No
depth at all.--No classic restraint. Bald melody--thin little
_tum-ti-tums_, _pizzicato_, for accompaniment! But he found a new theme,
the other day, and has gone mad about it. Now there's nothing to be done
with him. Wrote me ten days ago to say that he absolutely must stay here
this winter to keep his proper musical 'atmosphere.'--Oh these
musicians! Not an ounce of business integrity in the lot of 'em!--Of
course, we could hold him to the contract. But do we want a teacher that
hasn't a thought for his classes?--Anton says, make him go to Moscow! I
say, let him stay here. But I'm worried to death over it. I'd do his
work myself, only I'm up to my ears in classes and lectures as it
is.--And the thing opens in November!--Who is to take the main body of
the students, for Heaven's sake?"
"Laroche!" shouted Ivan.
"Irresponsible; and--too much money."
"Um--a--oh--this new man we hear of--Monsieur Kashkine, of Moscow."
"He's literary, rather than musical. No real time for classes."
"Wieniawski, then?"
"By nature a virtuoso. It would be rather a pity to waste his technique
and pin him down to a teacher's life. With a composer, the thing's
different. One can always find time for composition, even while
teaching. But practice knocks any possibility of other work on the head
at once."
There was a pause. Ivan, at the end of his suggestions, began to feel
puzzled at Rubinstein's coming to him with such questions at all.
Presently, however, he decided that this was not the real object of the
visit; and asked, with a change of tone: "Well, have you some new work
for me?--Some copying?"
"I've got some new work for you, certainly. But not copying."
"What then?"
"Well--this. I want you to leave here for Moscow, with me, in five days;
and prepare to take Serov's place in the new Conservatoire."
"_What!_" The exclamation was low, and absolutely incredulous.
"You heard me. Aren't you perfectly well fitted to teach theory and
harmony laws, and the principles of composition, to a lot of
ignoramuses, at one hundred roubles a month?"
Before Nicholas had finished, Ivan jumped to his feet and began to pace
up and down the attic-room. In his cheeks there appeared two vivid spots
of red; and his eyes shone, peculiarly. Rubinstein sat puffing at the
pipe for which he had just exchanged his cigar; while he stared about
the bare room, and waited, patiently, for his sudden proposition to sink
home. He was unprepared, however, for what came. Ivan presently stopped
in front of him, saying, hurriedly:
"You know I was born in Moscow?"
"I have heard it."
"My father lives there."
"That will be fortunate for you."
"Oh! but--he--I'm disinherited, you know! And--where should I live,
there, on my hundred roubles a month?"
"Well, it is not a large sum; but it can be done. Besides, as soon as we
prove the thing a success, we'll increase the salaries. Also, you shall
have time to work on your own little ideas.--Ah! I have it!--I've an
apartment, close to the Conservatoire. It's furnished, and
Shrâdik--violin, you know--is living there already. He has one room, I
another. Will you take the third? We'll share the parlor."
"Oh--oh Nicholas Ivanovitch, stop! You misunderstand!--The pay is double
what I live on now.--I mean, only, that--for me--there are memories in
Moscow: bitter ones.--I'm used to ostracism here; but in Moscow--where
my mother's family has always been--Oh! I don't see my way to it!"
"Then I'll see it for you. Look here: this offer is going to help you up
the ladder. It will prepare the way for your new place in the
world:--the one you want to gain for yourself, which is far better than
anything inherited. You've more promise in you than any of these other
lumbering creatures--even Serov himself. And now--you refuse your great
chance because you'll be living in a city where your father is!--Bah,
Ivan! I never thought you a school-girl before!--Must it be Laroche,
then?"
"By Heavens--no!" The words leaped from him involuntarily; but Ivan let
them stay.
Two minutes afterwards the pipe was once more going, placidly; and by
the time the room was hazy with smoke, Nicholas had explained the
details of his plan, and had departed, leaving Ivan alone, dizzy with
the prospects of his new life. Within a fortnight, he could turn his
back on Petersburg, the hated city.--Small time now for the long-delayed
placing of his symphony: for the completion of the concert overture and
the tone-poem already forming in his active brain! Better to wait, and
take his chances in the musical world of Moscow.--His work! His
profession!--Did this unexpected offer leave him free enough to develop
the future of his dreams? Ah well! No use pondering that. The affair
was settled; and circumstance must take care of the rest. Destiny is
probably foreordained. What reason, then, in struggling over and
doubting one's actions? Meantime, a new theme was taking possession of
his mind. Moscow, and the idea of seeing it again, had brought old
memories down on him; and he wondered if he might not gratify his sudden
longing, and let his father know at least that he was alive, and well?
