The summer of 1860 found Ivan Gregoriev at the end of an experience so long, so difficult, so seemingly unendurable, that, up to the last few months of its continuance, he had never indulged in any anticipations of its conclusion. Like all things, however, his four years' battle came finally to an end. One, two, three, four: despair, unhappiness, resignation, and, lastly, some sort of authority as the recognized leader in his work, at least, of the grandiloquent first form: so passed the years of his cadetship, till, in the June of 1860, he graduated, honorably, and went off to spend the summer at Klin in his own fashion, giving very little thought to that impending commission which was once again to reorder his existence. Many were the pleasures possible to him now in that quiet spot. Some part of gilded Moscow—the very best of the clubs, would have opened to him had he displayed any passion for baccarat, or the kindred games indulged by the vast majority of his class. Cared he naught for these, there was yet another, phase of mannish existence to which he might agreeably be introduced. But when aspiring sycophants, members of the great mass of impecunious people of "family," found that this eccentric son of Prince Michael failed to appreciate the charms of a single member of the opera ballet (now indulging in the delights of their summer vacation, and expending part of their savings of fifteen rubles a week upon champagne suppers or coaching-parties to the various fashionable suburbs), they left him disgustedly to his own devices: which consisted in pouring over the orchestro-harmonical works of Monsieur Berlioz; and evolving strange progressions upon his new Érard.

Meantime, behold Prince Michael, alone in his sanctum, diligently studying the hieroglyphics on his map—of which the last corner, under the heading of "Alexander II.," was gradually filling—and otherwise working most zealously towards a new end. Nor was zeal unnecessary; for it took him four months to make a certain lofty nobleman see the unavoidable consequences of the translation and publication of a certain portion of that map. It was October before a peremptory telegram brought Ivan, with all his paraphernalia (consisting principally of much-worn musical scores and a considerable pile of crude manuscript-music), back to Konnaia Square. That night the young man slept once more in his boy's room in the west wing; and nine o'clock next morning found him, for the first time in his life, in his father's innermost cabinet, facing the powerful form and the difficult eyes of Prince Michael.

The interview was a long one, but contained little repetition, and made good use of every minute of its three hours. Ivan's whole problematical future was laid before him, clearly and in detail, as it had been constructed, during years of consideration, in his father's brain. It was the one plan of Michael Gregoriev's life which was destined to prove an absolute waste of energy. Still, there were to be two years of it literally fulfilled, wherefore we touch upon its preliminaries. Moreover, as Prince Michael spoke plainly, so we; though Ivan expended little amazement on the revelation, and appreciated remarkably little of the powerful influence that had been already brought to bear on his unimportant behalf. Michael himself was keenly aware that, even in the face of his map, he dared attempt nothing more till he had accumulated at least another twenty-four months of—um—ah—inner official history. But, for the present, he was satisfied with his accomplishment. Ivan, as graduate of one of the Corps, had been entitled to an ensignship in a line regiment. Influence, however, obtained for him a first lieutenancy in the Mounted Grenadiers—the finest regiment of the imperial guard in Petersburg, and the Emperor's favorite; whose uniforms, moreover, were calculated to capture the faith and fancy of any damsel, not of blood royal, in the whole Empire. Last, and, from Michael's point of view, most important of all, such a position would give Ivan at once the entrÉ into the best clubs, and, with them, the "smartest" society of Petersburg.

Using these facts as a preface, Prince Gregoriev proceeded to sketch out, to his silent auditor, the lines of an ideal (!) social-politico-military career, untrammelled, at last, by the traditional ostracism of his race. For his commission would do much for him; and Madame Dravikine was practically pledged to provide some sort of reputation for her nephew, being not unaware that the celebrated map of her brother-in-law contained more than one item of interest centering about her own most sacred name and title.

