JOSEPH THE SOWER
Ivan's new life was monotonous enough, uneventful enough, but singularly
tranquil. The spring this year had brought not so much a quickening of
life as a soothing sense of relief, relaxation, and a lazy contentment
of mind. For the first time in years, Ivan felt absolutely at ease on
the subject of money: knew no uncertainty as to future raiment, and food
and shelter. True, the acquisition of wealth had brought him a loss of
companionship: one never openly proclaimed, but perhaps, for that
reason, the more keenly felt. In June, at the end of the year's work,
Ivan resigned his professorship at the Conservatoire, secretly glorying
in the prospect of thenceforward being free to devote himself wholly to
his own affairs. The resignation put him still further beyond the old
pale of intimacy with composers, painters and writers: the cream of that
intellectual and artistic Bohemia of which he had so long been an
esteemed citizen. In mind, he was unchanged. But a millionaire Prince
_and_ a genius to boot!--It was a combination too fortunate for the
toleration of any class. Where Fate gives too lavishly, man strives to
even things up for the spoiled darling of Heaven:--and usually succeeds
uncommonly well. Envy, jealousy, injustice,--these Ivan believed he had
known already. He found himself mistaken. It seemed now that not one
friend would remain loyal. Anton wrote a sneering and malicious letter
from Paris, purporting to congratulate. Laroche openly mourned.
Ugly-faced, big-hearted Balakirev shook his convict head
melancholy-wise. Even Nicholas and Kashkine could only hope,
halfheartedly, that, despite his wealth, Ivan would stick to his work
out of the inward necessity: the _divine driving_ of the great artist.
Autumn justified the faithful. From the leisure of Monsieur Gregoriev,
came his second ballet--"The Enchantress"--a series of rhythmical minor
melodies in the most delicate of the composer's moods; a military
overture, which was one long series of tempestuously mounting climaxes,
built on the theme of the Russian battle-hymn; six songs to poems of
Heine, with piano accompaniment; and, finally, the third of his
symphonies, declared by Balakirev too technical, as more resembling a
clever experiment in orchestral possibilities, than a serious effort in
the most rigid of classical forms.
Unfortunately, despite these flat disprovals of the accusations made
against Ivan by his oldest friends, the summer's work did little to
soften the feeling between the millionaire Prince and his scoffing
fellow-workmen. Their cry now was: Who was he to step in between the
fame, nay, the very bread, of men obliged to live by their work? Humph!
He should see! It should be made very plain to him that neither wealth
nor money could avail to win him entrance into the sanctums of
art!--him, the greatest, the only great, artist of them all! Ah! Bitter
indeed was the fresh humiliation he encountered: knowledge that, while
his music was beginning to be sought for by every orchestra in Europe,
Russia would suddenly have none of him! Nicholas Rubinstein fought his
losing battles somewhat daunted by the constant cries of "hypocrite" and
"toad-eater." Kashkine filled foreign journals with his praises.
Useless! Henceforth, for many years, the concerts at the Moscow theatre,
now under the baton of Laroche, knew Gregoriev's name no more: until
that day, indeed, when, with his last and supreme effort, by means of
the sheer force of his genius, Ivan overrode them all, broke every
barrier down, and, winning victory unconditional, became at last the
boast and the glory of the Russian musical world. But it was also out of
this victory that Fate got her bitterest laugh at her puppet plaything.
For death and fame ran neck and neck for his goal; and the race ended
with fame four lengths behind.
Meantime, however, even in the midst of this first battle with his
compatriots, Ivan and they were to meet one last time on neutral ground,
under the white flag of truce. This was on the occasion of
varnishing-day at the _salon_ of native painters--Russians and Poles;
where were exhibited works by men _hors concours_, together with those
of advanced students: both classes being required to pass an
incorruptible committee of twelve, who spared neither veteran nor tyro.
Hither, on the artists' day, came Ivan and his former circle, to enjoy
the success of a young Polish student, whose three pictures--two oils
and a pastel portrait, were destined to become the sensation of the
exhibit.
