The Genius

by Margaret Horton Potter

It was again the evening of October seventh when Ivan, called from the quiet festivity he was enjoying with his mother and Ludmillo, followed Piotr unwillingly into the presence of his father, who awaited him in his official room. Left alone at the closed door, Ivan entered, slowly, and was motioned to a seat opposite his father at the paper-piled table.

For a moment or two Michael regarded him thoughtfully. Then all at once he cried out: "You my son! God! What a baby it is!"

Ivan's face flamed and his lips twitched; but, in the end, he held his tongue. After all, did it matter what this man said?

Michael, watching him, and in some measure reading his thought, let his face soften again. "Well, it may be better that way. Listen, Mikhailovitch! I have done for you what has been done for no Gregoriev before. You are to be pushed up the ladder. You're to be deostracized. In the end, you'll find that Petersburg will receive you. They must; for at last I've obtained your commission in the Cadet Corps: something that none of our race has ever had. I tried, of course, for the Pages, but that they wouldn't give. Nevertheless, you'll come out an ensign of the line, and I can buy your lieutenancy in a guard regiment within the month. You understand?"

Michael paused, and fixed his keen eyes on the boy who was now on his feet, motionless, his brows knitted. He was a little bewildered by the unexpectedness of the thing. Yet he did understand—tumultuously, what that great news meant.

"When do I leave here?" he asked, presently, in a voice that was strange to him.

"In one week—to the day. There are preparations to be made. You go like the Prince you are. Christ! If I had had the chance!"

This last, muttered exclamation, Ivan scarcely heard. He was still staring down at the table, trying to readjust himself, to resolve his thoughts into either joy, or—more difficult—regret. The silence seemed longer than it was. Then Ivan looked up, silently asking permission to go. But he found his father's unholy eyes fixed on him, and instinctively he shrank backward, trying to cover his naked soul from that piercing vision.

"Wait! I've not finished yet. I want you to see just what I'm giving you. I want you to understand the start you're getting. Do you realize that, unless you make an unholy fool of yourself, within four years all Petersburg will be open to you? At twenty you will penetrate to those places to which I—I, with all the—experience, and the intimate knowledge I've got, shall never be admitted. I can buy commissions for you in any regiment. But in the end I don't intend you for the army. Oh, if I could have started you in the Pages Corps! Still, your advance is certain. And this is my first, middle, and last advice to you: walk instantly to the very centre of the first high intrigue that presents itself—everywhere. You'll find them even at the Corps—in your first year. For in Russia, Ivan, a full comprehension of that great game means power. Understand, the utterance of such a sentiment would mean Siberia. But this young Alexander is simply a puppy. He's to be influenced by a footman—by a serf! See that you reach him, then. Study him: learn him: absorb him. Then find your own methods and stick to them; stopping at absolutely nothing they may carry you to. It's the stopping, sooner or later, that is the universal mistake: the mistake I've never made—else I should have been in the gutter yet. You begin, Ivan, where I end. I see no limit for you. Petersburg will hold more than one empty portfolio. But you must not look below the highest. Take the Interior for yourself. To-night, Ivan, I, your father, make you Premier of Russia. Am I so careless of my son?"

Once more Michael's gloomy, flashing eyes were fastened upon Ivan's uplifted face; nor was he wholly dissatisfied at the unquestionable interest he perceived in the boy's expression. Ivan, indeed, felt petrified at the vista opened up before him. It seemed as if his father's words were burning themselves into his brain. And yet, even as he waited, quietly, for the dismissal that soon came, these ambitions of his father's for him were succeeded by something all his own: a thing as yet only half understood, and held secret in his heart out of dread of hearing it mocked or of finding it something common to all men. While, then, the words "Premier of Russia" still echoed through his head, there rose upon his inner ear a sudden note of melody, vagrant, sweet and melancholy as the songs of the Steppes. Known song it was not, however; but something unique, as were all the airs that came to him unbidden. Under its influence it was natural that his face should change, and soften. But Michael, imagining that rapt expression to be the result of his own words, was well satisfied; and he sent the boy from him so preoccupied with his uncomprehended gift, that the immediate prospect of the new life faded, for the moment, into the dim land of the unimportant Real.