Through the period of explanation Ivan sat motionless, eyes down, brows knit, apparently attentive to his father's words. At the end, when the Prince had handed him his commission and half a dozen introductory letters, he bowed to his father, but uttered not one word of thanks or of understanding:—he—Sophia's son, though he had just received the gift of such a career as three-fourths of the young men in the country would have gone on their knees to obtain! Michael was half disposed to be pleased at the fellow's insolence. But he did not have the fineness of intuition to dream that his son, watching him closely through half-shut lids, had felt his blood pounding so furiously through his pulses that he dared not permit his lips to open for the fraction of a second lest he should fling some expression of his deep disgust, his anger—nay, his hatred—into his father's face, follow it with his commission, crushed into a ball, and rush forth from that ghost-haunted house, never to re-enter it again. Instead of this theatrical performance, then, Ivan chose silence and inaction. And finally, with bursting brain, he escaped to his own room, where he found Piotr—ostensibly waiting with tea.

But, unfortunately for Piotr, the young master was as uncommunicative as the old; and the door to the inner sanctum had, throughout this interview, been shut and bolted. Thus mere speculation was all that found tongue in the serf's quarters that night.

For many hours that afternoon—in fact, till darkness fell—Ivan sat over the samovar, drank glass after glass of tea, rolled cigarette after cigarette, and found himself at last still staring at a blank horizon-line, upon which not one picture consented to appear. Yet, reason with himself as he would, he knew that the heart within him was surging with joy. He was going out into the great world of Petersburg, his own master at last. He was going into the world of light, of gayety, of wealth; of the army, the court, of—of Nathalie Dravikine! Ay, it was true! That little love—that first, foolish love—lived in him still, having survived all the changes of his past changing years. Was it then to die, now, when his passion was about to be fired afresh by the presence of its living object?

Pondering thus, Ivan inhaled his cigarette-smoke, and felt the fine thrills of a subtle intoxication creeping along his nerves till, at length, his thoughts took a new turn. Standing, as he did, upon a threshold, looking through an open doorway out upon active life, he considered those things which he should force from the world for himself; and first of these, in his desire, was that knowledge which results only from experience. Kept all his life in the shadows of an unscalable wall of officialism, there had, nevertheless, reached his ears the first inarticulate rumors of that great movement of the youth of Russia towards enlightenment, towards education, towards individual understanding—a movement unique in the annals of the educational history of the world. From this period for many years all the youth of that tremendous Empire—every boy, every girl, from the highest to the lowest, was to rise up, alone, uninfluenced, demanding of age and guardianship the right to go forth into the world to work, to study—to learn, in fine, how a great country might in the future be developed. For a long time, even at Klin, within the walls of the Corps, Ivan had heard tales almost incredible in their strangeness of bitterness and rupture among the finest families between father and son, mother and daughter:—the members of the old regime against the self-constituted advocates of the new. Nor did a few months put an end to this incomprehensible movement. Sonya Kovalevsky, in the company of her chivalrously nominal young husband, had left her parental estate and was at work in Heidelberg, perfecting that mathematical genius that was to make her known throughout the scientific world. Following her brilliant example, went a small army of young, upright and earnest women and girls, by whom half the universities in Europe were presently invaded, by no means, as was soon learned, to the detriment of the collegiate standing, either in ethics or in learning. And as college after college opened its doors to these young seekers after truth, bigoted Russia stood aghast at the incalculable prospect of the future.

More knowledge of these facts, and information of and experience in half a hundred other matters, did Petersburg promise its new lieutenant; and the more he thought of it all, the more eager did he become to embark at once upon this new existence. Nor was the time of his departure far away. He was just a month past his twentieth birthday when, upon a bitter October morning, he was admitted once more to his father's sanctum, this time to say good-bye. During the brief interview, Michael exhibited a touch of feeling, perceiving which Ivan felt a brief pang that he could not match it. But when a roll of twenty-five hundred rubles was placed in his hands as the allowance for his first six months, the young man's gratitude was sincere enough and deep enough to satisfy the father, who knew more than his son of the expenses entailed by a life in one of the crack regiments of the guard, and who informed Ivan a little sarcastically that his lieutenant's pay ought not to do more than keep him properly gloved and shod.

