By the time Rubinstein's immediate rage was spent, Ivan had regained his own self-possession, save for the gnawing pain that was to lie at his heart throughout many a long week and month. Nicholas' mood, however, was far from calm. He knew, better than any one save his own brother, the extent of their protégé's magnificent talent. He had heard many a fragment of the tone-poem, during its long progress towards completion; and, unconsciously, he had judged it enough to understand the injustice of that petty and malicious letter; doubtful though he still was as to its immediate motive. True, Nicholas had too often suffered from his brother's tormenting jealousy to be by any means blind to Anton's fault. Yet it seemed a preposterous thing that a man with a reputation world-wide, built on the double foundation of creation and interpretation, should descend to the meanness of persecuting a mere boy: one whose foot was not yet firmly fixed on the second round of the great ladder upon which he himself towered so securely and so high!—And yet—had not this same belittling blemish been the bugbear of his own, generous existence? Was anything impossible in one whom he had known again and again to stoop to the pettiest forms of personal malice and vindictiveness.
The big-hearted brother could afford indulgence where only he himself was concerned. But this idea that his close comrades must be abused,—this was too much, indeed! The rejection of the symphony—anything but an amateurish piece of work—still rankled in him, almost as bitterly as in Ivan. And now this outrage—when any one could see that the boy was fairly starving for a word of the encouragement he had more than earned—ah! it was intolerable, at last!
In the following hour there passed much further conversation between the two; but Rubinstein, while professing every sympathy, never hinted at the idea that was taking shape in his mind. When he left the bedroom at last, Ivan felt that, in spite of himself, he should get some sleep; for Nicholas had assured him solemnly that, when "The Boyar" should be finished, and the libretto, to be provided by Ostrovsky, properly polished, he would himself arrange for its production during the ensuing winter season. And while Ivan stood, dazed and silent, wondering if such a thing could really be, this great-hearted friend of Russia and Russian art, had seized him by the hand, left a vigorous pound of encouragement on his shoulder, and was gone—shouting, anxiously, as he perceived the relative positions of the hands of his watch.
Next morning, before Ivan had risen from his protracted sleep, Rubinstein's pupils at the Conservatoire were undergoing three hours of remarkable instruction. Their burly master cursed them roundly when they failed to point out to him a given number of chords of the ninth and seventh, augmented or diminished, in a selected fugue of that mad iconoclast Bach; or to mark two dozen examples of canon and counterpoint in the first act of the latest opera by the staid pillar of classicism, Richard Wagner! After which betrayal of his mental state, the master leaped to his feet, jammed his ancient hat over his eyes, called out that his classes for the next three days were to take their instruction from Balakirev, Gregoriev or Laroche; and then, informing them only that he should return within the week, he rushed out of the building. A convenient droschky carried him to his apartment, where he gathered together a bagful of clothes, scribbled Ivan a fictitious explanation of his journey, and was soon on his way to the station, where, by a miracle, he caught the Petersburg express.
Two nights later, at half-past one o'clock, Anton the world-famed returned to his rooms from a supper which had followed one of his rare Petersburg recitals. He was in excellent humor; for his success, throughout both sections of the evening, had been precisely to his taste. Seven times had he been forced to encore, before the enraptured audience would leave the concert-hall; and at Count Lichtenstein's—the house of the German ambassador, he had been lionized till even he was satisfied. Wherefore was he in excellent humor before, entering his living-room, his eyes fell upon the unexpected figure of his brother, who stood silently awaiting him. Nor was Anton long in reading the significance of his visitor's expression, before which his own changed utterly. His eyes were dull, his mouth grimly straight as he asked, harshly:
"Well, what is it now?"
"You should gather from your conscience the reason for my highly uncomfortable journey," returned Nicholas, in the drawl which never failed to rouse his brother to fury. "It's your miserably selfish treatment of young Gregoriev and his work that's brought me up here so inconveniently."
Anton turned on his brother, his eyes blazing with swift rage. But Nicholas, with a single glance from his calm, mocking, but deeply penetrating eyes, once more arrested him. "This boy trusts you so, Anton, believes so utterly in your good faith, the impartial judgment of you and your worm, Zaremba, that even you, whose very blood is green, would be moved if you could hear him.—However—where's the manuscript of the boy's tone-poem?"
"'Tone-poem!'—Eureka!—Do you imagine that it actually is music?—as he believes it, no doubt, to be?—Still, the rot is safe enough—where you'll not soon lay your hands on—"