The afternoon was a happy one. The little group about Joseph made common
cause of rejoicing over the work of their protégé. And, in later months,
Ivan, sore wounded, came to remember these hours as the last of the old,
free life of careless poverty, with its untold wealth of comradeship.
Certainly Joseph's much-lauded work _was_ good. There could be no
question of that. The boy's talent was pronounced, his style highly
individual, his conceptions normal, unimpressionistic, but beautifully
his own. One of his oils represented a peasant-girl of the south,
leaning upon a black fence, looking off into her own gray future, with
that wistful, patient gaze so common to the low-class Russian. The
background was a shadowy suggestion of steppe farm-land, unobtrusively
implying vast distances of bluish-gray. The other work, more pretentious
in subject but even more severely simple in treatment, was that of a
woman of fashion, seated by a table on which stood a lighted lamp, the
glow from which shone full upon her joy-lit face, on the
sewing-materials scattered about her, and on the little garment, newly
finished, which she was examining.
Joseph, his varnishing accomplished, stood about among groups of
flatterers, his ethereal face, framed in its pale-gold hair, betraying
very little of the elation that was tingling through him, as he listened
to the comments on his work made by these men who "understood." Still,
of all the extravagant words, not one meant to him so much as Ivan's
strong hand-clasp and his smiling:
"It is worth the thousand-mile walk;--yes, and the starvation too,
Joseph, isn't it?"
And Joseph bowed his head, in momentary, deep sincerity.
* * * * *
Nicholas Rubinstein was not wholly justified in his conclusion that
Joseph's manner to a poor and untitled Ivan would have lost the greater
part of its obsequiousness. Joseph did care for his benefactor,
honestly. But later in the afternoon there came a little incident which,
in some measure, bore out the old musician's instinctive scepticism.
Nearly every one in the room had gathered about one or another of the
samovar-tables, indulging in their favorite recreation of eating; and
busily talking shop. Ivan, however, still occupied with the work of his
protégé, remained seated before the smaller picture, comparing it with a
little, two-year-old sketch in oil which he had brought with him.
Presently Joseph moved towards him. Nicholas, watching, saw the young
fellow hesitate, palpably, for an instant, and then speak a few rapid,
low-voiced sentences into Ivan's ear. Ivan's face betrayed a strain of
surprise; but Nicholas saw the nod that accompanied his answer, and knew
that it meant assent--to what, he guessed. Later, when good-byes were
being said, Joseph was somewhat discomfited at the extreme chilliness of
the gruff old man, who had seen what Joseph imagined he had kept
absolutely invisible:--the passing of certain hundred-rouble notes from
Ivan's hand to his own:--Ivan could now so well afford to give!
Late in the afternoon, when the young painter regained his own studio,
he threw himself upon his battered sofa with a sigh of relief that was
half-petulant. He had had an afternoon doubly successful; for he had
taken a long-contemplated plunge. In his pocket was another whole year
of frugality; or a month, one little month, of extravagance. His
question now was, which should it be? If he took a scholarship with
either of his pictures--and how they had been admired to-day!--there, in
itself, was a year's subsistence. Again, would not one or both the
pictures sell, at a good price? The whole wealth of Moscow would pass
through those rooms during the next month. Only take the fancy of a
wealthy man, or woman, and he might say good-bye forever to frugality:
to his whole life of unrelenting poverty.
Ah, how he hated it, all those dreary little shifts that had formed the
laws of his life! How he yearned, how he longed, for a month of
carelessness concerning the state of his pocket!--But what a humiliation
to _ask_ for money--even from great-hearted Ivan! Ivan, with his new
millions--why had he not offered something, instead of letting himself
be dunned? Truly, truly, Providence--_his_ Providence, was a sorry jade!
