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.