Rubinstein stoutly refused; and, the more he was entreated, the more stubborn did he grow, till he had actually argued himself from a position of doubt into a mulish insistence that if they played nothing else that day, Ophelia should be properly rendered. Indeed by his yielding, Ivan had unconsciously brought about the thing he had in his own heart desperately desired.
At a little past midnight he left his former home, somewhat comforted in heart and mind. However, he went to no more rehearsals; and speedily gave his associates to understand that he wished the subject avoided; though he failed to notice that his wishes were also Rubinstein's. Nicholas, however, was harassed to a point of fury with all the world. Never in his life had he encountered such insubordination among his men. He set out to quell it persistently but tactlessly, regardless alike of the temper of his prospective audience, and of the highest interests of the boy whom he had taught, protected, and now unselfishly admired. He was perhaps more wretched than Ivan. For that youth had temporarily thrust this subject away from him and was dreaming day and night of his opera, and of the word that was to come from Zaremba; that word of absolute capitulation that should make the performance of Ophelia a mere episode, barely worth considering.
All too speedily for the unhappy conductor came the afternoon of his fifth symphony concert. By two o'clock pit and stalls were black with people. By half-past, even the boxes were noticeably full; and at that hour Nicholas Rubinstein appeared, bowed to the tumult of applause, lifted his baton, and drew forth the opening notes of the second "Lenore" overture. Ivan, very still and pale, troubled and apprehensive, sat in one of the stalls near the front, between Balakirev and Laroche, with Kashkine just behind: both of his Vevey companions having journeyed a thousand miles to hear their joint tone-poem. Never afterwards, however, could Ivan remember a single incident of the early afternoon. The "Italian Symphony," something of Glinka's, one of Anton Rubinstein's short orchestral commonplaces, were played with the usual brilliant finish. With the intermission came palpitation, a dry mouth, and a vague impression of Laroche's biting truths anent Anton's stupidity as a composer, and his strange influence over hard-headed Nicholas. Then there was one, last, terrible moment of dread, as the conductor remounted his daïs and paused. Obviously he was addressing his men. More than that, he was pleading and admonishing; for yesterday's rehearsal had been a piece of wanton cruelty. But now the baton must go up, happen what might. And immediately the twenty-minute practical joke began.[1]
The orchestra played their tone-poem faultlessly as to notes. Like so many machines, the instruments performed each its allotted part. But, oh, Heavens!—the effect! Expression: fire, poetry, understanding—piano, fortissimo, crescendo, rubato—there was absolutely none. Never had thing so dead, so stiff, so hideous, so discordant, been heard in that opera-house. People stared, looked at one another, frowned for an instant, smiled; at length, tittered, openly. In all that great building, but one little group sat silent. Ivan and the three gathered close at his side, were like men dead. Long before it was over, Nicholas had flung his baton to the floor and left the stage; but still the orchestra went on—and on. In the silence following on the last chord—a silence broken by no demonstration, either of applause or of hissing—Ivan the composer rose, pushed his way to an aisle, and hurried blindly out into the streets. Thus he knew nothing of the remarkable sequel of the affair: how Rubinstein, an instant after the cessation of the horror, had rushed back upon the stage, addressed a dozen wild phrases of explanation to the house, and then, at the end of a sudden clamor demanding Ivan, turned to his men, audibly fined every one of them a month's pay, after which, once again rapping the desk with his broken baton, he drove them, cowed and shamed, into a twenty minutes with Ophelia that was destined to fix Ivan's orchestral fame forever with the Moscow public; for it was a quarter of an hour after the piece ended for the second time, before the people would accept Kashkine's frantic assurances that the young man was not in the house.
Utterly oblivious of the turning of the tables, wrapped, as by a shroud, in that dire silence, Ivan was walking—walking—out into Moscow, through the frozen streets, under the leaden sky, the terrible anger and rebellion in him fading slowly to a numbing stillness—a stillness as of death. Was it really by accident that, on his homeward way, he passed the post-office to which his letters went? Without hesitation he had gone into the building. When he came out again there was an expression of fear in his eyes, and his heart was beating wildly. Nor were his steps any longer aimless. Taking the nearest droschky, he directed it first to a chemist's shop, then to his own room, where Sósha opened to his knock, and noted, as he passed, the envelope in his hand, across which sprawled Zaremba's old, familiar writing. But the pink package with its crimson danger-label lay hidden in a pocket.
Ivan sat at his bedroom window for twenty minutes before he found courage to open his communication. For the first time, doubt of his opera began to stir in his heart; and the memory of that other long-past day of disappointment, when Nicholas had found him in this very room, and had tried to hearten him, came to him as a premonition of doom. How was he to be heartened now—after so many more years of failure? Nay—with a half-smile, Ivan laid his recent purchase on the window-ledge, and slowly drew the letter from its envelope:
"St. Petersburg, Monday, March 10th.
"My dear Pupil:—Despite the fact that your manuscript score arrived at a time most inopportune, I having recently renounced all but my most pressing lessons to plunge myself entirely into an atmosphere of profound creation, I have conscientiously performed the task you imposed upon me. That this task proved very little worth while, I write with double regret—my own time being of considerable value to our world;—though it should not greatly surprise you, since it is thoroughly evident that 'Isabella' is a hasty, ill-thought-out, unfinished composition.—You will remember my constant reproaches of your excessive carelessness, even when you were directly under my own eye. And you will not expect me to think you very serious in your work when, on the very first page of your overture, I discover two unpardonable blemishes—an empty fifth (the first error of harmony mentioned in all text-books), and one of those monstrosities called, I believe, chords of the ninth diminished—a license actually tolerated, I believe, by a certain preposterous German school. Need I have read further to learn that, as a composer, you can never achieve a succès d'estime, and that your classical ideals are gone?
"To be brief, my dear Gregoriev, your 'opera'—I give it your own grandiloquent appellation, is unworthy the signature of a pupil of mine; and, after a careful reading, I feel that the greatest service I can do you is to keep the score pigeon-holed here till you are able to laugh at your wild idea of its possible performance.
"Accept, my dear pupil, the remembrances of,
"E. Zaremba."