There is a certain maxim, unpleasant as it is prevalent, indulged in with great frequency by a certain class of stoical sophists, to the effect that there are many sorrows in life more difficult to bear than that separation from our nearest brought by death. But those men—and especially the women—who have experienced sorrow of both varieties, do not use that proverb.

In his after life Ivan Gregoriev was called upon to bear many burdens of grief; but none of them ever caused him to waver in the assurance that the death of his mother had brought him the bitterest suffering he could be called upon to endure. Before this time—for many recent weeks—he had believed himself cognizant of most forms of unhappiness. So, in a blind, insensate fashion, he was. But the night on which his mother left him opened his eyes to that land of grief where consolation waits on time; it shook from him the last vestige of morbidity; and, lastly, it brought him, too, in generous measure, perception of those beauties of thought and action to be gained by one who accepts his loss unselfishly, in a true and humble spirit.

During the three days that passed before the funeral, Ivan, his brain dulled and heavy with a kind of morbid despair, haunted the room where his mother lay, surrounded with candles the lights of which illumined and intensified the smile of transfiguration still remaining on her peaceful face. To the boy, waiting and watching dumbly, it seemed intolerable that the stillness of that sacred room should be disturbed by the exits and entrances of strangers. In the beginning, he resented even the arrival from her Petersburg convent of his cousin Nathalie; and for the many members of the Blashkov family, distant relatives or mere acquaintances, who throughout her life had left Sophia to bitter loneliness, and came now to stare upon her empty frame, the son felt a hatred too fierce to be expressed in words. They, however, neither knew nor would have cared to learn how the boy heard their every word concerning him and his with wrath unspeakable, and shuddered with misery at their heartless insolence. Nevertheless, the wretchedness hidden under his set, strained mask, was divined by his aunt. Thus, she, for the time much softened by her grief, and feeling also a good deal of curiosity concerning the inner nature of this youth of the haunted eyes, presently sought, by every art of tact and seeming understanding, to open his heart to tears. The fact that she at length succeeded, must be put down to her lasting credit; it having been a deed directly opposed to the traits of her rather cold nature.

Upon the evening after the funeral Madame Dravikine, intensely wearied by the long walk to and from the cemetery, was lying on her couch, eyes closed, her head aching slightly. Nevertheless, when there came a timid knock upon her door, she answered with a summons to enter, and Ivan, responding, went to her impetuously, yielded his hands to her clasp, and allowed himself to be drawn to his knees, at her side, there to listen to gentle words about his mother's love for him, and her ambitions for his future, till she had pierced through the armor of his reserve, and he burst into a storm of sobs the violence of which at first frightened her.

It was the one possible means of relief, however; and Madame Dravikine, wise in her generation, let him weep his bitter revolt away. This lasted nearly an hour, and both were exhausted by the time the tears had ceased, and only an occasional, spasmodic sob gave evidence of the storm that had passed. It was at this juncture—Ivan upon the floor, half sitting, half kneeling, Caroline's arms clasping him close—that the door of the room opened again, quietly, and Nathalie appeared. At sight of the two she halted, uncertainly. But her mother, gently releasing the embarrassed boy, bade her come in; nor when, an instant later, he made the move, would she permit Ivan to go. It was, perhaps, unfair to her that this kindly act of hers should have borne, for all three of them, consequences so momentous, and, to the Countess, so unwelcome. Yet it was certainly this evening which saw the beginning of the single real passion of Ivan's life. Thereafter, in that little gallery of mental portraits carried by each of us in his intimate heart, the beloved form of his dead mother was given a companion picture: that of a girl's face, warm and living, upon which he often gazed with an ardor, a devotion, a longing, rather unboyishly sincere.