Tricks enough she had certainly played him: him, to whom she had given
so enormous a secret capability for spending! With a crust for food, a
rag for his covering, a garret for shelter, she had endowed him with
artist-dreams of luxury, with every extravagant desire, and but one,
faint possibility of attainment. One, however, he had; together with a
higher ambition than that for material things. He longed for the best
sort of fame: was ready to do the best of work to gain it: provided only
it should also bring him wealth!--Perhaps, of all the contradictions
about this youth, the oddest was that, to those who knew him, his most
salient characteristic appeared to be, not one of his many weaknesses,
but his single, undying strength. Possibly, however, the explanation lay
in the fact, that Joseph himself did not realize the extent of his baser
nature. As yet his many thorns had in no wise hurt the single blossom.
All his weaknesses could not hide his strength. A little more, indeed,
and this strength might have grown till it hid all the rest, and formed
a safe refuge for him from himself.--Ah! Had that but been
possible!--How many geniuses have, indeed, come into the world only to
go out of it unfamed, unsuspected? How many have dropped down to hell
through the pitfalls of their own creation, and so been lost forever to
the world? Good God! How pitiful it is!--Turn we away.
Joseph Kashkarin had many a plaint for his unfortunate lot. But the one
which came to tongue oftener than any other, was that which proclaimed
the red fires of the artist-flesh to burn within him, while he bemoaned
the fact that he had never yet found a woman worthy of his devotion.
Loudly did he bewail his over-fastidiousness; in which, nevertheless, he
secretly glorified. But now for so long had he mourned his loveless
estate, that, since of all the subjects of his brush woman was most
congenial to him, he had gradually come to lay every fault of his work,
crudeness of coloring, hardness of line, harshness of texture, finally,
his very conventionality of conception, to the door of his ignorance of
the grand passion, in which he expected to attain to his final
development. In the end, as might have been expected, Fate, wearying of
his everlasting complaint, became suddenly impatient, and set about
granting his desire with diabolical fulness.
Joseph's peasant-girl took a mention, but no prize. Chilled by this and
by the unaccountable failure of either picture to sell, he laid away,
for the hour, his dreams of folly, and worked through the winter
steadfastly. At length, however, the gray cold wore itself away; and,
with the breath of the new spring, there came for Joseph desire
fulfilled, and an end of steadfastness for the rest of his life.
Endless as the Russian winter seems, there does, at length, when hope is
dormant, come that quickening of nature when the green steppes break
through snowy coverlets, when swelling buds burst the last, thin
ice-films from the branches, and the melancholy peasant-chants come
nearer to the major key than at any other season. Now, also, was the
time when young blood rushes like sap through the veins, and artists'
dreams turn, irresistibly, to the greatest of their subjects. On such a
day it was that Joseph Kashkarin and Irina Petrovna came for the first
time face to face.
Irina's reappearance in the city of her brother's fall, was made a year
or more after the battle in the Akheskaia. The history of the
twelvemonth of her hiding, lay buried in that oblivion that must shroud
frequent periods of lives like hers. It seemed destined that she should
flash, at intervals, across certain horizons, and never without bringing
to bear some momentary, powerful influence upon the life she illumined.
She was not, like some of her class, led by principles more or less
consistent and dependable: sordid greed for money; complete
selfishness; experienced heartlessness. To her own detriment, Bohemia
and penury could attract her as surely and as frequently as heavily
paid-for luxury. Contrast, indeed, constituted the one law of her
lawlessness. Without this, how had it been possible for that first
contact with the young painter to have filled her, instantaneously, with
the variable flame that had so often been her undoing?
Mademoiselle Petrovna, a young person fairly notorious, by this time,
among the half-world of three or four Russian cities, was now living in
Moscow, perfectly protected by the patronage of the universally
connected, much-besought, Prince G----: a venerable personage of some
seventy winters, whose decorous mansion in the old Equerries' Quarter
was considerably better known than his _bijou maisonnette_ in the
Fourmenny district, at present occupied by the young lady of whom he
ardently desired to possess a discreet portrait: one which, as an "ideal
figure" might safely decorate drawing-room or library in his ostensible
home. But in this affair, as in all other really desirable matters,
Prince G----easily perceived the difficulty of complete discretion.
Alas! To no famous brush dared he intrust his rather obvious commission.
