JOSEPH
It was in the November of that same year--1870--that "Isabella" had its
initial performance, in Moscow, under Merelli. The original intention
had been to open the season with the new work. But, at the last moment,
the leader, despite his memories of "The Boyar," repudiated his promise,
deeming the honor too great for a Russian, and chose instead to present
his other novelty, Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette." Ivan, resenting the
act, promptly removed the score of "Isabella" to his own rooms; and it
cost the _impresario_ six weeks of persuasion and apology, besides a
thousand roubles' damages, before he could come to terms again with the
young composer, who, under Rubinstein's advice, was rapidly becoming
worldly wise.
In the end, the _première_ of the new opera was made under highly
auspicious circumstances; but, to the amazement of every one
concerned,--it being a far finer work than its predecessor,--"Isabella"
made only a moderate success. Ivan's style was still a matter of endless
discussion among the critics; and in the new opera he had let himself
out fully, repudiating all those Italian traditions which, at the time
of the composition of "The Boyar," still largely governed him. Time has
proved his wisdom, however; for, while to-day "The Boyar" is seldom
given, "Isabella" is a standard work in the _repertoire_ of every
opera-house of note in the white empire, besides having won laurels
both popular and critical in Paris and at Covent Garden.
Gregoriev bore this little disappointment far better than his friends
had feared. The long fit of depression, thoroughly broken by his attempt
at suicide, had not yet returned. The summer had been spent on a walking
tour through Finland, with Lechetizsky and Sérov and he came home full
of animal vigor. On his way back he had had a fortnight in Petersburg,
and there spent two evenings in the company of Nathalie and his aunt,
who was now suffering from a secret but probably incurable malady. The
ladies, while keeping him at rather formal distance, had none the less
shown genuine interest in him and his work; and he carried away one or
two very precious memories of her who still remained the one woman in
the world for him.
During the autumn he had done some excellent work; and confided to
Rubinstein his decision that opera was, after all, not his _métier_, but
that henceforth he should spend his time on orchestral forms, with the
exception of an occasional group of songs, for which he had a special
gift. Finland, with its stretches of pine forest and gray waterways, had
made a powerful appeal to his peculiar imagination; and the "Songs of
the North" form the first of his many tone-pictures of that country.
A week or two after his return to Moscow, he began to find himself
haunted by the memory of his aunt's face, which brought up inexplicably
vivid pictures of his beloved mother in the last year of her life.
Moreover, he had, in her presence, read upon the face of his beloved
lines of a soul-tragedy that was to bear him glorious fruit. For it was
actually at this time, through these means, when he was barely past
twenty-nine, that there was born in him the seed of that final effort of
his genius, to be dreamed over for twenty years, and finished only as
the shadow of death lengthened over him: his first faint vision of the
master-work to be known to the music-loving world as the Tosca Symphony.
Autumn, and the first fortnight of December, proved a busy, fruitful,
pleasant period to the workman, who was now well out of the heyday of
his twenties and glad to settle down to the steady harness-work of man
in his prime. He was beginning to be satisfied with the simple fact that
he himself was sure of his own powers; and it was more than he asked
when some incident showed how fully the outer world was beginning to
acknowledge him as one not to be judged by ordinary standards. Surely he
who has come to this at thirty has small right of complaint!
It was not often now that Monsieur Gregoriev, the professor who appeared
so worshipfully experienced to his pupils, allowed himself to reflect
upon the episode of the previous spring, when he had swallowed what he
believed to be a death-dose. Yet, in his inner consciousness, hovered
always the knowledge that he possessed a sure and unfailing refuge from
that terrible "Tosca" whence escape was certain only through extremest
measures.--Nor did the exquisite vision of the young Nathalie--his last
living remembrance of that black night--often leave him, sitting through
solitary evenings with pipe and samovar, quite unchallenged. Indeed
there were already times when it seemed as if he need hardly wait for
the excuse of the "Tosca" to turn refuge into indulgence.