By the time he emerged from that celebrated closet, with his commission, his passport, and three letters of recommendation, together with his money, in his uniform pockets, Ivan found that his hand-luggage had already been carried out and placed in the sleigh that was to carry him on the first brief stage of his journey into the great world. And, as he left the palace and entered the square, his officer's swagger was just a trifle overdone. For he had shot up, as it were, in a night: he was twenty and a personage at last!

The journey northward across the snowy flats was all a delight to the traveller. Those odd little first trains that ran over the famous "ruler line" between the two Russian capitals, were still sources of wonder and delight to the peasants of the scattered villages now beginning to spring up along the railway; and each stopping-point found the train surrounded by a throng of fur-clad individuals, many of whom had travelled some versts to see the train: perhaps accompanying a friend who was to travel a short distance therein; perhaps to get a load of merchandise or freight destined for a distant town; or, perhaps, just for the sake of seeing the engine, the cars, and the crowd that would assemble about them. Many of these last were country priests, idle on weekdays, desolate enough in their unique isolation, glad to seek any sort of distraction for its own sake, and even more eager than their peasant inferiors for the distinction of a single word of greeting or command from one of the lords of passage. Ivan was pleased to alight frequently; get a brief walk in the sharp air; address a word or two to some adoring native; and scatter a handful of kopecks among the occasional children of the station-masters. But these paltry happenings were all forgotten, and his heart full to bursting, when at last, on the evening of the second day, there gleamed, far ahead through the dusk, the red lights of St. Petersburg.

The first week of a young man's independence: his entrance into the exalted rank of high-born bachelorhood—can it ever again be brought up out of the past a distinct, coherent memory? Hardly. For Ivan and the capital spun together in the wildest of dances, during the first days of their meeting. Ivan's mind whirled in a chaos of regimental introductions and instruction, wearying hunts for suitable bachelor quarters, long afternoon hours filled with the pungent smell of tanbark and the careerings of a horse with whom he never came to be on terms of absolute equality; evenings spent in the glamour of strange restaurants, the discussion of French entrÉes, and the contemplation of much-dressed denizens of the high and the half worlds; and, finally, retirement in a room at the HÔtel Bellevue, where a young lieutenant with only two thousand rubles in his pocket was not a person of any special importance.

This haze of memory terminated, finally, and objects appeared in a clearer atmosphere, when young Gregoriev became half-owner of a charming apartment in the irreproachable Bashkov PerÉolouk, ten minutes' walk from his barracks, in partnership with a fellow-officer, one Vladimir de Windt, destined to become his friend of friends. And shortly after this momentous step, Ivan took another, by presenting his card in the Serghievskaia, numÉro 843, where his aunt, Madame Dravikine, vouchsafed him ten minutes of her much-besought time, it being the afternoon of one of her receptions. In her small, but admirably arranged drawing-rooms, were gathered the cream of a certain set of Petersburg society, now met for the first time this season, and making the rooms echo with their particular variety of scandalous, intensely personal news acquired during a long summer, and apparently having been held back for exploitation at this special hour. Unintelligible as it proved to Ivan's unsophisticated ears, he listened with awe to the sound of royal, and other lofty and sacred names bandied about with a familiarity that was the opposite of respect.

By some imperceptible means, Madame Dravikine saw to it that her nephew came in contact with those people who could be useful to him; and she was satisfied, if slightly surprised, to see the ease with which he talked. Ivan himself wondered that he felt so little embarrassment in entering into the mood of the hour, and, while he talked, drank a great many cups of tea, each of which contained a considerable quantity of rum. But all the time he kept an eye over his shoulder, in the hope of catching some glimpse of his cousin Nathalie. Time passed, and the young lady did not appear. Ivan longed but did not dare to inquire about her. So, at last, he walked back to his apartment, arm in arm with de Windt, who had been no less surprised than pleased at discovering him in the house of so established a leader as Madame Dravikine. De Windt, himself a celebrated dandy, began, as they left the Serghievskaia.