And his search for a competent, yet unknown, artist, led him at last to
the studio of Monsieur Kashkarin, who had been recommended by the voice
of Fate speaking through the decorous tongue of the Academy director.
Irina appeared upon the threshold of Joseph's modest studio clad from
top to toe in a billow of flaming scarlet: tulle and velvet and poppies
cunningly mingled, and well foiled by the solemn black of her escort's
formal garb. While the vision floated about the room examining the
various sketches and studies scattered over the walls, Joseph managed to
keep his head sufficiently to go through the necessary preliminaries
with his Excellency, who, a trifle nervous about his situation, and
convinced that no danger to his possession could possibly accrue through
this shy and boyish young artist, so plainly in the throes of poverty,
was much relieved when the matter of size and price had been settled and
he could take his departure, leaving Irina to her first sitting.
As the door closed behind the well-padded back of her Prince, Irina's
indifference dropped from her like a cloak, and she returned to the
proximity of the intoxicated boy, captured his blue gaze with the
slumbrous fire of her Oriental eyes, and then laughed at him--and
laughed--and musically laughed, till the fire from his brain leaped to
his fingertips. Suddenly, commanding her, he flung his canvas on the
easel, seized his charcoal, and, completely misconstruing his own
sensations, began to draw her as she stood.
The work of that hour was inspirational. In it, he accomplished more
than was done in the succeeding month. In the very beginning he managed,
unconsciously, to make Irina respect his talent. She saw all the best of
him, the finest of his power: which never before had flamed so high, and
was never to flame so high again. But Irina, filled from top to toe with
the _tempérament_ that comprehends every vagary and something of genius,
watched the illumination of his face and eyes till she was beset with
high desire: till her present life, with its hollow luxury, its
spiceless ease, its savorless pretence, had become abominable to her.
Her heart was in the room wherein she stood, set all upon the man for
whom she posed: whose eye, as yet, looked upon her not as man but as
workman, who sought only the secret message in her written for his
brush.
Through the first two hours, during which she alternately posed and
rested, the two of them spoke scarce one word. In the beginning, their
sensations were crudely formulative. But they rose, by degrees, till,
at the end, each was beset by a force so powerful that action had become
an impossibility. Their farewell ran thus:
"When do you wish me again, Monsieur?"
"When you can come, Madame."
"In two days?"
"Yes; in two days."
"_Alors_--_au revoir!_"
"_Au revoir_, Madame."
Thus they entered upon the eight-and-forty hours that were to prepare
the storm of the next meeting which was to set upon them both the seal
of the inevitable. Well for Prince G---- that there came to him no
inkling of the scene which ended that second afternoon! Irina lay back
upon the artist's couch in the dreamy languor of her most dangerous
mood. Joseph knelt on the floor at her side, her hands clasped in his,
the broken, cryptic syllables of innermost intimacy already flowing
familiarly between them.--How it had come about, neither one of them
could possibly have told. But that night Joseph, sitting alone at his
high window gazing over the silvered city, knew at last that he had
entered into the kingdom: that, if he should live a thousand years, he
could never know again the pure emotion of the hours that were gone. He
sat there in the dusk, and his lips formed broken phrases--fragments of
the thoughts that swirled through his storm-ridden brain:
"It has come!--It is here!--I am a true artist now.--Now, too, I am a
man.--Irina!--Irina!"
And, alas! Joseph fully believed himself! He never knew that, had he
been in truth an artist now, those last words of his would have been:
"My work! My work!" For to those who hold the greatest gift, there is no
experience in life, from highest joy to highest sorrow, that is not
transmuted, in the crucible of the artist's brain, into some new form of
knowledge to be used in his labor. Such a one was Ivan, whom Nathalie
herself could only have served again and again to quicken into higher
and richer musical expression: to whom her loss had only meant many
years of minor melodies. Such a man as Ivan, Joseph still believed
himself to be. Slowly, inch by inch, with every step a form of torture,
was he to learn the truth.
Thus abruptly, thus all unheralded, arrived Joseph's passion-time. In
the beginning, Irina came for her sittings twice or thrice in the week.