Thus come we to the afternoon of the 18th of the holiday month: a gray
day, and a windy; and bitter, bitter cold; when all dreams of Christmas
cheer were frozen in the forming and replaced by some breath of the
shrivelling air. Ivan came in from his morning's work, partook of a
solitary luncheon, and was standing at his window, puffing at his pipe
and absently staring into the street, reluctant to turn to work. He had
been calculating, rather cynically, during his meal, on the meagre
returns paid by the world for any labor requiring the cream of thought
and talent: work priceless, indeed, so far as roubles went, but
comparing badly in actual recompense with mere, mechanical labor. The
subject still occupied him in its way, when his attention was drawn from
it to the behavior of the only person to be seen in that
little-frequented thoroughfare. This was a young man, clad in much-worn
sheepskins of the cheapest variety. His hands were uncovered--actually
bare, in an atmosphere of thirty degrees below zero! Little wonder that
Ivan's eye was caught by, and that it remained fixed on, that figure of
poverty. The stranger's gait was slow, and perceptibly unsteady. More
than once he halted, looking about him, vaguely, as if for some
resting-place. And yet, under his left arm, he was carrying, unwrapped,
a good-sized canvas.--Was he delivering it?--Or was he--Impossible! No
such person could be glorified by the title of artist! The questions
passed swiftly through Ivan's mind, and then were suddenly broken off.
As the youth came into line with Ivan's window, he reeled slightly,
caught himself, and then dropped upon the frozen walk, letting his
burden fall at his side, as his head sank into his arms.
Bah!--Only _vodka_, then. Some drunken artisan, who faced discharge on
the morrow. Ivan turned from the window; but quickly returned to it.
Vulgarly drunk the man might be. But even the fires of alcohol form
scant protection against such cold as reigned to-day. The man might be
frozen ere an officer perceived him. Moreover, as Ivan looked again,
something in the recumbent figure suggested the abandon rather of
despair than of debauchery.--An instant's hesitation. Then the watcher
caught up his own fur coat and cap, ran from the rooms, and, a moment
later, was bending over the lonely figure and placing a friendly hand
upon his shoulder.
There was a slight start. With an effort, the head lifted. Ivan was
gazing into a pair of clear, blue eyes, and realizing that there was no
taint of _vodka_ in the other's breath. Nay! That face spoke of very
different things. Youth was there, and hardship, and suffering, and
discouragement. More than that, the gaunt pallor of face and lips, the
sharp outline of jaw and cheek-bone, told of want, great and immediate.
They were signs that Ivan knew well. The fellow was in the final stages
of starvation.
In an instant, Ivan had lifted the canvas from the frozen snow, and was
helping the unhappy man to rise. When he spoke, his voice had the
tenderness of a woman's:
"My friend, you have been unfortunate! I am a worker myself, and have
needed help in my time. Come to my rooms with me. I am all alone; and
you must have rest and food."
"Food!" There was a note of elemental savagery in the weakened voice.
"Food!--My God! My God! Give me food!--My gloves only got me half a loaf
the day before yesterday--or--three days ago it was,--I think."
* * * * *
"Are you strong enough, yet? Are you sure you can?--You see, you've been
through a fearful ordeal."
Ivan spoke rather anxiously as, two hours later, he bent over the young
man, now lying on the divan in Ivan's living-room and looking even
whiter and wearier than before he had eaten the meal just finished.
But the stranger smiled; and at sight of that smile Ivan felt a thrill
of surprise. The eyes and features lighted up till the gaunt signs of
want were forgotten and the face looked like that of some cherubic boy.
It was a revelation so pleasant that a faint suggestion of
weakness--resembling the cloying after-taste of a saccharine
beverage--went, for the moment, unnoticed.
"I want to talk to you. You see, you're the only one that's done
anything for me.--You are an artist, too. I guessed it before you told
me.--But you can't have had the struggle I've had: everything against me
from the beginning: unknown, and terribly, terribly poor: ambitious, but
with no _chance_ for success!--But you've saved me--and my canvas. That
was the last thing I had to sell; and without it there was no hope."
"Paints and brushes and knives--what could you do without those? Were
they all gone?--You see, I've been pretty near where you are myself, in
the past."
It was a surprise to see the sudden look of petulance that crossed the
other's face. "Oh, my working-tools!--You see you can't understand. You,
of course, only need ink and paper. But we painters must have plenty of
implements to work with.--Why, I kept them and starved! Could I do any
more?"
Ivan shook his head, slightly puzzled. "You've had a very bad time of
it. If you feel able, tell me," he said.
The stranger elbowed himself a little higher, and took a mouthful of
wine and water from the chair beside him. Ivan settled close by,
cigarette in hand, facing him; and, during the hour that followed, his
thoughts never strayed. The tale he heard interested him deeply, stirred
his admiration, and, at the same time, vaguely troubled him. It was
evident enough that this boy had endured an experience from which only
indomitable determination of some sort could have brought him out.
