The voice of the Jew was silenced—perforce; for the reason that hands were laid upon him: hands heavy and powerful, full of the righteous anger of a strong man driven beyond himself. And when the hero of the recent supper-party finally lay back in his own chair, panting and wriggling with pain, his mood had changed, perceptibly.
"Have you dared," demanded Nicholas, in a voice low and trembling, "to burn the first masterpiece of a genius?"
"I told you it was safe."
"Do you imagine I believe—Ah well! I take it back to Moscow with me, to-morrow."
At these words, the smouldering fire in the other's wretched heart leaped up again, and he cried, furiously: "You lie! It is not a masterpiece!—Even Zaremba said that every idea in it had been stolen from me!—The thing shall never be played until I choose!"
"Anton, are you mad?—Can you actually heed anything said to you by the jackal who endures your blackmail?—Has your infernal jealousy reached the point where you don't hesitate at crime?—My God!—My bro—"
"Good Heavens, Nicholas! Since when have you gone into melodrama?" The voice was pettish, but the listener was not slow to catch a tremor of discomfort under its attempted loftiness. "As if I cared!—or need to fear such stuff as Gregoriev's!—Go to Zaremba, if you like, and tell him I sent you for the manuscript.—Much good may it do you!—Oh, yes, take the thing! Have it played! Hear the fools howl over it and praise it! The day of real greatness is over. Beethoven, and Bach and Mozart, and Rubinstein are to be superseded by the wonderful Wagner—who hasn't a notion of music in his head! and Serov, the imitator; and now Gregoriev, infant prodigy, picked out of the gutter by me, from whom he now proceeds to steal the only ideas he has about composing!—And here I, a genius, have slaved all my life away to please a public who desert me in an hour for this—this—"
Wine and emotion, acting together, were making the man almost maudlin. Nicholas knew well what climax ten minutes would bring. So, with a word or two of friendly thanks and farewell, he left the house, and sought a familiar hotel, where he was too well known to be refused even at this ungodly hour.
In five days from the time of his departure Nicholas was back in Moscow, arriving there in the early evening, and proceeding at once to his rooms, where he found Ivan alone—Laroche being at the theatre, at the last performance for the season of Ostrovsky's latest farce.