Then, driven by the force of their two natures, the visits became daily,
and there began, in the Fourmenny _maisonnette_, a system of shift and
subterfuge not wholly new to its mistress. None knew better than Irina
herself the inevitable end of this period of excuse and deception. But,
so long as Joseph continued to combine for her those qualities of
novelty, inexperience, and inexhaustible feeling that had seized so
firmly upon her imagination, she was reckless of discovery. After all,
her Prince was proving exceptionally stupid and complaisant. Her words
were gospel to him; and her frequent invisibility seemed only to whet
his appetite for to-morrow.
Meantime Joseph, perfectly ignorant of his road, careless of the future,
enamoured of each passing hour, left Irina absolutely free so far as her
course was concerned. He himself, however, was neglecting his
professional duties. All the work he did was upon two portraits of her;
for he had decided to finish for himself that first, Carmen-like
creation so happily seized upon. Meantime, there was another for the
Prince; in which the too-vivid draperies were toned down to pinkish
clouds; the background left in misty indecision; and all his care
expended on the face: a face that presently looked forth from the canvas
with a gaze so startlingly lifelike, that Irina herself frequently
shivered at its uncanny reality.
No. There could be no doubt about the marvel of Joseph's present
technique. Yet, for all that, he had already lost something of his
former purity of style. And now, for six long months, he worked at
nothing but studies of the same subject; knowing only the criticisms of
Irina herself. The days of honest labor and study, the earnest
self-criticism and self-examination, were gone. For the moment he might
believe himself to be of the elect few. But the period was brief; and,
with the coming of the first cloud, the whole horizon suddenly grew
black.
It was the early twilight of an October day. For the third or fourth
time, Irina had failed in her appointment, and Joseph, sitting alone,
waiting for the sound of her step, had drifted into a reverie concerning
himself and his summer's work. He was kneeling in the midst of a dusty
little group of last year's studies, regarding them with newly
contemplative eyes. Were they, after all, with all their muddy color and
uncertain composition, better--actually _better_, in the fundamentals
that count, than those two glorified forms that ruled the room?--For the
first time since the very beginning, he doubted: began to feel a
weariness of that garish sea of color, beside which the dull little
studies suddenly looked so quietly restful; so sincere.
He had come thus far in his musing; and his face was troubled; his blue
eyes had darkened, when, suddenly, without warning, his door was flung
wide. The well-known, silken swish of skirts, a breath of the familiar
perfume of gown and hair and person, and then Irina--an Irina
unfamiliar--had entered, shut and bolted the door behind her, stared at
him for a moment, and then began to weep, hysterically.
"_You!_--But Irina--I--you.--But there is no light for the pose now!"
"Ah, _mon Dieu_! A sitting!--Pouf! Listen, mon cher! It has come. I
have always known it must.--Monsieur le Prince knows all the
truth.--Quelle scène!--Incroyable pour un viellard!--And I am banished.
I have none now but you, mon ami. What shall you do with me, Joseph?"
And, as she spoke, her arms crept sinuously about the young man's stiff
figure, and she drew him, by degrees, to the couch, at her side.
There followed silence: a silence so long that, almost for the first
time in her career, Irina began to wonder if she could have
miscalculated the strength of her hold on this boy for whom she had
conceived so violent a passion.
Had she, indeed, been able, at that moment, to read the depths of
Joseph's mind, her wonder would probably have been augmented to fear.
For, now that the thing that Joseph had been wanting for months had come
to pass, he was suddenly thrown back upon himself in a panic of doubt.
His mind was a blind chaos of mingled emotion and desire: the new-born
anxiety concerning his profession; the powerful fascination exerted by
the mere presence of the woman he loved; and, lastly, a selfishly
inconsistent anger that Irina's act had forced him at last to the
long-desired point of decision.