Nevertheless, ever and again, came suggestions of egotism, selfishness,
love of luxury, that were naïve in their unconsciousness. But so foreign
were these things to Ivan's own simplicity of nature, that he ended by
repudiating his first doubts of the boy before him who had borne so
much.
"My name," began the youth, "is Joseph Kashkarin. I was born in Poland,
in the spring of 1848, just after we had moved from Lodz to the
outskirts of a little village near Chölm. All my life we have been
horribly poor. But my grandfather--I am of family, you see--was wealthy,
one of the first citizens of Lodz, but a fierce patriot. My father and
mother were married in that city, and lived there very well till the
uprisings against the Russians in 1847. My family had the folly to take
part on the side of the nation; and when the strikes were put down, my
grandfather was transported, my father exiled from the city, and all the
property confiscated. Thus, when I was born, we were as poor as the
serfs that were our neighbors; but we lived decently, because my mother
was a lady.
"Our village was on the estate of Ladiskowi: the country-seat of the
great family of that name. Before my birth, Prince Ladiskowi heard of my
father from our Staroste, and came to see him. After that we were
sometimes received at the castle--discreetly, of course, for even the
Ladiskowi were under the espionage of Russian spies. But the Prince
appreciated us, and wished to do more for us than our father permitted.
We had books always when we wished them; and my sister Marie learned to
play on a spinnet that they had up there, and had belonged, they said,
to the Leczinski themselves.
"I wasn't interested in spinnets. That castle held something better for
me. I can scarcely remember the time it first began; but I was not more
than seven when I told my mother one night what I was going to be. She,
I remember, hoped I would say a soldier, to fight for Poland when the
final struggle should come. But I had seen enough of patriotic ruin.
Besides," he went on, a little hastily, "I knew in my heart, even then,
that art is greater than all other things.--That's not cant, Ivan
Mikhailovitch! It's not hypocrisy!--Listen.
"Princess Ladiskowa had been the daughter of a noble artist; and she had
her father's love for form and color, though she didn't paint. Instead,
she filled the upper gallery of that old fortress with a collection of
pictures that would make any gallery in Europe famous. And she added to
it continually, until a quarter of all her husband's wealth hung in that
room.
"Those pictures were the things that drove me to this pass. I don't know
where my talent comes from; but I soon found out how much was in me. I
would sit in that hall by the day, looking, studying, puzzling out the
secrets of line, and color, and technique, and conception, in the
best--always the best, things, you understand; till I felt that I _must_
begin work myself. So I went to my father one day and asked him for
paints and pencils, brushes and canvas. At first he didn't believe in
me. But I begged so long that at last he sent to Chölm for a little
outfit, and I took them up to an empty room in the castle, where Marie
and I always played in winter, when the family were in Warsaw; and there
I worked in secret, at my picture."
Here Joseph paused to finish his wine, and then lay back rather wearily,
while Ivan replenished the glass. He was plainly exhausted again; and
his host, interested as he was, suggested that the tale be finished
later. Joseph, however, protested. He felt himself a trespasser both on
Ivan's time and on his charity. Yet he sorely needed help, and Ivan, if
he were to give it, must know all his history.
"It was spring, sir, when my first picture was finished; and I had come
to feel that the winter and my hopes were wasted. I was terribly
disappointed in myself; because I had never dreamed that imagination,
love of the work, and tremendous confidence, cannot produce finished
paintings. My father, though, had come to be interested in what I was
doing, and insisted on seeing what I had accomplished. I stood with my
back to him, sick with mortification, till I heard him whisper one word
of high praise. Then I found, to my amazement, that he was astonished at
my success.--I was only fifteen; nevertheless, I was furious, because,
you see, my portrait of my sister had not the qualities of the
Velasquez, the Guido, the David, or the little Vandyke that I had
worshipped, each in its turn.
"But from that hour my father became enthusiastic about my talent. He
grew as eager as I for the return of the Prince, in order to get his
advice about my future. We were both sure of his help and patronage when
he should arrive. But we could not know that my personal misfortunes
were to begin at once. It was August before the Ladiskowi came that
year; and they remained in the country barely two months. The Prince was
ill, and the Princess spent all her time in nursing him, till they
started for Baden to take the waters. We saw them scarcely at all. They
did hear of the picture, and the Prince sent for me to congratulate me.
But I was not alone with him for a moment, and so got no opportunity to
ask for help more useful than praises.