The second wish was graver; touching his hidden self more nearly. Could
he, should he--would it be humbling his pride too much, if he went to
see his aunt--who had just returned to town for the winter?--Would she
let him come to say good-bye to her, give him some faint echo of the
by-gone friendliness?--Time certainly had drawn the poison from Ivan's
wound, since he could debate this question, which, after all, was only
the cloak to another: that of the possibility of learning how his cousin
fared. For of her, the young Princess, he had learned practically
nothing since the time of her hasty marriage in a distant land. That she
spent her life in and around Petersburg, he was aware. But he had never
once seen her in the city; and had never been sure of her immediate
whereabouts. That her place in his heart had never been usurped, nor her
image grown dim with the passing years, was all he realized to-day.
Ivan's inheritance from his mother was a temperament sensitive to the
point of morbidness. This unhappy characteristic had been fostered only
during his early years. But he had not attempted to change it till the
period of his disgrace plainly offered a choice between a resolute
stifling of his pain or downright madness. Being the son of his father,
he made the practical selection. And he saw now that the years of his
independent poverty had done much towards the development of
common-sense, and the extinction of that hypersensibility which had so
marred his otherwise fine nature. Moreover, just the regular, daily
routine of work, and the friendly rivalry with his fellow-students, had
imbued him with the manly courage with which he faced the world. Yet not
one of us can permanently alter his temperament; and, to the end of his
life, Ivan was destined to suffer periodic torments from shyness,
natural reticence, and a never-dying sense of shame at the memory of
that unjust disgrace which by this time many interpreted rightly, and
many others had completely forgotten.
For some years, in fact since his boyhood, Ivan's mental attitude
towards his father had been as to a black shadow which had lain across
the whole of his mother's existence and the greater part of his own.
When his change of feeling began, or how, he did not know. Possibly it
was as far back as the trial and conviction, through his father's
indictment and evidence, of Brodsky, his own bitterest enemy. Certainly
its development had certainly been unconscious. And to-day Ivan was
himself surprised at his secret feeling of tenderness towards Prince
Michael, as for one aged and broken with grief. After the absolute
silence of four years, he found it almost a pleasure to write the lonely
man, telling him of his little success, his sudden change of residence,
something of his ambitions for the future; but not a word of his long
struggle with poverty, and the lonely austerity of his life. In the
letter he enclosed an address--that of Rubinstein's Moscow apartment;
where, even should it not be his own abode, communications at least
would always reach him. And if his excellency would but send some word,
however brief, Ivan would gladly come to see him--not as a son,
necessarily, but as one to whom Prince Gregoriev's welfare could not but
be a matter of supreme interest and concern.
The writer of this missive spent time and pains upon its composition;
and succeeded in expressing himself with clearness and considerable
delicacy, though making very evident the fact that he neither desired
nor would accept the slightest pecuniary assistance from one who had so
furiously disowned and deserted him in his hour of sore need.
It may have been this final implication, or, more probably, the one
other unfortunate suggestion in the letter, relating to the importance
to the writer of Michael's welfare--(interpreted _health_)--which the
father angrily deduced as a desire for his death and the hope of speedy
inheritance, which once more undid Ivan with the desolate, stubborn,
remorsefully remorseless old man, to whom, in his secret soul, the boy
was still the apple of his eye, the greatest and final disappointment of
his harsh life. Certainly Ivan waited in vain for the requested message.
But before this disappointment came, he had passed through another
anxiously waited experience. For, on the same day that he posted the
letter to Moscow, he took his courage into his hands and went, for the
first time since the February of nearly five years ago, to the house in
the Serghievskaia, where a brisk young footman informed him suavely that
Madame la Comtesse received.
It was forty minutes later when Ivan emerged from the house, his brain
whirling in as great a tumult of emotions as were the hearts of two
women whom he left behind him. Yet the idea of emotion on his aunt's
part would never have occurred to him; and of the other, he knew
nothing. Countess Caroline was past mistress in the worldling's
art of subtle, refined, undiscoverable patronage, snobbery,
indifference--insult if you will. With apparently exactly the same quiet
voice and manner, she could warm the soul of a Royal Duchess with the
delightfulest flattery; while, in the intervals between phrases, she
would shrivel an undesirable caller into a state of quivering apology
for the presumption of invading the house of so lofty a personage as
Madame Dravikine.