"You are an enigma—a deceiver, Ivan Mikhailovitch! Here it is a week since you arrived. You profess to know no one. But you managed immediately to join quarters with me; and now "—he stopped, turning from the wind to light his cigarette—"now, on the first afternoon you are left alone, you immediately appear at one of the best-known houses in the Admiralty quarter, where you seem as much at home as—I myself!"

Ivan echoed his companion's laugh. He had gauged the real depth of de Windt's conceit, and knew him to be, at bottom, both sincere and just in his estimates of men and things. "I ought to be at home there, at least," he observed, quietly. "Caroline Ivanovna—Madame Dravikine—is my aunt."

"St. Serge!—And you let us dub you 'bonhomme nouveau'!—Grand Diable, Ivan Mikhailovitch, had you had the choice of Petersburg, you could not have selected a better lanceuse than Countess Caroline! On my word, your saint favors you!"

And Ivan, who shrugged away the whole affair, found Monsieur de Windt perfectly right. Fortune had stationed herself at his shoulder, at last; and the young man did well docilely to obey her whispered directions. In a month, there were a thousand young men about town, far above the station of a Gregoriev, who would have given half their prospects for Ivan's present position. But the fickle goddess loves well to show her face to him who has never sought to lift her veil; and to Ivan, whom she had hitherto served so ill, she chose suddenly to shower with all the things that youth desires. The young man found that, many and varied as had been his dreams of the new life, reality surpassed them all. Work, consisting of regimental duties and musical study, had taken a large place in his mental picture of the present; and these things, with an occasional holiday spent in exploring the new city, or, better, alone in the company of his aunt, were to constitute all his work and recreation. Moreover, he had, perhaps, secretly pictured himself neglecting his prescribed duties for those musical studies which he had hoped at last to undertake seriously, at the recently founded Conservatoire: perhaps under its founder and chief instructor, the great Rubinstein; at least under the second professor, the worshipful Zaremba, whilom conductor of the opera.—These occupations, conceived during long, wakeful nights in the dormitory of the Corps, at Moscow, had seemed to him, at that time, details of a nearly perfect life. But Lieutenant Gregoriev of the imperial guard, man-about-town and nephew of Countess Dravikine, could afford to laugh at his childish ideas of a "manly" existence.

First of all, Ivan soon discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names were known to a certain astute Moscow official) by working in the Artels that ply their various crafts in the Russian cities throughout the winter season. The chief duty of the officers, then, was to act as escort to members of the royal family when they took formal outings, or made short journeys to Peterhof or such of the country palaces as were within driving distance of the Hermitage. Also, certain mornings of each week were spent at the riding-school; and others in the practice of fencing and shooting, or the perusal of the drill manual. The afternoons and evenings were free, in so far as a member of smart society can ever be free, considering the necessity of being seen in every private or public place of amusement considered "the thing" at the moment. And, though Ivan was far too much of a novice to perceive any iron underneath the flowers on the chains he had voluntarily donned, he soon discovered that regular study of any kind was impossible for him in that atmosphere.