"When they went away, I knew I must wait another year for my chance. But
even that was not to be. For, next year, they did not come at all to the
castle. Prince Ladiskowi's illness had become incurable; but it took
terribly long to kill him, and he had to be kept in a higher, drier
climate. On his death, two years and five months ago, we found he had
left my father one thousand roubles, and firewood from his forests
forever. This money was left to _us_. Well then, saying nothing of the
wood, my share as eldest son was at least two hundred and fifty roubles.
With this I determined to set out for Moscow, enter the school of
painting, and work so hard that, by the time my money was gone, I could
sell pictures enough to support myself. Later, I believed I could send
for my sister, have her keep house for me, and perhaps give her piano
lessons, thus relieving my parents, who were all but destitute, now,
through the loss of their patron.
"When I spoke to them of my plan, they made some difficulties about the
journey and my life in a Russian city; but I waved them all away. They
offered me half the money then; but, though perhaps you will say it was
an artist's due, I wished to be more than fair, and did not take it. I
waited one week for my mother to prepare my clothes. My furs I left to
my father, since I could not carry them all the way in August weather;
but my first purchase in Moscow had to be this wretched coat and cap,
and some woollen gloves. You are amazed, I see. But, though it was only
August 18th when I left Chernsk, it was mid-October before I entered the
streets of this city of the enemies of my race. For alas! I am a Pole;
and the very sun that shines in Russia refuses to give me warmth.
"From Chölm to Moscow, by the straightest road, is thirteen hundred
versts. Not one step of this way did I go by train; and but a hundred or
two in passing carts. Twice, at Minsk and at Smolensk, I stopped and
worked for a week, till I had gained an extra rouble or two for food or
beds along the way. True, there was charity among the peasants; and I
found many a meal left on the window-ledge for wanderers. But the food
of convicts and beggars!--it was long before I, the son of a gentleman,
could touch it!--More than once, truly--Ah well, I suffered! I suffered
every fatigue, every hardship, that I might reach my destination with my
bag of roubles as little depleted as possible.
"Two terrible months of hunger and ceaseless fatigue!--Didst thou as
much for music, sir? But no. No. You are already an artist, and famous,
while I--oh, it is too much! God is not good!" And Joseph sat suddenly
up, excited by this remembrance of by-gone misery, forgetting the sudden
exhaustion so recently relieved. Two spots of red flamed in his cheeks;
and his blue eyes began to shine, feverishly:
"Who are those that succeed? Only the ones that have shelter for their
heads, clothes to keep them warm, food to give them strength to
work!--more; who can hire the right models, buy good paints, good
brushes, flawless canvases;--who can afford to study, to dream, to wait!
But to start at the very beginning--nay, with certain faults to
_unlearn_--and expect to win fame on a fortune of two hundred and fifty
roubles! Why, I _began_ in terror! My first talk with the professor at
the Institute showed me my situation.--And all the other students had so
much! They spent, in a day, an hour, what I stretched out to two weeks,
to a--a--"
Ivan sprang up, ran to the sofa, and caught the lean figure in his arms.
Kashkarin had wrought himself up to a wretched pitch. The last words had
been uttered in a tone high and wavering; and, as Ivan reached him, the
life left his body, his cheeks grew gray, his eyes dulled, his breathing
became fast and light. His rescuer plied him with weak _vodka_, chafed
his hands, bathed his temples, would have summoned a doctor, but that
Joseph soon began to revive, and in another twenty minutes seemed more
or less himself again. Indeed, he presently unclosed his eyes,
murmuring:
"I must go on, my friend. It is not long now.--Will you--hear me?"
And Ivan, who had become a little restless with his desire to get to
work, answered, after an instant's hesitation, in the affirmative.
"It took me a month to find a place where I dared stay; and it's taken
two years to find out just how horrible life can be. We had always been
poor enough; but at least I had had shelter, clothes, a bed, and food.
Here nothing comes naturally; and I could buy only two hundred and ten
roubles' worth of everything. One comfort I had. I was in the
art-school, free; and they thought I had talent, and was doing well.
When I worked I was happy; I could forget. But at the end of one year
they said: 'Two years more. Then you can begin to exhibit, and will have
the right to sell.' And now only one of those two years is gone; and--I
am here, _here_, alive only through charity!--No, do not speak! I must
tell you. I owe much money, for my rent, for food, for paints; and I was
carrying my last canvas back to the dealer's to-day, to ask him to give
me back half of what I paid for it. My room-mate, Wencislaus Wendt, has
done what he could for me. But the one who, in the beginning, did
most--who once helped us all in the Students' Quarter--Boris Lemsky--was
taken away in the first spring after I came. He was a university man;
but he was good to me. I owe him my life: everything I have. And now
they say that--what is it, Ivan Mikhailovitch?--Why do you look so? Do
you know what became of him?"