Certainly the picture thus enshrined was one not unworthy of strong admiration. For even at fourteen Nathalie Dravikine was very beautiful, in a delicate, flower-like way. Her complexion was clear and pale, the blood which ran beneath it showing only under the stress of some emotion, when it would suffuse her whole face with waves of exquisite color. Her delicate head bore a weight, almost too great, of fine, blue-black hair, just now hanging in a heavy plait to her knees. Her eyes, large and velvety as Ivan's own, were, however, of a shade indescribable, chameleon-like: one day varying between beryl and aqua-marine, anon of a light hazel, and finally, in moments of excitement, grief, or joy, of a deep, baffling black. Hitherto, Ivan had been undecided about their color; but to-night, as he saw them run their gamut from light to that tender dark, he felt a strange, quivering half-fear, half-joy, stirring his heart; and in one moment it had become impossible for him to look her in the eyes again and retain any sort of composure. Moreover, as he sat, red-eyed and conscious, in a chair between aunt and cousin, it seemed to him as if some one were pouring a cool balm over the burning wound within him: as if, already, his mother's strange promise were finding fulfilment, and she herself, or her fair spirit, stood at his side, her gentle hand upon his shoulder, a smile of the old, loving companionship in her deep eyes. He did not know whether it were minutes or hours before, with a long sigh, he rose, kissed his aunt, drew back with flaming face from Nathalie's tentative advance, but finally, with throbbing heart, just touched her cheek in the usual place, and then ran off, glad of the darkness in the passage outside. Unlike the traditional young lover, however, he was not destined to spend the dark hours in waking dreams of his love. Nay, the pretty child did him better service. That night, for the first time in ninety-six weary hours, he slept, soundly and dreamlessly, till Alexei came to call him, when he rose with a feeling of great strangeness, of irrevocable change, upon him, as he faced a final joyless day.

There was no help for it. He must return, that afternoon, to the Corps; where now there would be no weekly breaks in his monotony of unhappiness. So much he learned in a brief, uncomfortable interview with his father, immediately after breakfast. And when he was dismissed, he understood that it was Prince Michael's farewell to him for an indefinite period: a fact which troubled him very little in itself, however; the less so since, when he reached his room again, he found in his hand an envelope containing a princely sum of pocket-money—which was to last him through the spring. Wearily and drearily, however, the boy, with the aid of his serf, packed the few garments he had brought with him, and then went off to hang about the closed door of his aunt's suite of rooms, in which, also packing, was Nathalie: that strange, new Nathalie, born for him fifteen hours before.

He had reached a great depth of unhappiness when suddenly, about noon-time, the gate to fairy-land opened and he was admitted by Celestine, who had been sent, indeed, to seek him. In a few, whirling moments, he found himself eating an early dÉjeuner À la fourchette with his aunt and cousin, after which he drove with them to the Petersburg station, and there, upon the noisy, crowded platform, reached his empyrean.

Madame Dravikine and her maid were in the carriage reserved for them, arranging their bags and rugs. But Nathalie had remained—ah, was it not of her own choice?—outside, for three minutes longer. Their few words were as simple and as awkward as inexperience could make them; but they were afterwards gone over, a hundred times, at least, by Ivan, who, at each repetition, became more impressed by the brilliance, the wit, the savoir-faire, the repose of Mademoiselle Nathalie's brief and stumbling formalities. Then—then Madame Dravikine was calling her daughter. A whistle blew. The second bell rang loudly. Officials jangled hastily down the platform; and Ivan, his heart throbbing in his throat, suddenly caught his cousin's slender figure in his arms, held her for one endless instant, found her lips with his own, and found himself, five minutes later, gazing blindly down an empty track, while the footman at his side stared at him in stupid wonderment. So, coloring with shame, joyously angry, broken by the long prospect of ensuing grief and longing—not for one being loved and lost, but for two—he entered the carriage which was to carry him across Moscow, from heaven to hell: from the Petersburg station to the stone buildings of the Corps des Cadets, where, in the ensuing weeks, Ivan Gregoriev, already an adept in enduring the various forms of school-boy misery, was about to begin upon a lesson before which more than one grown man would have visibly shrunk; and under which Ivan himself, before it was finished, had become appalled at his own capacity for suffering.

During every age of humanity, in every state and stage of human civilization, there have been certain great-souled beings who, for the sake of a totally inadequate reward, have delivered themselves over, bound and helpless, into the hands of a task-master severe, relentless, all-demanding, but wise and just beyond every other teacher of mankind. The greater number of these daring persons have, in the end, accomplished their schooling, done their tasks, and reached their goal; because, once in the toils, they must needs go forward, or die. A very few of these toilers, Hindoos ascending towards Arahatship, Christians aspiring to certain heaven by way of certain martyrdom, have been given beforehand an exact estimate of the price they were to pay. But all others, the vast majority of those demanding of nature her divinest gifts, have mortgaged themselves blindly for an amount, and at a rate of interest, unknown, undreamed of. Of these, Ivan was one. At the age of sixteen he first felt his power, made his demand. Consciously or unconsciously—probably both—he cried to Fate: "Behold me! I hold a message for mankind! The Spirit of Music will deign to make use of me as her instrument. I am summoned to the world-service. Give me, then, that which shall make me great enough to bring this gift of mine to its highest issue, that my mistress may find her priest worthy of acclaim and of advancement!"

This is a cry that Fate is bound to answer, for it is the cry of assurance. Hearing his words, the Great One stood before the boy and considered him thoughtfully. It may be that he was given secret warning of the meaning of his demand. This it is not for us to know. But, knowing or unknowing, he repeated his cry, and was answered. There and then, with this mysterious, perverse wisdom, his task-master began his training, blinding the eyes of the pupil to all save the few immediate steps along the steep road that lay before, permitting him to advance only step by step, under her guidance. Ivan yielded himself as clay to those powerful hands; but the clay was pure, and, because of its youth, more pliable than are those who know themselves only in later years. And now, had he wished it, his master would not have let him go.

Poor Ivan! My poor hero! How was he lashed through that long spring, and the summer that he spent alone at ghost-haunted Klin, where every corner of house and garden spoke to him of his mother. How pitilessly was he dragged through depths of grief and solitude and hopeless longing; till he stumbled, half fainting, deep in the slough of despair! Hopeless and heart-sick, forgetting, and, he believed, forgotten by, every living joy, he fought his battle of temperament hand to hand, imagining every contest lost. Nothing of his past, his present or his future, was clear before him. He was as one crying in the wilderness; and no echo of an answer caught his ear. So numb was he from emotional experience by the summer's end, that, in the second week of September, he returned to Moscow for his second winter in the Corps, with hardly more than a dull and throbbing sense of dread.

The cold weather set in early that year. October and November passed in a whirl of powdery snow and winds that cut through the heaviest furs. As the time of Christmas fasts and feasts drew on, Ivan began to long for what he believed would not be granted him—the spending of his holiday week in comparative freedom at home. He was, however, too proud to beg such permission; and not one word from Prince Michael did he receive. It was, then, not till the very hour that his companions were gayly rushing off to their various conveyances of departure, that Ivan, standing ruefully in the snow-filled court-yard, perceived Piotr tramping through the outer gate, looking about him, undecided as to the right entrance.

That night Ivan slept beneath his father's roof for the first time in nine months; and in the gray of early morning there came to him an idea of radiant promise. The pocket-money sent him in September—five hundred rubles, the existence of which his companions had fortunately never surmised, remained almost untouched. Ivan was extravagant only in the purchase of music-paper and harmony-books, which are not matters of great cost. Why, then, should he not drive to-day to the Tverskaia, and there select Christmas presents for those few to whom it would be a delight to give? The custom, not at that day so prevalent in Russia as now, was still by no means unusual. And though Piotr and Alexei and old MÁsha, besides, as a matter of duty, his father, were the names on Ivan's written list, they were all of them meaningless compared with that one gift for her for whom no gift in the world could be sufficiently fine or costly.

Through that whole morning he dragged the sleigh and patient Alexei up and down the Tverskaia, while, the other presents long since selected, he went from shop to shop, dismayed anew at every place by the price asked for those gems which alone seemed fitting for the object of his gift. Still, in the end, he was comparatively satisfied; nor was his choice one likely to displease any feminine soul the world over. For the little, pearl-studded bracelet that lay in a blue-velvet case in the breast-pocket of Ivan's coat was, considering the boy's inexperience, in astonishingly appropriate taste; and well calculated to recall him to the mind of the girl of whom he had dreamed through nine long months.

The remainder of the day belonged to the gods; for Ivan managed to devote more than two hours in the penning of a moderately long, rather stiff little letter addressed to his cousin Nathalie, at the Catherine Institute for the Daughters of Nobility, in Petersburg. Moreover, this done, there was still the bracelet to be wrapped, tied and stamped. Then, after his return from the nearest official registry, there remained the dear delight of dusk-dreams, which, to-day, concerned the probable reception of his gift, the reading of his letter, and, climax of climaxes, the probability of an acknowledgment!

Ivan's holiday week passed slowly, and there came no word from Petersburg. On each of the last three mornings he rose tremulous with hope; on each of the nights retired praying for a speedy morrow. But instead of any joy, these days brought him only unexpected trials. His father, it seemed, had suddenly become much interested in his son's straight, strong presence, and took opportunity to keep him, for long periods every day, in his company, discussing with him the details of his life at the Corps, and the possibilities of the future. Each conference brought only strengthened conviction of his father's insistence upon a military-diplomatic career for him, and of the futility of the slightest hope of leading that musician's life for which he had been created. To-day, the least suggestion of his secret desires might bring upon him a storm which would, then and there, forever annihilate them. At this day his own, spiritual guide had become a thing of little importance, in Ivan's mind, compared with the relentless strength which his father could exhibit at an instant's warning. And, because he had not yet learned that supreme faith in destiny to which he afterwards did attain, Ivan carried this curious trouble with him through many a long day, nor cast it wholly off till the world had changed for him.

On the day after New Year's Ivan returned drearily to the Corps, where, after a week of aimless dejection, that institute, following its invariable custom, brought him an unlooked-for blow. It was in the form of a small packet, bearing the Petersburg mark, which, on opening, he found to contain a little pearl-studded bracelet, and a note that ran as follows:

Ivan read this short missive till he had it by rote. At each repetition it struck him as more cutting, more cruel, more unjust. His aunt had certainly intended a rebuke; but she hardly realized either the over-sensitiveness of Ivan's nature or the extent of his boyish feeling for his cousin, whom he concluded to be responsible, by some unfathomable pique, for his humiliating discomfiture.

As a matter of actual fact, Nathalie had never received either letter or gift. She, like Ivan, had left her school during Christmas week to spend the festival with her father and mother. It was not till two days after the departure of Mademoiselle Dravikine from the institute that the packet and the letter from Moscow had been placed in the hands of the mother-superior. That worthy woman, examining the list of her pupil's correspondents, found upon it but one person from Moscow—Madame la Princesse Gregoriev, lately deceased, whose name she now took the opportunity of erasing from the authorized list. This done, it remained for her to ponder upon the subsequent conclusion of this very unusual incident. Undoubtedly something must be done, if not with the letter at least with the packet, which, even to her unworldly eyes, had about it a suggestion of gold and gems that could not but bring a flutter of interest to a heart which, long as it had been consecrated to unworldly things, was still of the eternal feminine. It was not till the good, stupid soul had resorted to earnest prayer, that she hit upon the inspiration of casting all responsibility upon the capable shoulders of her pupil's mamma, the worshipful Countess Dravikine.

This august lady, though it did not occur to her to seek council with the Most High, found adequate means of disposing of the undesirable gift. It was a matter of considerable satisfaction to her that Nathalie had not been made cognizant of the little affair. Yet the watchful mother would have been not a little amazed could she have read the depths of her demure daughter's mind, and found there a vague but unquestionable disappointment at having in so many months received neither word nor message from her Moscow cousin. It was odd that Madame Dravikine should not have realized, by this time, that her daughter was the child of her own heart: and, since her childhood, Caroline Ivanovna had certainly never failed to recognize the least of her own conquests. Was it possible that the woman now high in the favor of a second reign, should have a dunce for a daughter? Yet the mother would probably have felt something other than satisfaction had she suspected how keenly Mademoiselle Nathalie had studied her tact and her tactics. It might be flattery of the sincerest order; but it must, nevertheless, prove rather too trying for comfort.

It had been in the August of the year 1843 that the court journal of Petersburg announced, at the head of its budget from TsarskoË-Selo, at which fashionable resort the Dravikines were wont to spend part of each summer, the birth of a daughter to the popular and fascinating Countess, Caroline Ivanovna. Within the month there began to pour in upon that lady a flood of congratulations which, upon the occasions of the first calls, were astutely turned to tactful condolences, it being at length understood that, while the Count was satisfied with the sex of his child, the Countess daily vibrated between rage and tears that she should not have given her house an heir. And since it was unquestionably madame who ruled the family, young Mademoiselle Nathalie, despite her remarkable eyes, her curling black hair and her rose-leaf skin, came to spend her babyhood in the care of the Dravikine serfs; until at the age of six she talked like a kitchen-maid, and had the manners of a stable-boy—or a Grand-Duke.

Now, in the autumn of 1849, Count Dravikine, whose promotions came about as regularly as his wife's allowance was paid, had just been created Assistant Minister of Public Works; and the dignity thereby superinduced in him was in exact proportion to the height of his upward step. Upon a November afternoon, then, as his Excellency was returning from the Council, he came suddenly upon his daughter, standing in the court-yard of his house, bare-headed, arms akimbo, feet spread apart in the attitude of a jockey, her white bonnet thrown upon the muddy flags before her, her shrill voice raised to a scream, as she pelted her helpless nurse with a string of oaths that would have done credit to his Iron Majesty, all for presuming to interrupt her game within doors in order to take her for the prescribed daily walk in the gardens of the Tauride.

Count Dravikine, his eyes narrowing with anger, approached the furious child, lifted her, now kicking frantically, in two powerful arms, carried her straight to his wife's boudoir, and flung her before her mother. Then, in a voice that Caroline had heard only twice before, he expressed his opinion of the up-bringing of his child, finishing with certain forceful suggestions of change for the future.

Countess Caroline listened without a word; but when her husband left her, he was well aware that his orders would be obeyed to the letter. The Countess, indeed, respected her partner and had continued to obey his rare commands simply because she was aware of the existence of that very voice and manner. And from that hour the education of her tomboy became with her a matter of considerably greater moment than the planning of the winter's campaign, or the choice of a costume for the first court ball of the season.

It followed that Mademoiselle Nathalie passed through two extremely trying years. At the end of them, however, she was a child transformed. No one now could possibly mistake her for a boy. She could read and write, spell fairly, had some knowledge of arithmetic and the conjugation of Amo: and, finally, her knowledge of intricate profanity had materially lessened. Nowadays, when she was left alone in her rage, her most forceful expressions seemed to be "Dieu de Dieu de Dieu!" or "Sapr-r-risti!" of her mild little tutor or her more vigorous French maid.

In spite of this conventional training, Nathalie, whose temperament contained a strong dash of masculinity, was quite eleven years old before she began to turn her vivid imagination to dreams of distant dÉbutantism or still remoter officers, who, in the most brilliant of uniforms, should appear at miraculous moments in her career, bringing shame and jealousy to armies of ill-mannered rivals. After the first three months in the Catherine Institute, this style of amusement also changed, and she was overcome by a religious mania which, being encouraged on every hand, might possibly have become really dangerous. It was by finally emerging from it unscathed, and having, at the age of thirteen years and six months, resolved herself into an agreeably normal young person whose quiet manners covered a swift and keenly feminine brain, that Nathalie Dravikine proved herself worthy of her mother's steel.

This, indeed, Countess Caroline came herself to perceive. After their long winter's separation, during those few days together in the sorrowing house of Gregoriev, during the April of 1857, mother and daughter came closer together than ever before. Madame Dravikine was softened by grief; and the consolation she found in her daughter's presence was as great as it was unexpected. Nathalie's tenderness and gentleness were certainly traits of the Dravikines, rather than of the Blashkov family. But Caroline, absorbed in memories of her beloved sister, failed either to analyze these, or to pay much heed to the two or three brief scenes between her girl and Ivan, which should have been summarily checked in their infancy. As it was, Mademoiselle Nathalie gained some relief from gloom and loneliness in the open admiration of her cousin; and, after the first day of novelty, found herself taking a quivering delight in this, her first affair.

The little climax of it all, that five minutes on the platform of the Petersburg station, which ended in a most uncousinly kiss, flamed scarcely less hot in the memory of the maiden than in that of Ivan. Nathalie carried back with her into the gray Petersburg Institute such a host of flagrant dreams as kept a dozen chums about her through the long twilights of as many afternoons. For the damsel was an erratic priestess of Eros; and, at this dream-age, she and her comrades gave to the technique of forthcoming flirtation a patient analysis that promised adequate devastation among the courtier army awaiting their acknowledged young-ladyhood.

Thus comes it that we take a final glance through two childish prison-houses, in far-separate Russian cities, wherein a youth and a maiden lie nightly dreaming the same dreams: one of them a spirit already bonded to the service of mind under the whip of circumstance: destined to storm rocky heights, from which hard-won eminences he shall command great views of sweeping plains and far-off mountain ranges; the other a pretty chrysalis on the eve of her change into a butterfly of butterflies; who is, nevertheless, to attempt flights overhigh and overfar for her frail wings; venturing to unfriendly lands whence she must return with frayed and tired pinions and a bruised and bleeding little soul. And their two destinies, so divergent, are yet fated, ever and again, in the swift swinging round their orbits, to approach, touch, and bound away again in opposite directions, strive though they may to maintain for a while some parallel course.

Kinder, most surely, just to leave them there: well-guarded children, walled securely away from the black, bleak world; oblivious of all things save the white innocency of their dreams of first, most fragile, high-romantic love.