Ivan's regiment had always been a popular one in the capital; and, at the end of the first six weeks of the new season, there was in it no officer more sought-after than young Prince Gregoriev—"a nephew of the Dravikines, you know." And this "young Prince"—who had himself never been known to use his title, lost no time in picking up the manners and the jargon of his small, new world. The thing that, in the beginning, amazed him most, however, was the attitude towards him of his aunt; whom he viewed with deep respect as the mother of Nathalie. He was slow to understand Madame Dravikine's habit of surrounding herself with young men; or the fact that she had had it assiduously whispered about that her sister, the mother of Ivan, had been married when she was herself a child scarce out of arms. But he wondered to find how very few of his aunt's intimates remembered the age of her daughter, now for many years convent-wrapped. His first moment of disillusion came on the day that his aunt informed him, with considerable asperity, that his pretty cousin was not a person to be mentioned in their circle—the reason given—that "she was not yet out,"—sounding rather flimsy even to his trusting ears. Still, he was given to understand that, in all probability, Nathalie would be presented next winter, at one of the court balls; on which day, Caroline admitted, wearily, to herself, her special reign must end. But to her, seasoned through fifteen years of unavoidable pretence, it was impossible to see the effect of her customary fiction of existence, upon a mind hitherto so unused to feminine subterfuge as that of Sophia's son.

Ivan, troubled at heart by these and several other details of society life, made certain cautious observations to de Windt which sent that sophisticated young man into tempests of mirth. But guileless Ivan, who had used no names, never realized that he himself was responsible, by his insensibility, for the failure of Madame Dravikine's latest attempted flirtation, which took the drawing-rooms of Petersburg by storm that December, and set men and women alike laughing cruelly over the fall of Countess Caroline's carefully constructed age, which was announced, en haute voix, by her nephew, at a ball. At the same time, it was also, in all probability, this same incident, that saved poor Nathalie another year of seclusion and prayers. For, had not the world already found her out, it is scarcely probable that the gay Countess, arrived at the actual hour of abdication, would have had the courage to bid her youth good-bye, and take up her place behind an exquisite dÉbutante.

It was odd, perhaps, that Ivan was not at once banished from the sunshine of his aunt's favor. But, for some reason, she chose to retain him among her circle of devotees, sore as was his heart and disabused his mind, of all illusion concerning the woman whom he had hitherto looked up to as the single true companion, gay counsellor, gentle philosopher, of his unhappy mother; and whom he now saw, perhaps rather unjustly, as a mere, deceptive, heartless mondaine.

There were, however, in the society of the Russian capital into which Ivan had been so swiftly drawn, an infinite variety of other types who amused, pleased, occasionally interested, their new companion and observer. Petersburg was still under the stimulus of its changed rule. Nicholas, the Iron Czar, a man stern, unlovable and unsocial, was dead. With him had ended alike the horrors of a dreadful war and the lifeless formalities which, throughout his reign, had served as the only court functions. Just now a young Emperor, delight of his people and his court, husband, moreover, of the most charming of Princesses, was manifesting as much interest in evening gayeties as he did during the daytime in those gigantic, newly projected reforms to which his wife and his favorite minister were so ardently urging him. The six months' court mourning, now thrown back, had revealed a lining of glowing rose. St. Petersburg, from humblest serf to Czarevitch, was filled with life and joy. And the society of the capital had plunged into a fever of gayety unknown for twenty years. Amusements began at noon and ended the following dawn. The first entertainment of the day was the second breakfast:—for everybody naturally followed the French mode. Afterwards there was skating on the lakes of the Tauride; then the traditional drive down the Nevskiy Prospekt—a ceremony that shall endure till St. Petersburg is forgotten; then a round of calls at the houses of those old and noble families whose names demand that they open their doors daily to the younger of their class. Later, between eight and nine o'clock came dinner—a meal by no means neglected because of the tea, zakouski and sweets that had been consumed steadily since dÉjeuner. And at ten o'clock, dinner over and the theatre begun, Petersburg began to grow really wide awake and to enjoy itself. For of all nations in the world, the Russian is the latest. Your true Slav nobleman is always a night-owl. Languid at luncheon, he endures his drive, enjoys his dinner, enthuses at the opera, scintillates at supper, and is then roused to a full sense of the real business of life: dancing, gambling, or prolonged calls upon his friends; after which there is usually some sleighing-party to the ice-palace on the Neva, or, if nothing better offers, a round of the music-halls, which open only after the opera is closed. Yes, truly, after one month in this land, no one will deny that Paris has held too long the reputation that should belong to St. Petersburg: that of the gayest of all the gay cities of the world.