Ivan had bent his head forward on his arms. "Boris"--the voice was
muffled and unnatural--"Boris was shot through the heart, trying to get
to the rooms of Sergius Lihnoff, eighteen months ago."
"By--by whom?"
"The police."
"A--ah!--And his brother--Féodor?"
"In Siberia."
There was a moment's pause. Then, after a little, the youth said, dully:
"Yes, it is like Poland here. Only, in this country, it seems they kill
their own patriots.--Boris _could_ not have done a wrong!--Ah, Ivan
Mikhailovitch, my story has been no story. It hurts me too much to think
back through the last months. I fought with starvation, and lost. Now I
am here. I can do nothing; can be of no use. I am sick. I am tired. I
am discouraged. Better have died on the street before I was fed
again!--I can never go back to my family, to burden them with my
wretched existence--a failure added to failures.--I have in me the blood
of Titian--of Rubens--of Raphael! I see, I feel, I create! Color is life
to me: form is the bread of my soul! But I cannot get beyond my body.
Hunger and cold and fever--then all the visions go!--The soul of an
artist, mated with the existence of a serf!--Almighty God! Do me justice
at last, and free me from this useless torture of life!"
Once more carried beyond himself by this fragmentary outpouring of his
long and unsuccessful battle, Joseph sank back on his pillows, weak and
shaken, but evidently at the end of his confession.
Ivan was deeply moved; and in more ways than one. He pitied, profoundly;
yet he wondered at much in this ethereal, fair-haired youth that was
utterly foreign to himself.--He had had no more than Joseph to start
with; and he had not starved.--But what use in saying that?--Instead, he
returned to his chair, and sat lost in thought, rapidly adding, the
while, to the pile of cigarette stubs which were thrown upon the table
at his side. Joseph, meantime, lay still, watching him with weary
expectation, while the clock ticked slowly round the hour.
As distant Ivan Veliki boomed the half after four, and the increasing
echoes of _troika_ bells without, announced the advance of the
fashionable driving-hour, Sósha entered with tea, and lighted the big
table-lamp that presently mingled its soft radiance with the last
glimmer of the dead day. Then, when the old servitor had shuffled out,
Ivan rose, cigarette in hand, and, gazing down upon the stranger's white
face, said, gently:
"My brother, Russia has used you hardly. You must, therefore, let me,
not only a Russian, but also a fellow-workman, a lover of art, try to
make amends for your unhappiness here. I can give you your chance--a
fair one this time. It will be a joy to me as well as a duty to help you
as others helped me in my time of need.--To-night, however, you are too
weak for further emotion. You shall sleep here; and to-morrow, when you
are more yourself, we will arrange for your future.--And now, if it will
not be disturbing to you, I shall play for an hour. You have given me an
idea, and the mood to work it out.--Perhaps you will understand--or it
will soothe you--"
Joseph's face brightened. He answered, with a note of eagerness in his
still shaking voice: "Ah, I had not dared ask you to play to me.--But
indeed I shall understand!--Music brings pictures of heaven."
Thereupon Ivan seated himself at his instrument. When, as he expressed
it, he was in the mood, few men could improvise more exquisitely, with a
technique more Chopinesque, than this man whose orchestral work was so
tremendous: so filled with the rolling grandeur, the passion, the
energy, the gigantic climaxes, the seething, troubled depths, of a
nature titanic in its conceptions, overpowering in their presentment.
For a time Ivan played, so delicately, so melodiously, and, withal, with
an individuality so elf-like in its quaintness, that Joseph's quivering
nerves were stilled and relaxed as by the caresses of a woman's hands.
Then, when count of time had ceased, when the room was filled with
velvet shadows, and the rich, dim glow of the crimson-shaded lamp
touched only the seated figure and the ivory keys his fingers pressed,
Ivan's low voice added itself to the melody. He began to speak,
accompanying his words with music like the tracery of fine gold that
sets forth and enriches the deep beauty of perfect jewels. What he said
came from him spontaneously, without any previous arrangement. It was as
if the long-locked door to the inner sanctum of his soul had swung
open, betraying all the wealth of a treasure-room the very existence of
which was unsuspected by any other man: for the treasure it contained
was the gathered store of his many years of labor, moulded now into the
_Credo_ of his working life: the creed by which he lived; which was
slowly writing itself upon his face.
