The Genius

by Margaret Horton Potter

As he entered the room, Nicholas read the wistful question in Ivan's eyes, and answered it by tossing him the roll of recovered manuscript, which, with a quivering cry of joy, Ivan caught to his breast and then retired, precipitately, to his room, whence he did not emerge again that night.

But, in spite of its successful recovery, and the high opinion afterwards expressed concerning it by Ivan's own circle, it was many years before "Day Dreams" had its initial performance: at a time when Russia was alive with the name of Gregoriev. Moreover, at that first performance the composer was not present. The work, result of so many hours of devoted labor, had been hateful to him from the evening on which he realized the enmity of his hitherto revered and beloved mentor. Though no word on the subject of Nicholas' visit to Petersburg ever passed between Ivan and his benefactor; though for years the semblance of friendship was retained by the young composer and the great virtuoso; three men knew well that Anton's influence over the younger man was gone, forever. And Anton himself was bitterly aware of the expression of half-puzzled, half-regretful disdain that he encountered so often in Ivan's eyes. Indeed both felt, in their secret souls, that no tone-poem ever written could be worth the price paid for this unhappy work:—which had, nevertheless, through Anton's very jealousy given Ivan the knowledge that he stood already more than one round above his fellows on the great ladder of attainment.

In one way, indeed, the young man had hardly needed this active proof of his ability; for, for some time now, there had been growing in him a quality much needed by his kind: a stern, dogged, ineradicable belief in himself and his eventual recognition. Rooted, as, to the shame of mankind, has been the lot of so many of the world's true great, in the deep bitterness of non-recognition; growing, sturdily, in the midst of beating storms and freezing snows of jealousy, malice, criticism incredibly stupid, misfortunes persistent and discouraging; such natures as these are bound at last to blossom, gloriously, in the sunlight of success; and live, nourished by the quiet dews of appreciation; unless, indeed, as in certain cases, the growth has been too delicate, too exquisite, too sensitive to outlive the probation years, and fades before it has come into maturity, while the bloom of full achievement is yet in the bud. But Ivan was not of these last. His stubbornness was great; and he labored on, doggedly, sore as was his heart, till June brought release from his labors at the Conservatoire. Then he betook himself and his few belongings joyously back to Vevey, where surroundings of natural beauty, rest, isolation, the absence of unwelcome tasks, gave him back his strength, and restored both his hope and his ambition.

During this period his great task was always "The Boyar." But, in the intervals between his stretches of regular work, he undertook certain lighter things, based on themes jotted down in his note-book at odd moments. It was, indeed, during this summer,—though Kashkine has erroneously attributed them to a later year, that he produced the celebrated "Songs of the Steppes," those "Chansons sans Paroles," which the world hums still, even after a vogue which would, in six months, have killed anything less original, less intangibly charming and uncommon. These finished—and the sheets of manuscript were printed, eighteen months later, almost without change—he caught a sudden fever of entomology: hunted daily for specimens, but preserved, eventually, only six of his captures: a moth, silver and green; a butterfly of steely, iridescent blue; a solemn, black-coated cricket; a bee bound round with the five golden rings of Italy; a tiny, rainbow-hued humming-bird, found dead in a fast-shut moon-flower; and, finally, a slender, bright-winged dragon-fly. These, humanely chloroformed and pasted upon cards, Ivan studied, wondering at his own interest; nor understood its reason till, by the dark and tortuous ways of unconscious cerebration, there sprang from his brain, Minerva-like, the six dances which are incorporated in the most charming ballet of his time the famous "Rêve d'Été." When, a year later, immediately before its first production, Monsieur Venara, maître de ballet of the Royal Opera, asked the composer for a special pas for his favorite première danseuse, Ivan meditated, and returned in spirit to the fields of Vevey, hunting for one more sprite of field or wood. In vain. He could think of nothing but an old familiar hedge of eglantine. And to that, finally, was written the "Rose Waltz" to which Mademoiselle Pakrovsky, Venara's "discovery," later danced her way through La Scala to Paris, that end and aim of the dancer's dreams.

In September, the musical journal of Moscow announced the return of young Monsieur Gregoriev, a distant relative of the Prince Procureur-General of that name, who was winning no small reputation as a composer of light music, and who would resume his professorial duties at the Conservatoire. It was, moreover, rumored that the summer of Monsieur Gregoriev had been no idle one; but that, he having turned for the first time to a serious subject, Moscow would that winter have the opportunity of gauging the young man's talent at the Grand Theatre, when, in November, Signor Merelli's Italian troupe should begin their season of winter opera.

For once in a way, that the rule might be proved, the greater part of this bumptious paragraph was true. Furthermore, as had not been said, Ivan's name was to appear twice on the programme of the first orchestral concert of the season, over which the two Rubinsteins were now working busily. It had been by main force that Nicholas kept two spaces blank till the return of Ivan from his holiday. But Anton, who was in a dejected mood, made no great objection when Ivan, filled with a strange, new sensation of pride, wrote down the titles of two compositions under his name, on the manuscript programme handed to him, one evening, in his new abode.

For, this fall, Ivan had taken a long stride towards independence. In August Shrâdik had returned to Moscow, to remain throughout the winter. But young Laroche, whose family had lately lost a large fortune, was now in no position to leave the Rubinstein apartment, where his expenses were very light. Moreover, Wieniawski the pianist had rented the rooms on the fourth floor; and both he nor Shrâdik could be counted on to maintain a duet scales and exercises during the entire day. Wherefore poor Laroche began to seek the sympathetic stillness of the "Cucumber"; and Ivan, after two days in a temporary closet of six feet by eight, set out in search of an abode to fit his income.

This proved a matter less difficult than he had feared. In fact, within a week he was joyously settled, in a suite of two rooms, with an antechamber and a cubby for his servant, who was, indeed, none other than old Sósha, a Gregoriev serf, who, on the day of the proclamation of freedom, more than five years before, had hurried forth from Konnaia Square as from the bottomless pit. For years he had led a wandering life, missing his former companions and comparatively easy existence, but too stubborn to return to a certain beating, and the plentiful curses of the Prince. When, then, he one day encountered Ivan issuing from a second contemplation of his new quarters, the old man rushed to him as towards a preserver Heaven-sent; and Ivan was but too glad to accept the charge.

Sósha, always, like his generation, a slave at heart, would gladly have served his young master without wages and to the death. But Ivan, recently amazed by the announcement of a further increase in his salary, which now amounted to the princely sum of eighteen hundred roubles a year, offered his whilom servant wages so good that the fellow thenceforth actually refrained from any commission on the marketing and those other household purchases which Ivan was glad to leave to him.

Thus it came about that Monsieur Gregoriev was installed in a home of his own, in which to maintain his longed-for gods. Their ghosts appeared, in the company of Nicholas Rubinstein, on the night when this stanch friend came to tell Ivan that, instead of the brief passacaglia which he had modestly offered as his first piece on the concert programme, it had been decided—on a hearing entirely arranged by Nicholas, to make Monsieur Gregoriev the chief figure of the evening, by playing his first symphony—"Youth," as the pièce de résistance of the first half! Furthermore, he should still be represented in the second by the little "Sea Picture" already arranged for. Lastly,—and here, at last, Nicholas spoke with some faint hesitation, it was Anton's express wish to resign the conductor's baton, during the interpretation of the symphony, to the composer himself!