Thus, when her nephew presented himself before her, Countess Caroline's
heart gave a great throb of welcome and of pity; but her impassive face
grew only a little colder, and, though in the first seconds of looking
into the eyes of Sophia's son, hearing the familiar, inherited tricks of
her sister's speech, she was betrayed into the suggestion of a genuine
frankness, she soon bethought herself of an imminent danger which both
were in; and she instantly set herself to drive him from the house at
the earliest moment. For the Countess had been momentarily expecting her
daughter, who was to come to tea this afternoon; and for many reasons
she dared not permit those two to meet again. Therefore poor Ivan found
himself treated to a succession of monosyllables so chilling that there
rose up in him, first, a great wave of bitter disappointment and grief;
and then a hot anger that held him immovable in his seat, in the face of
a now open attack of rudeness such as few women and no man had ever
before endured from this experienced _mondaine_. At last, seeing that,
while he gained nothing, he was probably losing much by his persistence,
he rose, restrained, by an effort, any expression of the fury that his
aunt read plainly in his eyes, and left her. Nor did he ever know that
during the last fifteen minutes of his stay Nathalie,--Nathalie, her
dear face lined with grief and care, her beautiful eyes faded and dull
from long bodily pain and the mental anguish that has passed the bounds
of tears,--Nathalie, big with child for the third successive autumn of
her wretched married life--had sat not twelve feet from him, overhead,
in her mother's boudoir. For there she had retreated, on learning that
madame was entertaining a young man who was not an _habitué_ of the
house, and whose name had not been given for announcement.
Still Ivan's visit had not been wholly fruitless. He had elicited what
he had chiefly wished to learn. Unconsciously, because the subject was
the present burden of her nights and days, Caroline had betrayed the
fact of her daughter's unhappiness. Yet she would have maintained, and
truly, that she had not permitted three sentences to pass her lips on
the subject of the Princess Féodoreff. But the acuteness of the
_mondaine_ pales before that of the lover. Caroline knew nothing of what
Ivan took away with him; nor dreamed that, from this hour, Nathalie's
load became the secret burden of another. But perhaps in that brief
hour, when her bitter tongue had so belied the crushed emotion of her
heart, Madame Dravikine regretted, not for the first time, her cruel
rejection of the young man who, it was plain to see, had retained his
fidelity to her unhappy child through all his years of separation from
her and ignorance concerning her married life.
* * * * *
Despite the plans of Nicholas Rubinstein, his departure for Moscow, and,
by consequence, that of the under-teacher, was delayed for some weeks;
and it was only on the evening of October 2d that Ivan, with all his
earthly belongings in the two valises beside him, and his whole
fortune--forty roubles--in his pocket, stood by his companion in front
of the Petersburg station in Moscow, waiting for a droschky and looking
once more upon the lights and many-colored domes of his native city.
Three hours later, in a comfortable little room on the third floor of a
dingy house of the Brionsovskaia, three men, who had been lingering over
a hearty supper, rose to their feet, glasses in hand, to repeat the
toast just suggested by the youngest of the trio:
"To the Conservatoire of Moscow--and her director: the friend and
benefactor of all Russian musicians,--Nicholas Rubinstein!"
The first six words rang out from three voices; but before the rest the
oldest man put down his glass, laughing as he said:
"You prevent my drinking, Ivan Mikhailovitch. No. Let the rest of the
toast be: 'to the friendship of the three who inhabit this apartment:
thou Boris, and thou Ivan,--star of the future, and finally my old,
plain self!'"
Boris Shrâdik, the young violinist who formed the third inmate of the
Rubinstein apartment, quickly seized the speaker by the right hand,
while Ivan grasped his left; and then the younger men, setting down
their glasses, clasped hands across the small table.
There was an instant's silence. Then the glasses were drained, and Ivan,
to whom the evening had brought many a throb of sentiment, walked away
to the window for a moment, while even Rubinstein loudly cleared his
throat.--They are an emotional people, these musicians; and, despite the
pettiness which success seems to raise in them, they are, in private
life, genial and generous, and intensely loyal to their kind.
It was not wonderful that the youngest professor of the Conservatoire
speedily made himself at home in his new abode. Moscow might hold many
sad memories for him; but it was the place which must always be his
home, after all. For where the first years of childhood are spent,
there, however humble the place, are rooted deep some of the soul's
loveliest plants: there rest associations of love and of joy far more
powerful, more unforgettable, than any that can be made in after life:
and these make a consecration recognized by the most careless, the most
unsentimental of us all. Ivan, indeed, rejoiced daily that he had not to
begin life again in a strange city. But he soon perceived that he had
formed an astonishingly mistaken notion of what that life was to be. He
had believed it would bear a strong resemblance to the existence he had
been leading for the past years: so many afternoon hours among
students--this time as teacher, instead of pupil; so many for rest,
meals, exercise; the rest of the time spent in quiet solitude, at his
own beloved work.
Two thirds of this programme he did, indeed, carry out; though not
without constant difficulties in escaping those friendly spirits who
would have kept him for hours at a time over a meal, out of sheer
conviviality. And it was three weeks or more before the absent-minded
dreamer became convinced of the hopelessness of attempting his own work
in that particular atmosphere. For Ivan was of a type, fortunately rare,
which demands a large amount of daily solitude. Loneliness he might
dread--and bear. But isolation during his working hours he must have, at
whatever price. And to expect isolation in Nicholas Rubinstein's
apartment, was, truly, to cry for the moon. Regularly, all day, the
little living-room overflowed with visitors; nor did any of these
hesitate to comply with any requested musical exhibition, despite the
fact that, during eight hours of the working day, the apartment
resounded with violin exercises emitted from the bedroom of young
Shrâdik. Even this was not all; for the house was in the heart of the
musicians' quarter. And all day, from apartments below, from rooms
above, came an endless banging, shrieking and caterwauling from
embryonic _tenori_ and _virtuosi_, such as, within a month, would have
cured all but the most persistent music-lovers of any further desire for
the expression of that abstract art.
Ivan _was_ of the most persistent. Therefore, towards the middle of
November, his nerves raw and quivering under baffled attempts to compose
against the Devil's Chorus rising to heaven from every side, he sought,
and finally found, salvation from incipient madness, in the refuge
afforded by a neighboring _traktir_, much frequented, o' nights, by
university students, but as deserted through the morning hours as had
been Ivan's yearned-for attic.
Hither, to a small parlor, he removed, by permission, his piano and his
writing-table. And tolerated, nay, encouraged, by a musical and friendly
landlord, Ivan began to forget his recent care-infested, nervous days in
the labor of his love. Provided, on his arrival, with a glass of
_vodka_, and ending by eating there his noon-day meal, the young
composer, assured by his hosts that any obligations he might be under
were, by these purchases, quite repaid, would seat himself at instrument
or desk, and, in that curious compound of mathematical accuracy and free
flights of imagination that goes to make up music, forget himself and
his surroundings completely. Nor was he ever at a loss for material. At
this period, indeed, his brain was beset with far more ideas than could
ever properly be developed. For many weeks, indeed, he confined himself
to but two things: the overture, as a conscientious necessity; and a
tone-poem, in which, as an unconventional form, he might embody the best
of his vagrant fancies, and the rich, unlawful harmonizations wherein
already, fresh though he was from classical remonstrance, he delighted.
But when he found that the "day-dream" could not be made to contain half
his delighted ideas, he began to jot them down separately, and throw
them into the growing sheaf of manuscript which, by-and-by, was to be
worked into the shape of (oh whisper it reverently!) his first opera,
"The Boyar."
At the hour in which the young composer (sometime between half-past
twelve and one o'clock) habitually turned his steps away from the kindly
"Cucumber," his mood, likewise, automatically changed. From the
fanciful creator he became the pedagogue, the serious doctor of music,
whose mind was occupied chiefly by elementary exercises that should tend
to draw the incipient conceits of youth away from the alluring empty
fifth (a form in which his other self delighted), and the equally
insidious octave parallel. At times he advanced to laws of even greater
moment, and corresponding intricacy. For he took a genuine interest in
his pupils; and, in that first year of his teaching, carried his class
to surprising lengths, nor let them betray any evidences of
unthoroughness when they went trembling up to the examinations provided
by the great Anton himself, in the mid-year term.
Ivan's estimate of his pedagogic labors was very humble. But Nicholas
Rubinstein, who himself taught for nine hours daily, soon came to
appreciate the conscientious work of his subordinate, clearly
perceptible in the excellently trained classes who came up to him for
their monthly competition. And this satisfaction was soon substantially
expressed. Upon the formal opening of the new building of the
Conservatoire in December, Ivan found his salary increased by
twenty-five roubles monthly. Nor did he suspect what Nicholas went
through to obtain this favor; though he was not slow to notice the
change of manner which Anton of the jealous soul had already begun to
betray towards him.
The month succeeding the opening of the great, white building, was
replete with change. First of all, young Shrâdik departed for a
concert-tour, through Austria and Germany; and, though he and Gregoriev
parted most cordially, it was with a feeling of new freedom that Ivan
looked about him, when the persistent practiser of trills and runs was
gone to show the great world the results of meritorious study. Two weeks
later, came the welcome if astonishing news that Ivan, whose classes had
grown rapidly, was to have an assistant, in the person of young
Laroche:--his nearest friend in the Petersburg student days. And when
this young fellow replaced the violinist in the Rubinstein household,
Ivan felt the cup of his contentment full.
In many ways, indeed, this period was one of the happiest of Gregoriev's
career. It was at this time that he formed those several friendships
which stood him, in his after years, in such rich stead. Of the many
professional men who frequented Nicholas' society, one of the foremost
was Monsieur Kashkine:--he who afterwards did so much to make Ivan known
to his world. From the first these two young men took to each other with
the utmost congeniality. Next to the writer, Ivan's fancy locked itself
with that of bullet-headed, homely, great-hearted Balakirev: a man who
has been the inspiration of a dozen greater than he; who, for thirty
years a pillar of Russian music, has let his greatest ideas go to feed
the brains of those who have learned to stand towards him, as the public
towards themselves. Finally, there was young Ostrovsky, later one of the
great playwrights and librettists of the country; who, even at this
time, had come into popularity in Moscow through some of his lighter
comedies, and a farce or two, produced at the Little Theatre.--Of these
three men, not one who did not early appreciate the quality of Ivan's
few productions; and agree enthusiastically--behind Ivan's back--with a
prophecy made by Nicholas Rubinstein, which, had its subject heard it,
would have caused him to retire, stuttering with indignation. Never, in
truth, was young workman more modest than the Gregoriev of that day. But
he had the grace to appreciate his friendships, and to cling to them as
if he understood, even then, from what blackest depths of depression and
melancholy they were, by-and-by, to rescue him!
Looking back upon the early days of his musical life, it was, as a
matter of fact, to the occasion of the formal opening of the
Conservatoire that Ivan pointed, as marking the real beginning of his
prolific career. Yet, for years after that night, he could not recall it
without a twinge of bitterness. For, at the time, he was in the throes
of the first of his long series of disappointments:--the cutting
rejection of his symphony by the temporary director of the Petersburg
orchestra. The manuscript had been returned to him with a communication
which had caused stout Nicholas a penance for profanity; though even he
failed to surmise the part that two men had played in this insult to a
piece of work which, if crude in spots, was still far too magnificently
broad, too thoroughly original, to deserve half the criticism incited by
Ivan's former masters, Zaremba and Anton Rubinstein; to whom the
manuscript had been sent.
When these men came down to Moscow for the celebration of the opening of
their Conservatoire, neither one of them, probably, escaped some slight
twinge of conscience at the frank, deferential greeting given them by
their whilom pupil, whose slight pallor and weariness of expression
alone betrayed his sickening disappointment. But the two were relieved,
also, that no hint of their complicity in unjustice had leaked out; and
they played cheerful parts at the exercises and banquet which were to
mark the completion of their earnest labors for the scheme in hand.
At the dinner, which began at seven o'clock on the night of December 3d,
were the directors and one or two of the largest stockholders of the
enterprise; together with all the professors, and some dozen of Russia's
celebrated musicians and writers. The meal over, Anton Rubinstein,
originator of the plan, and Zaremba, his able co-adjutor, made brief
speeches. There were one or two impromptu replies; a little discreet
cheering; the customary toasts to the Czar and the persons and the
subject in hand; and then Ivan, carried out of his usual shyness,
proposed the health of the sister Conservatoire of St. Petersburg, which
was loyally drank. Afterwards, the same young professor, who had
unconsciously been the cause of the abandonment of the proposed concert
after the banquet--owing to Nicholas' unreasonable anger at the
rejection of his symphony--himself triumphantly saved the situation and
snatched the evening from the bonds of awkwardness already tightening
upon the guests, who knew that music in some form there must be, but had
no idea of how to compass it.
The present musical idol of the hour was Glinka; and Ivan, whose piano
practice had always been kept up, went quietly to the big Érard which
stood lonesomely upon the platform at the end of the hall, opened it,
seated himself, and dashed into the brilliant overture to "Russlan and
Ludmilla": playing with such verve and spirit that, ere he finished,
every man in the room had gone to augment the group around the
instrument, and Ivan had his audience worked up to any pitch of
appreciation.
Refusing every demand for an encore, Ivan rose, in the midst of a little
babel of "_Bis!_" and, taking the _virtuoso_ of the world by the arm,
led him to the piano. Well repaid, it seemed, in that moment, for the
disappointment he had lately had to endure. For every face about him was
alive with friendliness and admiration for him and his tact.
Rubinstein played well, that night; for it was one of those rare
occasions when he let himself go for his friends; and such technique and
feeling as he could display will scarcely be known in the world again.
When this was over, and nine-tenths of the company had gone, a chosen
few made their way to Nicholas' apartment, where they sat down to a
convivial little supper, at which, before them all--Kashkine, Balakirev,
Laroche, Serov, Siloti, Darjomizky, and, lastly, Monsieur Gounod, who
had not been present at the earlier festivities, Anton Rubinstein lifted
his glass on high and proposed the health of his young friend Gregoriev,
in terms before which Ivan would gladly have fled, had it not been for
the shouts of approbation and affection that held him immovable,
red-faced, choking, quite unable to reply.
* * * * *
Christmas, and the festivities of the new year, approached, proving to
Ivan a time drearier than usual, in the face of his dying hope of an
answer to the letter written, so long before, to his father, in the old
house in the Serpoukhovskaia. One, faint, unfounded expectation,
ridiculous though he felt it, Ivan had retained. As week succeeded week,
he came to connect Christmas Day with a message, a note, a word, of some
sort, from Prince Michael. Afterwards, looking back to his absolute
faith in an event which he had no sort of reason to expect, it seemed as
if some lost presentiment had found a mistaken home with him; for he
actually spoke to Rubinstein of his visit to his father on that day, as
a fact assured. Therefore, when, on Christmas morning, his
fellow-lodgers, together with a gay little party of intimates, set off
for the Slaviansky Bazaar, where they would literally spend the day at
table, Ivan answered the friendly urging to join them by a resolute
refusal. It was only when they had left the house, that Nicholas
explained his protégé's reason for remaining behind; nor so much as
hinted at his secret doubts, or the fact that he had left a cold
luncheon spread on the kitchen-table, in case the mysterious Prince
should not, after all, send for his son.
When he was left alone, Ivan installed himself at a window of the
living-room, whence he could miss no one who should approach the house,
either on foot or driving. He had, for company, the last of Gógòl's
semi-tragic satires; and the first hour or two of his wait passed
pleasantly; the unwonted silence in the rooms being a positive relief.
After a time, however, his own thoughts began to intrude themselves
violently upon the endless argument between Vassily Vassilyitch and the
Staroste. So, turning reluctantly from the window, he set himself to
work out some problems in his favorite card game, "yerolash": a Russian
form of whist; which, despite constant practice, he continued to play
very badly. For some time mathematical feats absorbed him. When, at
last, he finished his third puzzle, Ivan Veliki was booming out the
third quarter after twelve. Rather drearily, he lounged across to the
piano. But to-day there was no music in the heart which, on the
contrary, was growing, minute by minute, more heavy and more sad.
Finally, thinking unhappily of the innumerable joyous feasts now
beginning throughout the city--for late mass would be ended everywhere
by now--he sat down alone to the cheerless meal which, poor though it
was, but for Rubinstein he would not have had at all.
It was nine o'clock that night before the revellers, weary with overmuch
cheer, returned. But the extra twinkle in Rubinstein's gay eyes, and the
joyous grin on the flushed face of Laroche, disappeared when, lighting a
candle to guide them through the darkened antechamber, they entered the
living-room to find Ivan supine on the divan, sunk into a heavy slumber,
the mottled white and red of his stained cheeks betraying a secret never
afterwards referred to by his kindly discoverers. For Ivan's persistent
faith had come to naught. Michael Gregoriev still denied his son.
The following week of holiday was long enough, and Ivan passed his days
in complete, brooding idleness. But when, at last, on the noon of
January 3, 1867, he returned to his classes at the Conservatoire, the
young professor set to work with the air of one determined to kill
every thought, every memory, of everything save the task of the hour;
nor, henceforth, to give place to the slightest suggestion of regret or
expectancy.
His fury of work lasted long. Day by day Nicholas Rubinstein watched for
some sign of abatement: some lessening of the hours of labor: some
little indulgence in the way of ordinary recreation. In vain. Ivan took
barely time enough to satisfy his hunger: slept six or seven hours a
night; and was at the piano alike when his companions appeared in the
morning, and when they bade him good-night in the late evening. Not only
did his hours for his own work increase, but he voluntarily added to his
work at the Conservatoire, where he now remained from one until six,
instead of till half-past four, as stipulated in his contract. And well
did Nicholas understand that this was not done for extra money. Indeed
Ivan had at first begged to relieve his chief of some of his younger
pupils without remuneration of any kind: a suggestion which Nicholas was
far too generous to permit. Instead, he remonstrated, earnestly, at
Ivan's taking upon himself this extra amount of work; for, while
teaching was his own forte, Ivan's nature, as he well knew, was capable
of higher things. But by March such discussions had long since been
dropped: and Rubinstein's whole anxiety now was to note in the youth the
first signs of inevitable breakdown, that his illness might be taken in
time.
Only Ivan himself, of all their little group, was satisfied with his own
condition. But none of the others knew how deep and how lasting had been
the disappointment of his father's silence; or that this misfortune,
coming on the heels of the rejection of his symphony, had thrown him
into one of those protracted fits of depression, new now even to him,
but which were to become familiar to and dreaded by all who cared for
him. He kept himself in a constant state of exhaustion, mental and
bodily, in order that sleep should be possible to his idle hours. At the
same time, he was frequently under the Creator's exaltation: the deep
delight of one who knows the quality of that which he is doing, and is,
for the moment, satisfied therewith. And the climax of this
ecstasy--than which there is nothing finer known to man--came when, on
the evening of March 29th, he carried to his room, from the little
parlor of the "Cucumber," one more finished manuscript--that of his
tone-poem, "Day Dreams," which had been written, rewritten, added to,
cut, polished and rounded off till its author knew that not a note, not
a rest, not a mark of expression could be altered now by him. He knew
also, in his secret soul, that this was good work--far the best, in
fact, that he had ever done. For, for weeks and months, the theme had
held possession of him, and he had put the best of himself into his
subject. Indeed, hurt by the accusation, made in the rejection of his
symphony, of hasty and careless writing, he had worked over his new
piece as he was never to work upon anything again. Indeed its great
fault in the eyes of its admirers to-day, the single one agreed upon by
every critic that has ever understood and loved Gregoriev's work, is
that this alone, of all his creations, is over-polished: faultily
faultless.
That night, for many hours, Ivan sat at the desk in his room, poring
over his beautifully written manuscript, gloating over it, glorying in
the mere texture of the paper sheets; knowing well that they represented
the best and the highest that lay within him; and that the expression
was almost worthy of the conception. Next morning, still acting
secretly, dreading, in his peculiar modesty, possible over-praise from
those who might be prejudiced in his favor, he despatched his precious
bundle to Petersburg, addressed to his old critics and masters, Zaremba
and Anton Rubinstein. With it went a brief note requesting, humbly,
that they examine it and send him their opinion of its worth. Then, with
a long sigh, half of relief, half of sorrow that he had lost the
companion of so many months, he settled down to put certain lazy,
finishing touches to his overture, (already accepted by the Moscow
orchestra); to sleep as he would; and dream, delightfully, as only the
true artist can, of his forthcoming task: his opera, "The Boyar." And
yet, despite the joys of resting his tired body and yet more tired mind,
his contentment was not complete. For each succeeding day increased the
restless impatience with which he awaited his letter from Petersburg.
* * * * *
At eight o'clock on the evening of April 7th Anton Rubinstein, in the
living-room of his luxurious Petersburg suite, was sitting at his piano,
where, spread out before him, were some sixty sheets of finely-written
manuscript music:--a piano score. The master was playing from it,
contemplatively, a swinging, swaying minor melody, interwoven with an
intricate and rich accompaniment. He had reached a pause, betokening
some change of _tempo_ or key, when the portières were pushed
noiselessly aside, and a servitor in livery appeared, announcing:
"The Herr Direktor!"