Thus, for some months—from October to January—Ivan lived, nor paused to reflect on the questionable usefulness of such a life. The boy had known too many wistful years to be easily inoculated by any reactive poison in his stimulant. All the quieter dreams of that secret, inner life of boyhood, were temporarily laid by. He failed to appreciate the real value of the life he had led; the gift that he had begun to develop in the finest, highest way. Had any one questioned him—though no one of his present world would have dreamed of so doing, he would doubtless have laughed at the suggestion of returning to the old ways. But whether such questions would or would not have set him, afterwards, to some furtive weighing of respective values, it is impossible to say. Still, one may be permitted to hope the best of one's hero; or how impress a languid public with his qualities?

Madame Dravikine, despite her little discomfiture, would nevertheless have declared the season from October to January perfect—save, possibly, for a single gap in the royal coterie, and that in a spot that she did not habitually frequent. As a matter of fact, it was only in January that there returned to the capital, after nearly a year's absence, possibly, the Empress excepted, the finest woman in Petersburg: sister of the Iron Czar, and aunt of the present Emperor—the Grand-Duchess Helena Pavlovna, voluntary leader of the reform party in the capital. This great lady, immediately upon her return, doffed her prolonged mourning and threw open once more the doors of her famous salon. And it was through her—sister of kings—that Ivan, flocking with the rest of his world to her famous drawing-rooms, returned after a little, back to his best self.

Her Royal Highness was a pattern of energy in all she undertook; and it had been the habit of her lifetime to receive three evenings a week. On Monday, on Wednesday, and on Friday she was at home: on each night to a different world. On Mondays, with Milutin throned on her right hand, she received the homage of the various members of the Council, each with his pet bundle of intrigues; and deftly encouraged the clamor of controversy sure to be roused among these ministers of varied persuasion. On Wednesdays she sat alone in the centre of her salon, laughing at and with the pretty world that came to flutter about her, in its richest plumage and most changeable humor. Finally, on Friday, she rewarded herself for duties done. Dressed quietly in black, with merely a scrap of old point on her high, white head, she gave her hands, her brains, and the refinement of her fine senses to—the musicians and the music of Russia. For music was her recreation and her passion; and she had created for it and for herself such a salon as is scarcely to be equalled in history. No caste save that of ability was known on these nights. Artists, uncouth and shy, who would have flown at the thought of a royal command, flocked hither, sure of a genial welcome, artistic appreciation, and absolute freedom from the dreaded fashionables of the unknown world. For the Emperor himself could hardly have got an invitation to his royal aunt's Fridays "at home."

It was Vladimir de Windt (who, upon further acquaintance, betrayed many hidden and unexpected talents,) who carried Ivan, experimentally, to one of these Fridays. For de Windt, who had in him, deeply hidden, tenderly cherished, that germ of artistic comprehension that is not to be acquired by any means, divined the same thing in his new-found companion, and took a great risk to prove his surmise true. Ivan had not an inkling of what Vladimir ventured in taking him to that exclusive little palace, where, did his protÉgÉ prove a boor, he knew well he should never find a place for himself again. But Vladimir had spent many an evening at the opera with Ivan; and had studied well the expressions that Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, even Flotow, at his best, could bring out upon his companion's mobile face. And her Royal Highness was well known to reward the discoverer of any new man of talent in her special art.