"Art," he whispered, softly, arabesquing the beloved, misused word with
a ripple of vagrant melody, "is a high goddess, one supreme,
all-sufficing, all-embracing, absolutely jealous. Her priests may serve
none and nothing but her; and she is worthy of such worship.--Beauty of
Aphrodite of old--chastity of Artemis of the crescent moon--wisdom of
high Athene, of the silver spear--integrity of Hera the quiet-browed,
giver of laws--these she combines in her perfect whole; these are the
virtues we are bound to emulate who serve her. Let them that are weak,
that understand not, complain of constraint under these rules. Such are
unworthy of the trust. Those things that we need--imagination,
independence, courage of conviction--every quality bespeaking her one
great requirement in the characters of her chosen ones--originality--are
to be fostered in a hundred ways not unpleasing to her. But this first
quality, which may not be bought either by labor or by gold, has been
made the mark whereby she knows and claims her own. Once self-ordained,
a man finds himself subject gloriously to her: divinely driven to prayer
and fasting, to unceasing labor, to the long and beautiful vigils of the
night that bring him her highest rewards: inspiration and love of her
and of her service. For us she is lady of night and of day, of sun and
sky and the green earth. Through her eyes we see and marvel at them all.
Of her many favors to her chosen ones, which is more perfect than that
power of inward vision that brings forth secret beauties in every corner
of our earthly dwelling-places? How small a price to pay for this
alone:--the absolute fealty to her that is her one demand?
"Yet there have been many unfaithful: many that have been called, and
found wanting.--Bitter enough their self-wrought punishment! the
yearning, never to be crushed, for her gifts once known and now removed.
These in their anguish do her much despite: paint her as devil, call
Philistia down upon her in wrath. They call us blasphemers who serve
her. Yet what is she but the great Goddess of Truth, holding by one hand
the All-Father; by the other her Mother, and ours? And by this Union of
which she was the first-born, cometh also all we can know of perfect
beauty, all our heritage of creation and creative power. Shall it not be
for us to make this known to men? to the unbelievers? Showing them that,
in working for our Lady, we are likewise serving their God, who is also
ours?
"Thou, Joseph, hast been chosen her priest. Thou and I together know how
little is any reward but those she gives: how vain that petty applause
of the Philistines for which many an artist has betrayed both his art
and himself. But we who remain long at our apprenticeship, learn well
how petty is the outward and visible of success.--Have we not been led
up into the high place of communion, where, for a little, the veil is
lifted, and the image of Truth shown blazing in the splendor of Her
shrine? These are our moments of fortification and of revelation. No man
who has stood before that vision has failed to understand why the laws
of Truth and the law of the mass of men can never be the same. In the
communion we gain the strength that bids us disdain all applause of man
given for things other than the highest and best. And it is our secret
sense of this, which, through humiliation and defeat, through mockery
and revilement, through want and privation, shall keep us steadfast and
of good courage!
"Look you, Joseph, even now she stands, Immaculate One, radiant upon her
height, searching, with fearless eyes, our hearts, and those of that
multitude that kneel, and lift their arms to her in supplication!--And
some can raise their eyes to hers and smile; and some--look you, alas,
how many!--must shrink and cower away beneath the scrutiny before which
no deception will avail.--Those now withdraw themselves, to begin their
bitter journey backward and down--down to their native Philistia: but
never again will they rejoice among their fellows, for they have beheld
that which has lifted them far towards the stars; and the companionship
of clods must be hateful to them even in their fall.--But the rest, oh
Joseph, see how they are gathered into those great mother-arms, and
given comfort and good courage, power to continue on their upward way,
strength to fight all battles, face all mockery, kill all slander, till
the day dawns when they shall receive both the homage of the low, and
the loving applause of the Most High; when they shall sit enthroned,
wearing the double crown of man and of God.
"Oh Priest, oh Painter, such is our Law."
Ivan, moved beyond himself, struggled slowly out of the vision in which
he had been enwrapped, his mind still soaring in regions of the
imagination, where melodies sky-born did, indeed, surround him. But his
return to earth came with a quick shock. When at length his reluctant
hands fell from the keys, Ivan turned, instinctively, to the couch where
the stranger lay. The gaunt form there was motionless, the head thrown
back upon the pillows, one hand hanging limply to the floor. Something
in the attitude, and the faint sound of quiet, regular breathing,
brought a flood of scarlet over Ivan's face. The Pole's lips were parted
in an angelic smile. Joseph the painter was fast asleep!