"Look you, Joseph, even now she stands, Immaculate One, radiant upon her height, searching, with fearless eyes, our hearts, and those of that multitude that kneel, and lift their arms to her in supplication!—And some can raise their eyes to hers and smile; and some—look you, alas, how many!—must shrink and cower away beneath the scrutiny before which no deception will avail.—Those now withdraw themselves, to begin their bitter journey backward and down—down to their native Philistia: but never again will they rejoice among their fellows, for they have beheld that which has lifted them far towards the stars; and the companionship of clods must be hateful to them even in their fall.—But the rest, oh Joseph, see how they are gathered into those great mother-arms, and given comfort and good courage, power to continue on their upward way, strength to fight all battles, face all mockery, kill all slander, till the day dawns when they shall receive both the homage of the low, and the loving applause of the Most High; when they shall sit enthroned, wearing the double crown of man and of God.
"Oh Priest, oh Painter, such is our Law."
Ivan, moved beyond himself, struggled slowly out of the vision in which he had been enwrapped, his mind still soaring in regions of the imagination, where melodies sky-born did, indeed, surround him. But his return to earth came with a quick shock. When at length his reluctant hands fell from the keys, Ivan turned, instinctively, to the couch where the stranger lay. The gaunt form there was motionless, the head thrown back upon the pillows, one hand hanging limply to the floor. Something in the attitude, and the faint sound of quiet, regular breathing, brought a flood of scarlet over Ivan's face. The Pole's lips were parted in an angelic smile. Joseph the painter was fast asleep!
CHAPTER XVII
HERITAGE
When he woke next morning, and the unusual incidents of the day before came back to him one by one, Ivan's sense of mortification at his self-abandonment in the evening had but one saving grace: the fact that Joseph had slept through his impulsive and extravagant fantasy. But unhappily, as it presently appeared, this supposition proved a mistake. The youth had certainly heard part of his rescuer's parable; though how much Ivan did not attempt to discover, in his embarrassment at finding himself burdened with a disciple who very evidently believed him a world-famous man.
First of all Ivan set to work to assure himself of the truth of the young man's story; and, this being proved, next sought his friends' advice about establishing him somewhere in the neighborhood of the big art-school where he had worked, (which, as a matter of fact, happens to be the best in Russia); meantime giving him the wherewithal to live till his course was finished.
Unquestionably, Joseph had been in a state of abject destitution. His rooms were bare of every salable object save the cheapest of necessary toilet articles, and a rather extravagant color-box and set of brushes. But this fact of his having refused to sacrifice the implements of his art, put a final touch to Ivan's growing friendship for and belief in the plucky boy who had suffered as he had suffered for love of his work. For one week Joseph remained in Ivan's rooms. At the end of this time he, now fairly well recovered from the effects of his long privation, removed to the new rooms provided for him by Ivan, Nicholas Rubinstein, and four or five more intimates who had become interested in the young fellow's career. With these rooms, of which the rent for three months was already paid, went a purse of five hundred roubles:—far more than enough, Joseph protested, to keep him during the ten months that would elapse before the autumn salon which would, he hoped, exhibit his first picture.