On that mid-January evening of Ivan's first appearance at the palace on the quays, the scene that greeted his eyes was the same that afterwards became so familiar to and so beloved by him. In the centre of the square, well-lighted, bare salon, which, used only for these evenings, contained not one of the customary hangings, or any medley of useless toys and ornaments, stood a great Érard, its shining top raised, flanked by two long stands heaped with music of every description. At the right of the instrument, willingly accepting second place, stood the arm-chair of the Grand-Duchess; and about her, in an informal circle, each one quite at ease, sat or stood twenty or thirty men, young and old, with possibly half a dozen women. At the piano, engaged in marking a sheet of manuscript music, was a short, heavy-set person, with a leonine mane and deep, brilliant eyes: a man known all over Europe, and to be known throughout America: one Anton Rubinstein, pianist, a maker of music. At his elbow, but talking to a frail-looking woman, was his brother, Nicholas, destined always to be overshadowed by Anton, but to whom the cause of Russian music was to owe far more, in the end, than to the more showy virtuoso. In the knot about Madame Helena's chair were Zaremba, SÉrov, Glinka, Balakirev, Stassov, Lechetizsky—for the moment a special protÉgÉ of the Grand-Duchess, and even young Rimsky-Korsakov, at this time merely a Conservatoire pupil. Finally, far away, at the end of the room, stood a long table, whereon were two unlighted samovars, flanked by golden platters of sandwiches, cakes and caviare, together with piles of untouched plates.

At the entrance of the two young men, de Windt grasping Ivan by the arm, the Grand-Duchess turned, in time to hear their names announced. And after a moment, she summoned them to her, with a slight gesture. Then, breaking off her argument with Ivan's future biographer, she held out a hand for de Windt to salute.

"Vladimir Vassilyitch, I expected you.—Have you enrolled yourself under Zaremba yet, for proper instruction?"

De Windt laughed. "Your Highness should get his Majesty and my Colonel to claim less time of me!"

"Bah, Monsieur Impertinence! The yacht club's green tables see more of you than your Colonel, as we all know.—Whom have you brought me?"

"My brother officer and good friend, Lieutenant Ivan Mikhailovitch Gregoriev, lately of Moscow."

Her Highness started and straightened. "Gregoriev!—The son of Gregoriev of Moscow, here!—Are you aware, sir—" Suddenly she stopped, her gaze meeting that of Ivan, and noting the deathly pallor of his face, the sudden fire in his eyes. With an effort, she restrained herself, and presently observed, in a different tone:

"I have heard of your father, Lieutenant.—Are you a musician?"

A shred of color crept back into Ivan's lips; but his voice was unsteady as he said, in a low, rather rough voice: "I ask the pardon of your Royal Highness, and beg leave to go.—The fault and the mistake of my presence are entirely mine!"

At these words, de Windt turned towards him, sharply; but their hostess interrupted his first syllable:

"You have made no mistake, sir. Vladimir Vassilyitch is responsible for all that he does. You are, I presume, a lover of music?"

"Indeed yes, your Highness!"

"You play?"

Ivan, glancing towards the piano, encountered the keen look of the world's master-pianist. "I have played at home, as a boy, for—my mother," he answered, the last word uttered very low.

A brief silence followed his speech. The little scene was unusual, and had by this time caught the attention of the room. Ivan felt the hostile fire of many eyes fixed on him, and perceived dimly what they had resolved:—that he was to be tried, here, as others had been before him—rather cruelly.

Finally the Duchess herself glanced towards the piano. "Anton, have you marked your expression?"

"That is finished.—But I have not as yet suggested a fingering for the cadenza."

"No matter.—Ivan Gregoriev, Monsieur Rubinstein has brought us a new manuscript—a barcarolle, you said, Anton?—finished to-day, and brought here to be played to me. He writes a clear hand. Sit down, then, and let us hear you interpret it."

"I, madame!"

"I said so."

Ivan flushed crimson, and then went white again. An instant later he smiled: smiled as on the night of his initiation at the Corps des Cadets, when his tormentors could not make him cry out. Without another word he walked to the piano and seated himself in the place vacated by Rubinstein, who, angered at the thought of having his new creation murdered by a tyro, speedily betrayed his mood to the company, who regrouped themselves near the instrument. After this, the silence became absolute.