At once Zaremba, tall, angular, round-shouldered, his fluffy reddish
hair and side whiskers looking thinner and fluffier than ever, entered,
throwing the garments which he had refused the footman down upon one end
of a long, Turkish divan.
Then the new-comer advanced, deliberately, to the piano, halted in the
side angle of the instrument, and returned the long, white-faced stare
with which Rubinstein greeted him. Finally the head of the Conservatoire
uttered a dry:
"Well?"
The _virtuoso_ shook the long hair back from his face, cleared his
throat, and murmured, hesitating, peculiarly, after each word: "The
thing--has--several--good points."
"Points!" Zaremba croaked, scornfully. "Points!--It's a masterpiece!"
Anton Rubinstein sprang to his feet, oversetting the piano-chair in
which he had been sitting. "Well--what if it is?"--pacing rapidly up
and down.--"What if, by accident, it happens to be--remarkable? The
fellow's a boy--a mere child--in his trustfulness!--And he's never done
anything like this--before.--It'll turn his head, completely--if he
learns the--this opinion, of yours. Besides, he'll believe exactly what
we tell him. And--and--"
"And he might suddenly turn _virtuoso_; in which case Monsieur
Rubinstein--the _gr-r-reat_ Monsieur Rubinstein--would, at all points,
be rivalled!" finished Zaremba, with a dry, malicious grin.
Rubinstein stopped perfectly still, and maintained a quivering silence
till the speech was concluded. But his two hands were clinched, so that
the nails turned suddenly blue. Zaremba, seeing this, was about to make
an explanation in a very different key, when Anton, in the harsh
raucousness that serves one who is restraining violent profanity, almost
whispered: "You will have the goodness, then, Monsieur Zaremba, either
to send me, in the morning, reparation to the amount of--or stay! shall
we, after all, publish those little letters from your friend the Lady of
the Dyna--"
"Good God! Anton! Surely, surely I'm too useful to you!--Surely you
understood my little joke, did you not?--Bah! This whiffet of a
Gregoriev! Why, if his stuff contains anything of any value whatever, he
has stolen it all from what he has seen of your unpublished
works!--I--I--"
Rubinstein burst into a peal of laughter; and yet, well as he understood
all that this bald flattery stood for, it pleased him:--pleased him,
coming from a man whom, years before, in a fit of unwonted generosity,
he had saved from usury and blackmail: from one of those Jews who, then
as now, infested Petersburg and terrorized men of standing from the very
imperial family down. Anton had bought Zaremba's wretched debt, and the
half-dozen innocent love-letters from a young girl who afterwards became
an active Nihilist. And yet Anton Rubinstein, genius, jovial winer and
diner, victim of the devils of envy and jealousy, had actually stooped,
more than once, to threaten blackmail to the man whom he knew, in his
heart, to have been guilty of nothing more than a week's unfortunate
gambling, and an early attachment to a girl who had not returned his
affection in kind!
Once more, as usual, the pianist won his point; but it took two hours
before he would allow Zaremba, his remnant of a conscience once more
deadened by the combined forces of Rubinstein's magnetism, covert
threats, and golden wine, to leave.
The result of their talk bore immediate fruit. Late in the afternoon of
the 11th, Ivan Gregoriev sat once more at his bedroom table, and very
slowly, with white face and hands that shook, drew from his coat-pocket
the letter which he had received at the post-office half an hour before,
but had been unable to open on the way. Now, after a moment's fumbling,
he cut the envelope, took out the effeminate sheet of note-paper, and
began to read. Second by second his face changed. The letter was not
long; yet before he reached the signature his face had twice flushed
scarlet, and twice gone deadly pale.
It was a half-hour before his door was opened, after a dozen unanswered
knocks, and the room invaded by Nicholas Rubinstein. He beheld his
favorite thrown forward across a table, from which an overturned
inkstand dripped its contents, unnoticed, to the floor. The new-comer
never paused for this; for his eyes had fallen on the letter, crushed in
one of Ivan's out-stretched hands; and then he gazed upon the body which
he perceived to quiver, from time to time, with half-conscious,
reminiscent sobs.