These three feelings warred within him, and the little force of good
fought valiantly and well. But, unhappily, Joseph had always regarded
the promptings of conscience as unwarrantable and unnecessary; and that
inner voice, so often stifled, had grown weak. Irina was now beside him,
the fragrance of her personality stealing upon him with all its
accustomed magnetism. Surely, too, she had been inspired to the silence
she kept? He never dreamed of the heart-sickness that was slowly
invading her. Had he guessed it, that of the brute which lay in him,
would instantly have risen up against her. For the young gentleness of
his face belied him. As it was, however, there came a moment when the
breath of perfume was strong; when conscience took a step too far. One
instant--and he turned, clasping her in his arms:
"So let it be, beloved! Thou hast come to me:--be mine! If I have little
wealth, I can give thee love:--love, the glory of life, clothed in
colors of scarlet and gold!--Thou art here to be my inspiration. Mayst
thou find me worthy!--Ah, see! The world shall kneel to us yet: shall
glorify us with laurel and with gold.--Yes, it has come at last,
beloved, the freedom of our love!"
And the woman, with a half-sob, yielded herself to the strong, young
arms, nor wasted a thought upon that crushed and broken talent now lying
between them, dead, upon the paint-stained floor.
* * * * *
Such was the beginning of their hundred days: the three months' madness
that was to become the amazement and the scandal of the Students'
Quarter. Irina's history, well known to every one except her lover, kept
this strange romance always vivid, always replete with dramatic
possibilities. Meantime, however, during the first weeks, the small
_ménage_ prospered amazingly. Irina had been living for some time among
cloying luxuries. She brought with her a considerable sum of money and
jewels, the amount of which seemed, to Joseph's eyes, princely enough.
He rejoiced over their sudden access of wealth; while she amused herself
by adapting her tastes to the comparative poverty of her present life.
Moreover, the enthusiasm that was really borne from the pleasant novelty
of this existence, seemed, to the boy, wholly the result of her love for
him. He had been possessed by a sudden demon of work.--Ah! _How_ he
worked, during those brief weeks! He had resigned, now, from his
classes, and was painting for the public. In the beginning, his things
caught the general fancy, and he had an unquestioned vogue. It was
pot-boiling, certainly; but, for the moment, glaring faults were
concealed by the meteoric brilliancy of his technique. Irina was his
only model. But what the world likes, it is willing to have repeated;
and head after head of the beautiful woman was sold, and still the
dealers clamored for more.
Of his old work--those laborious little studies of still life or nature,
the public would have none. Even the two life-sized pictures, which had
more than a little merit in them, remained unpurchased. Both were for
sale now; for Joseph needed no portrait of what was his; and Prince
G---- naturally never commanded his to be delivered.
There did, at length, come one offer for the Carmen picture; but of it
Joseph never heard. It had been made by a man who, calling at the studio
one day, found Mademoiselle Irina alone; and to whose impulsive
proposition she had replied--with a certain manner--that his price was
too low--"as yet." Rapidly estimating the pretty woman, and catching the
tone of her last word, the gentleman said no more about the picture; but
presently left the studio and the lady together, and returned to his
club--to bide his time.
Six weeks saw the end of the first phase of this oft-acted drama.
Intoxicated by the success which no one had as yet explained to him,
Joseph began suddenly to discover spending-powers of his own. After
that, work as he would, a Raphael could scarcely have kept his _ménage_
out of debt. Irina, watching her lover minutely, and perfectly
foreseeing the forthcoming exigencies of the situation, was quite
prepared when Joseph came to her for advice. That night was the first on
which they drove to a certain house in the aristocratic Sretenskaia,
where, by day and by night, the various rooms glowed with light, and,
during twenty hours of the day, a dozen great, green tables were
wreathed by men and women to whose ears the chink and rustle of gold and
notes were sounds that followed and drove them, day by day, night by
night, on towards that low-lying land where dwell the throngs that are
gathered together in the outer darkness that is so much denser than the
tomb.
Lights!--Green tables, gold-bespattered!--The droning undertone of
_croupiers_; the continual, languid in-rake and out-rake of golden
piles, of crackling notes, of _rouleaux_--on one of which the old-time
Joseph could have lived so well for months: here, side by side, the
much-remarked woman, the pale-faced, angel-eyed youth, quietly took
their places, and began to play.