A long, tense moment, and then,—a sound broke the stillness: a long and delicate tremolo, high in the treble. Instinctively, Helena Pavlovna closed her eyes. The vibration increased, descended an octave, continued an instant alone, and then was joined by a second tone by which the melody was begun. It was a passage simple to read and played simply, but with both delicacy and understanding, and without any of that rubato or other affectation by which young Lechetizsky was already beginning to mar his style. It was music pure, almost classical—the work not of a virtuoso, but of a composer. And Rubinstein, leaning against the wall, his eyes on Ivan's face, felt his humor change. His work, if better than he had hitherto believed it, was certainly not being spoiled as yet. Still—he must wait till the turning of the page, where began some of those elaborate pyrotechnics that cheapen so much of his work. Could this modest youth accomplish anything intricate? Probably not. And yet—the fellow was calm enough. Even Rubinstein failed to divine the extent of the strain under which he labored.

Ivan had begun the barcarolle trembling. The first page successfully accomplished, however, he lost himself a little, and began to feel the old, musical, sixth sense creeping through him, and emerging, gloriously, at his fingertips. Confidence increased. He had turned the page. Ah! Here, truly, was need of it. The ensuing passage was utterly beyond his rusty skill! One hurried glance told him that. Afterwards—he went calmly on. Rubinstein, listening more at ease, was seen to give a sudden start, stare an instant at the performer, and then, catching Nicholas' eye, lift his brows in protest, to the only man who had heard the composition before. Ivan was retaining the melody, picking it unerringly from the mass of blurring notes, and substituting for the difficulties of the accompaniment, a simple, graceful set of broken chords.

At the beginning of the second part of the development the performer, exalted, even a little intoxicated with his sense of success, essayed a bit of improvisation considerably more important than the first. This time he ceased absolutely to follow Rubinstein's harmony, and, retaining simply the melody, changed, however, to a minor key, he produced an odd, rhythmical little series of syncopations so rich, so strange, and withal so unlawful that when, omitting the conventional cadenza, he plunged into a coda of his own, Rubinstein flew furiously to the piano and would have struck the youth's hands from the keys but for a gesture from her Highness so imperious and so unmistakable that the great pianist's angry protests died upon his lips, and he joined, perforce, in the tumult of applause that ended the unparalleled performance.

Ivan found himself the centre of an intensely curious throng. Congratulation, commendation of a two-edged sort, questions and ejaculations, flew round him like hail. Then there fell a sudden silence as the Princess, leaning heavily on her cane, approached the piano through a little lane respectfully opened for her in the throng. But it was to Rubinstein, not Ivan, that she addressed herself:

"What has this young man been about, Anton?—Your style is certainly very much improved!"

"Your Highness, it was not my barcarolle you heard, but a clever bit of improvisation on my theme—my own development having proved, no doubt, too much for Monsieur Gregoriev's technique."

Helena Pavlovna cast one answering look at this man whose musical talent was surpassed only by his well-known, frantic jealousy of every possible rival. And then, taking the abashed Ivan by the hand, she turned and faced her guests:

"My friends, we have listened, to-night, to the dÉbut of one of Russia's talented sons. I introduce to you, in Monsieur Ivan Mikhailovitch Gregoriev, a new composer; one who, a Russian of Russians, shall, I predict, carry the songs of our country beyond herself, and proclaim them over civilized Europe!"

A smile of self-forgetfulness, of an enthusiasm that betrayed the beauty of her royal soul, shone upon the lips and from the eyes of this true Princess, as Ivan, his heart beating to suffocation, fell impetuously upon one knee before her and raised her frail hand to his lips.

It was indeed his dÉbut in the Russian world of music; and alas! it gained for him fewer friends than enemies. For, of all types of men and women upon earth, those into whom Euterpe has breathed her spirit, are certainly the most practised in envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness.