STUDENT'S FOLLY
Morning, with its usual mood of depressed calm, brought with it, for
Ivan, a pessimistic disbelief in the reality of the recent midnight
scene. Nevertheless he had curiosity enough remaining to cause him to
hurry through his dressing and then run out to buy all the papers of the
day. The result was that by the time Sósha appeared with the early
samovar, Ivan was in the clouds again. Buoyancy had set every nerve to
tingling; and the elation of the knowledge that success had actually
come, quivered from him like a rosy aura.
Beyond doubt, "The Boyar" had at last opened to Ivan the long-locked
door of recognition. No Russian opera, it seemed, "Russlan and Ludmilla"
possibly excepted, had gone home to the hearts of the Russian people as
had this piece of youthful work, which, though its merit was perfectly
genuine, was by no means free from faults. At the opera-house itself,
every one, from the Menschikov to Merelli and the chorus, was in a state
of beaming delight. Already Madame Pervana and the august Limpadello
himself had gone quietly to the Signor Impresario with the suggestion
that possibly, after all, the parts of Marie Vassilievna and the Boyar
were suited to their respective talents; and that it was a pity to allow
Russian musical progress to be intrusted to such well-meaning but
incompetent persons as the second soprano and tenor.
To the indignation of the prima-donna, however, the Menschikov, who, in
the end, had risen to no small heights in her interpretation of the
hapless Marie, was allowed to retain the rôle. But Ivan had the relief
of seeing Finocchi of the hopeless ear replaced by Limpadello, through
whom the quartet was now firmly united and became the sensation of the
whole, sensational piece.
In the eight weeks of January and February, the opera was given eleven
times. During the latter month the St. Petersburg company began to
rehearse it; and at the end of March, on the Monday after Easter--one of
the great nights of the year--Ivan and Ostrovsky sat together in a
stage-box, watching the delight of one of the most magnificent audiences
ever assembled in the Grand Theatre. The performance was as faultless as
a performance can be made; and, as a final compliment to the composer,
his own "nature ballet" was performed, with Mademoiselle Ellsler, who
had come from Vienna for the purpose, in her already famous _pas seul_
of the Butterfly. Before the last curtain descended, Ivan had been
forced upon the stage beside his companion, to respond to the frantic
plaudits of the men and women who, a few years before, had turned from
Ivan Gregoriev as from one accursed.
After the opera there was still a long and hilarious supper, given by
Merelli, to be endured; and when, an hour or two before dawn, Ivan
finally reached his rooms, he found upon his table a sealed envelope,
unaddressed. Opening it, there fell to the floor a packet of notes for
two thousand roubles, together with a little slip of paper containing,
in his father's writing, the words:
"You have deserved this; but I do not wish to see you."
The wish was obeyed. But the money, after some hesitation, Ivan spent.
Final success after long and bitter waiting is apt to prey curiously on
the human character. Ivan took his oddly enough. His intimate
friends--the only people to whom hitherto he had showed common civility,
became first amazed, then chagrined, finally infuriated, by his sudden
change of front. By swift degrees he ceased his intimacy with them all:
Laroche, Kashkine, Balakirev, nay, Nicholas himself. And by mid-April he
found himself scarcely on speaking terms with one of them.
Angered, hurt as these men were, they naturally put Ivan's behavior down
to a sudden turning of the head. One only of them all, and he, had they
but known it, the most deeply hurt, failed to censure, and guessed at
something like the truth: that the young man, suddenly weary of his long
term of unceasing labor at his profession, was seeking temporary
playmates from another sphere.
In this spring of 1868, Ivan was nearly eight-and-twenty years of age.
In knowledge of the gray and ugly sides of life, he was twice as old.
Only in experience of the frivolities of existence was he deficient, his
education there having been cut off in its heyday. It was towards this,
then, towards young companionship and youthful pleasures, that his heart
turned with irresistible longing. His former associates and their dry
discussions and pursuits, the round of petty rivalries, the continual
life of the shop, tortured his nerves. Music itself, his great goddess,
became unworshipful, wearying to his very soul. Thus, repudiating her in
a night, he set forth in all the glory of a cleansed record and a full
pocket, to hunt for pleasure. His Conservatoire classes he changed from
afternoon to morning; and, though he taught abominably, Nicholas kept
the dire red notice from him by doing much of his work over after him,
that he might be free for once to laugh with the spring.
The quarter to which Ivan turned for his recreation would have
surprised his comrades not a little; and young Laroche would curtly have
denied the truth that he had been responsible for his colleague's type
of amusement. Nevertheless it was he who had been responsible for
bringing Irina Petrovna and her brother to Ivan's rooms on the night of
the opera, inspired, rather maliciously, by some faint memory of the old
court-martial proceedings, and the long intrigue deduced by every one
between Ivan and the girl. That night, after Ivan's recovery from his
fainting-fit, Irina's brother, Sergius, had, on request of the young
composer, given Ivan the address in the student quarter where he and his
sister were living. Old Petrov was dead. Irina had freed herself long
ago from her Petersburg connections; and now she was keeping up two
rooms on ten roubles a month, while her brother finished his medical
course at the university.
On the morning after the opera, brother and sister discussed the vague
possibility of Ivan's visiting them. Irina had no difficulty in hiding
from Sergius just how much the hope meant to her; but there was no idea
of concealing the same thing from herself. As the days passed and Ivan
did not come, she grew almost frightened at her own disappointment,
discovering only now, perhaps, that there could never be any other man
in her life who could make her feel the extremes of emotion. In two
weeks she had gone through every stage from eager expectation to apathy;
and then, suddenly, during the last, vague flicker of dying hope--he
came; and her life grew red again. She was even content that he should
evince most interest in men--her brother and the fellow-students that
thronged their rooms at all hours. Of these, one and all regarded the
visitor as a great and wealthy personage; and yet none could long remain
unfriendly before the gay simplicity which speedily made Ivan as one of
them. By rapid degrees their intercourse became intimate; and Ivan
believed that their minds, their dreams, their trials, were as open to
him as his to them. If they were not, if their secret hopes and the
all-powerful reason for their community spirit remained sedulously
concealed, this was, in truth, still greater proof of their friendship
for him; for there were few of the hated upper class that they would
have scrupled to use in their own way for their own purposes.
It was odd, perhaps, that Ivan never perceived how often his entrance
into their rooms stopped or turned the conversation; though perhaps much
personal sacrifice had been made for that meeting. They had all come to
be proud of the young composer's fondness for them; and they held a
tacit agreement that he should never, through them, be placed in danger.
For, though Ivan saw it not, the shadow of the rope, or of the distant,
frozen, Siberian mines, hung over this little band of youths by day and
by night, sleeping and waking. He had fallen upon the very centre of the
first students' brotherhood: an alliance formed a few years before,
during that unique revolution of Russian youth which resulted in the
birth of Nihilism.
It was about the year 1860, when the question of abolition was shaking
the Bear from head to tail, that this unique movement began. By some
obscure trait of national heritage, there sprang up, almost at the same
hour, through the mediæval gloom that still enveloped Peter's Empire, a
thousand points of unwonted light. They were to be found burning at once
in the twilight of isolated manors and the midnight of the serf's hut:
in the city palace, and its neighboring tenement. Yet they sprang up
among one class only--the young men and the young women of the race. The
light was the light of intellectual desire for education, for science;
and by it all Russia was presently set ablaze. In the history of mankind
there is to be found no such tale of bloodless civil war as here. Young
men and delicately nurtured girls were casting off every tradition of
class, of custom, of convention, assuming the right to go forth freely
to the universities, to study: willing, nay, glad, to renounce not only
the luxuries but the comforts, almost the bare necessities of existence,
they assumed the burden of dogged labor under almost unbearable poverty.
Finally, bitterest of all, came the breaking of love-forged chains;
the piteous, fruitless struggle of children to explain their
position to their parents, members of that older generation who
could not understand, who would not yield, who capped defeat by
disinheritance.--Such were the battles of this war; such the sudden
marvellous development of higher education in Russia.
Many were the virtues of this little army of youths and maidens. They
worked together in perfect harmony of theory and practice. There was
honor among the men; there was faith among the women. The wonderful
history of Sonya Kovalevsky, delicate daughter of a noble house, who
became the first woman to occupy a university professorship in Europe,
was repeated a thousand times with humbler results. Nor have there
failed to linger innumerable stories of those _mariages de
facilité_--levers used simply to force the freedom of some too
well-guarded aspirant for knowledge. And all of the young men married,
in an hour, to girls whom they had never before seen, not ten, perhaps,
failed in giving chivalrous protection, or ever took the possible, cruel
advantage of this last, desperate ruse to escape the fettering
guardianship of parentage.
But unhappily, though scandal scarcely raised its head among the sincere
members of the youthful army, other ills as far-reaching and even more
dangerous began soon to sow seeds of evil and of suffering among them.
For out of the fermentation arising among these isolated bands, came the
bitterest drink that Russia has had to swallow. Poverty, alienation,
the common cause against a common enemy--how should it not breed
socialism? That established, where find a lack of bolder spirits to take
the short step into downright anarchy? Whether it was Turgeniev or
Lermontoff who first interpreted this infant Credo, what matters it? As
in a night, lo! on every lip was the dread word that was destined to be
blazoned in bloody letters at the head of the next and grimmest chapter
of all Russian history: Nihilism.
Indeed, indeed, had these young men and women found their little
knowledge a deeply dangerous thing! Too quickly they perceived the
imperfections of their government, the corruption rife among the
officials of every class. And bitter was their reproach. The question to
them seemed simple. To correct this, at once and forever, dig up the
very soil in which the corruptive roots expanded--here was the way, the
only way. And immediately there followed pamphlets and articles. Secret
meetings, propagandist organizations, flooded the land. And the red flag
was everywhere raised and acknowledged as the student symbol.
It was down upon the southern bank of the Moskva that the three or four
thousand students of the Moscow University formed their colony, taking,
as it were, communal possession of that narrow neighborhood. There
Sergius and Irina dwelt, in circumstances a little better than those of
their friends. They kept the rent of their rooms paid; and, moreover, it
was a rare thing for a starving youth to drop in on them and find their
samovar cold, or their welcome unready. Sergius was himself, indeed, the
heart and soul of his branch of the brotherhood; and from him had
emanated none knew how many screeds and pamphlets upon his favorite
theme. Irina, relying on him as the last protector of her family,
questioned none of his plans, but found in his manner of life much that
delighted her Bohemian soul.
Now, into their unstable existence, came Ivan; and over him brother and
sister had their first dispute: Irina her first victory. True, Sergius
knew, and was to know, nothing of his sister's past acquaintance with
the composer, or what a debt he, as a brother, owed Ivan. In his eyes
Gregoriev was simply a man of the world, unknown to the police, and,
therefore, a valuable tool. After that first visit to their rooms,
Sergius unfolded to Irina his purpose for the use of her evident
admirer, which, to his utter amazement, the girl vehemently opposed. By
what tortuous way she managed in the end to reach his deeply hidden
scruples, who can say? Suffice it that, shortly, word went round to the
effect that this one guest of the Quarter, though he was to be accorded
privileges of comradeship, must remain a stranger to the inner
significance of the prevalent red flag. Whereupon Irina, breathing
freely, entered, for a few weeks, into the Kingdom.
The brief chapter of Ivan's life in the student quarter proceeded
merrily to its dramatic close; and, until that close, Ivan remained
utterly oblivious of his or the others' danger.
It was in the first week of the queen of months--the May-time, that
Gregoriev took it into his head to return the oft-repeated, meagre
hospitality of the Akheskaia, by giving a birthday supper to Sergius, on
the night of the 10th. The idea had been born in him through some
mention of the date by Irina, and a casual regret that their recent
contribution towards Burevsky's new chemical outfit must preclude any
hope of even the simplest celebration. Whether her speech had been
ingenuous or not, it did not occur to Ivan to inquire, so pleased was he
at thought of an opportunity of doing something for his new friends at
last. Certainly Irina's finished suggestion accomplished its purpose to
perfection; for, within three days, the affair was under way and the
invitations accepted to a man--and one damsel.
It came as a surprise and an unpleasant one that news of this modest
festivity should have gone abroad; but that the fact should be objected
to, and that by persons unknown as well as known, was as annoying as it
was preposterous. Four days before the affair, Ivan went through a
highly unpleasant scene with old Nicholas Rubinstein, who came to beg
him to give up his acquaintance in the Akheskaia, and remained to
beseech, with an earnestness a trifle startling, that he would, at
least, put off this supper. When finally his defeated friend had gone,
though he had preserved towards him a courtesy that was as admirable as
it had been cutting to old Nicholas, Ivan sat down to his piano feeling
troubled at heart, uneasy in mind. Nor were either of these feelings
lessened when, a quarter of an hour later, old Sósha, after some
unintelligible parley at the door with a being unknown, came limping in
to his master bearing two notes--notes that bore no post-mark, but were
both tightly sealed. The first was clear enough:
"Let Ivan Gregoriev go to the records in his father's office and
verify the day of Sergius Lihnoffs birth.--November 19, 1844. Let
him also see whether the story of the attempted murder of
Guttenrog, at Kiev, in July 1861, is not to be found upon the same,
or the next, page. Monsieur Gregoriev should be better acquainted
with the guests whom he honors by his invitations.
"ONE WHO KNEW SOPHIA IVANOVNA."
As his eyes traversed the last line, Ivan trembled a little, and grew
suddenly faint. His mother's name!--How long ago since he had heard
it.--His mother!--His mother's name used in a denunciation?--Faugh! It
was a trap. Nevertheless he sat rigid, frowning, lost in thought, for
many minutes before he lifted the other missive, addressed this time in
a hand that seemed vaguely familiar.
"DEAR FRIEND,--You do too much for those who deserve nothing at
your hands. Serge and I cannot repay you for your kindness; but we
need not be too greatly indebted to you. It is my fault that you
are to give this supper. It is I who ask you to give it up.--I
implore you, Ivan Mikhailovitch, give it up; or, if it must be,
change the date from Thursday to Sunday--and change it at the last
minute. Also, if you pity me, do not show this to Serge, or to any
one we know.
"Ivan, I wish to help you. Believe that, and accept the sincere
compliments of
"IRINA PETROVNA."
Three times did Ivan read this curious note, meditating the while on the
reason for the obvious fear in which it was written. Certainly the
easiest way to discover her reason, was to talk to her alone. If he went
down to the Quarter, could he manage a _tête-à-tête_?--If not, could he
not take her for a walk--out for tea? Any of a hundred little ruses
would serve him. Yes, he would go! And, springing up, he ran to his
bedroom to dress.
Ten minutes later he opened the outer door of his apartment. As he
stepped out upon the landing, he twisted his foot in a sudden effort to
avoid stepping on a white envelope that had been pushed half-way under
the door.
So there were more of them!
Laughing, a little sardonically, Ivan picked up the letter and turned
back into his living-room again. The envelope of this missive, unlike
the others, bore only his name, not the address. Within, it was undated,
unsigned, and began abruptly:
"Monsieur Ivan Mikhailovitch Gregoriev, of whom, politically, the
government as yet knows no wrong, is nevertheless respectfully
warned against further association with the students of the
brotherhood in the Akheskaia. Let Monsieur Gregoriev assure himself
of the character of his associates before proceeding with an
intimacy which the government will be unable long to overlook.
"K. by order of M.--O. G. I."
"M., Official Government Inspector!"--here, at last, was
tangibility.--And yet--the seal? The great, red, double-eagle, so long
familiar to him as dangling from the documents that were forever in the
hands of his father:--where was it?--Besides, the whole thing was
unofficial.--There was neither heading nor arms.--It was a hoax--a
trick--possibly of Laroche, or Ostrovsky, or some other of that formal,
jealous lot. They thought to drive him from his friendships by
malicious, anonymous calumny, then? calumny of a body of
poverty-stricken, half-starved men, working disinterestedly for the sake
of science,--ah! That was a generous thing to do!--As for Irina's
letter, well, she had all a woman's inconsistencies and whims. She had
got some silly notion of pride in her now. By Heaven! He would not even
go to see her. He would merely write a formal little note reminding her
of the date and the hour of his supper--six o'clock on Thursday evening.
And then, though all Russia, though the Czar himself forbade, he should
give Sergius his festival, or go to prison before the day.
* * * * *
Punctually, then, at the hour named, on Thursday, May 10th, there sat
down to the flower-strewn table in Ivan's rooms seven persons--six men
and one woman, they being all but one of the company asked. The chair
between Sergius and Féodor Lemsky was to have been occupied by Yevgeny
Burevsky, the young man who had been the recipient of those "scientific
instruments" for which the whole Quarter was still out of ready money.
It was Sergius himself who explained to their host that, ever since he
had received his outfit, Burevsky had been tirelessly working at his
chemistry. Thus, that afternoon, when his friends called for him on
their way to Ivan, they had found him just nearing the end of a long and
difficult experiment which could not be left. It should, he said, be
finished between half-past six and seven, upon which he would hasten
into his clothes and take a droschky at once for the house of his host.
If anything went wrong, however, he sent his sincere regrets and
apologies to Ivan, begging him to excuse an unpolished workman for his
seeming rudeness, and sending a thousand thanks for the kindness of the
invitation.
Sergius gave the excuse so pleasantly, in a manner so engagingly frank,
that Ivan readily accepted it, nor noticed how fixedly Irina was staring
down into her plate, while the four other young men sat in moody
silence, their faces--this their host did perceive--looking singularly
pallid and drawn.
Calling out for more candles and champagne--which were brought by two
footmen, hired, for the occasion, to serve the dishes which old Sósha
and the neighboring pastry-shop between them had concocted,--Ivan,
seconded by Sergius, who was in high spirits, set himself to bring life
to his party. He found this unexpectedly easy. In fact, after a minute
or two, one might almost have said that the hilarity became a little too
boisterous, that the laughter almost bordered on the hysterical, that
the humor seemed rather blurred for this stage of the evening. Then,
_presto!_ the room was in a nervous hush, while Irina lifted a quivering
glass to the candle-light, and, in a voice not her own, proposed a
toast:--The complete success of Yevgeny Burevsky's experiment, and--and
his speedy appearance among his waiting friends.
Ivan heard a breath, indrawn, run round the table like a hiss, and he
turned his eyes rather sharply on the girl as Sergius cried out:
"Come, are you all asleep?--Bottoms up--to Yevgeny's--success! May it
fulfil his highest hopes--and--ours!"
"Thank you, your wish is answered," came a voice from the doorway.
Irina gave a hoarse scream, and her glass, with its untouched contents,
dropped upon the table. Every man had started from his seat; but only
Ivan went forward, hands out-stretched, to greet the young fellow who
now came into the circle of light. He was carefully dressed, his blue
coat buttoned tightly below a well-laundered shirt, a crush hat held in
his hand, one lock of jet-black hair fallen over a forehead no more
bloodless than his lips, while out of his ghastly face gleamed a pair of
gray-green eyes that shone with a fixed brilliancy. One look at him, and
Ivan was exclaiming, anxiously:
"Yevgeny Alexandrovitch,--you're ill! My God, man, you should be in
bed!--come, sit down!"
But Burevsky laughed--hoarsely. "No, no. You will give me the best
medicine: a meal--company--a glass of wine. I've--I've been
working!--Sergius told you--?"
He broke off, waving a listless hand towards his friend. Ivan, touched
with pity, asked no more questions but led him to the table and seated
him; nor heeded, as he sent a servant for _vodka_, Burevsky's quick
glance round the board, and his low-voiced "All well."
A moment later, and the room was echoing to the rattle of knives and
forks and a conversation which, though lighter than before, was still
fitful and rather feverish in its rapid change of topic. It was the talk
of men keyed to an unbearable state of anticipation. Sergius presently
called Irina to sing Marie's song of the stirrup-cup from "The Boyar";
and fourteen hands applauded wildly as she smilingly climbed upon her
chair, and, holding the replenished glass in her right hand, began one
of the most successful solos in Ivan's opera.
She sang unaccompanied; but accompaniment was not missed. Save for her
voice, the room was absolutely still. Even Yevgeny, who had finished his
_zakouski_ and liqueur, pushed his broth away to listen undisturbed; and
the footmen, with a change of plates, stole about the room on tiptoe.
Irina's voice, nearing the climax of the solo, soared higher and fuller;
while Ivan, with sparkling eyes, awaited the moment when he should lead
the others into the rousing chorus that terminated the song. At that
moment there came a sudden trampling of heavy feet on the stairs
without, followed by a loud knock at the door, which, speedily thrown
open by Sósha, disclosed an officer and three gendarmes who, following
the sound of the singing, presently halted on the dining-room threshold,
evidently surprised at the scene before them.
Irina's voice broke off on an upper note, but she remained on her chair,
petrified by some powerful emotion that singularly resembled terror. Her
brother and his friends were, less conspicuously, in the same state. But
Ivan proved himself admirable. Rising, quietly, he went forward, and
asked, in a voice of mingled surprise and dignity:
"Who are you, may I ask? and what can your errand be with me or with my
guests?"
The sergeant, after another long look around the room, consulted a paper
in his hand and asked, slowly:
"You are Monsieur Ivan Gregoriev?"
"I am."
"There are others here?"
"You see them."
"These are all, then?"
"I have two hired waiters and my own old servant in the kitchen."
"It's not them we want.--What are the names of these persons?"
"What right have you to ask? This house--"
"I am an officer in the service of the Czar. If you refuse to answer me
I must take you forcibly before the court.--Give me the names of these
men."
Ivan turned a piteous face towards his friends, and, in an instant,
Sergius said, quietly: "Certainly give our names, Ivan. There is no
reason for withholding them." Nor did either Ivan or the officer
perceive that this young man was holding Irina, now lying back in her
seat, from unconsciousness simply by the power of his eyes, or that he
had grasped Burevsky's hand under the cloth and was keeping him from
self-betrayal by the pure force of contact.
Meantime the officer was writing the names, occupations, and domiciles,
of every one present, at Ivan's dictation; and, as each was given, he
looked it out from a list in his small, black note-book, and checked it
off. This over, he resumed his general questions:
"At what hour did these students arrive in your rooms?"
"I am not certain.--A few minutes--perhaps fifteen--before six."
"_Before_ the hour?"
"Oh yes. We had to wait for Ivan Veliki to stop striking as I was
calling out an order to my servant."
"Are you sure that they were all here then?"
Only now, for the first time, a thought that was like a dagger-thrust
shot through Ivan. He wondered if the officer saw the color leave his
face. Nevertheless his hesitation had been imperceptible when he said,
quietly: "They all came in together."
The sergeant turned to his men and shook his head slightly. A few
muttered words passed between them, the men seeming to agree with their
superior. Then the officer once more faced Ivan, who stood waiting:
"Thank you, sir. You have saved your friends from suspicion.
Nevertheless I was forced to ask, because the entire Quarter is being
searched for the man who, at twelve minutes past six to-night, shot and
instantly killed Major Ternoff, assistant secretary of police, as he was
driving, in his open droschky, through the Pretchishlensky Boulevard,
from the public offices of justice towards his home." And, with a stiff
salute, the sergeant, followed by his three men, turned and left the
room and the apartment.
Mechanically Ivan closed the door upon them, and then stood staring from
the white-faced Sergius to Irina, now supported by a neighbor, who was
wetting her face with water from a goblet.
Presently, as if his thoughts had broken unconsciously into words, Ivan
muttered, in a low, expressionless voice: "Anarchy!--Murder!--Good
God--why didn't they make it my father?"
Then Burevsky rose slowly to his feet. "We all rejoice, Ivan, for and
with you, that it was not your father.--And you have saved
me--from--from a serious difficulty. If you had told them that I--that I
did not come with the others--"
Ivan gave the spectre of a laugh. "Your chemistry should have
served you, Yevgeny Alexandrovitch. Still--the lie--probably
prevented--annoyance--to you all. Ah, these Nihilists! What remarkable
fellows they--"
"Ivan, we will go now. Irina is recovering," interrupted Sergius,
gravely. To Ivan's dull surprise, the young fellow's eyes met his full
and honestly. Involuntarily Ivan shuddered; but a little of the
convulsive bitterness in his heart faded away. Nevertheless, he took a
curious advantage of the situation. Far from permitting the now
restlessly eager students to leave his rooms, he kept them there, and,
with them, the miserable Irina, till past midnight. Uncomfortable,
shame-stricken, afraid, as they were, they continued to sit at the table
of the man they had used, and to eat his food and drink his wine. Only
once Sergius ventured to turn to him, saying; "You do not eat.--This
_vol-au-vent_ is perfect."
But Ivan, turning his grave, black eyes on those of the speaker, made
answer:
"Pietr Ternoff was my mother's second cousin. He has dandled me on his
knee when I was a baby. Till I was too old for it, I drank my milk out
of the gold mug he sent me at my birth.--And Pietr Ternoff has been
murdered.--Am I to break bread--with you--to-night?"