The Genius

by Margaret Horton Potter

Pity, truly, that Nicholas could not have watched his brother for the fifteen minutes after his departure! During five of these, the great pianist stood where he had been left, staring down at the floor, an expression in his eyes compounded of many emotions. But presently his thoughts resolved themselves. For, throwing back his head, he gave a laugh: a laugh long, rather loud, but replete with anything in the world save mirth: suggesting strongly, indeed, the savageness of the frown which presently replaced it, when, drumming a scale upon the edge of the table in front of him, he muttered: "Conduct a symphony played by a full concert orchestra without a single rehearsal!—Good Heavens! Nicholas is turning into a fool!"

All things considered, there was certainly a grain of truth in Anton Rubinstein's assertion. Still, foolish as Nicholas may have shown himself over the matter, what was his unwisdom compared to that of Ivan, the proposed hero of the forthcoming inevitable fiasco? How to explain such behavior on the part of one who was, from the crown of his head to his toes, thoroughly a musician, a lover of all things musical, even Kashkine, intimate and blind adorer of Gregoriev as his biography of Ivan shows him to be, never discovered. Whether his native shyness simply put off an evil hour as long as possible: whether, full of the excitement of giving the final touches to his new work—a business which always, throughout his life, made Ivan oblivious of everything else,—rendered him really indifferent to the success of his symphony, or whether he really believed conducting to be merely a matter of waving a baton at each body of instruments as they entered or left the ensemble, the principal actor of this little drama never explained. Certainly, at the time, it did not occur to him to divine any purpose in the Herr Direktor's easy acceptance of the flimsy excuses that he sent to rehearsal after rehearsal. Suffice it to state that Ivan's first appearance in the greenroom of the Grand Theatre—scene of the much-discussed concert—was made at half-past seven o'clock on the evening of October 16th: forty-five minutes before the overture was announced to begin. Even now, he found himself the last to arrive of the little group who were either to take part, or had some professional interest in, the evening's performance. These greeted him jovially; but, after he had drunk the glass of sherry pressed upon him, he was drawn one side by two friends, Laroche and Nicholas Rubinstein, whose faces had sobered into undisguised anxiety. Rubinstein spoke first:

"Are you too nervous to glance through the first page or two of the score, here?" he demanded, his eyes taking quick review of Ivan's immaculate costume and rather pallid face.

Ivan's answering laugh caught Anton's ear. "Nervous!" he echoed. "I hadn't thought about it.—I know the thing by heart; still—where is the score?"

Laroche answered silently by holding out to him the thick, leather-bound sheets of the "Youth" symphony; at the same time pointing out to Ivan that, instead of third, he was to come second on the programme: Mademoiselle Pavario having demanded that she give her aria just before the intermission, for the sake of the probable encore.

Somehow, as Laroche quietly explained this fact, and Ivan, opening his familiar book, discovered for the first time certain blue-pencillings, made therein by Rubinstein during the rehearsals, to indicate those passages where some body of instruments were weak, or needed special watching, his heart began to throb, unsteadily. Second by second his desperate unfamiliarity with the whole thing, his utter ignorance of the tone and temper of the men he was to conduct—their respective abilities and faults—were revealing themselves to him. And, presently, he made for Anton, with a hoarse request that a few of the marks in the first movement, at least, be explained to him. Rubinstein was all courtesy, all geniality, all encouragement. But he overdid his part just enough to allow the first quick stab of doubt—or of understanding—to pierce the poor boy's rapidly crumbling barrier of confidence. When, at last, the director was called to his waiting audience, Ivan sat on, like a stone, his eyes riveted on the first page of the score,—which might have contained pictures of butterflies upon it for all he knew. His heart was palpitating like a woman's. His head was in a sick whirl. Then, in the horrid silence in which he sat, a voice from out of the far away addressed him:

"Herr Gregoriev, they are ready for you!"

Without a word, his face set, his eyes brilliant, he rose, mechanically, gave his score into the hands of the librarian, who, for ten minutes, had been nervously awaiting it, and then walked woodenly up the passage to the wings. Here somebody grasped his arm and held him for an instant, whispering something unintelligible into his ears. Some seconds, or minutes, or hours, after this, there struck into his eyes the white glare of the footlights. Then a thin sprinkling of applause rose to meet his slight, mechanical bow; and, at the same instant, he perceived, sitting in the right-hand stage-box in the first tier, the form of his father: his white face barred by the black line of his mustache; the frame of hair above, all iron gray streaked with white. Beyond this figure rose a dead wall of black and colored patch-work emphasized by featureless white splashes; the whole punctuated, here and there, with gleams of light betokening jewels.

The hand-clapping died away. Ivan turned, mounted his desk, and lifted the black baton. He rapped, once, and beheld sixty pairs of gleaming eyes raised to him: rapped twice, and saw thirty bows lifted in air. Then he glanced at the first, open page of his score.—It was simply a horrible, gray blur, from which not a note, not a mark, would detach itself.—And he wondered, frantically, how in the world his symphony began:—loudly or softly? with violins or with trumpets? The seconds that followed were the longest of his life. Then the concertmeister, sitting below, gave an audible murmur; and, together, the violins and the woodwinds began the first, long-drawn-out notes of the introduction.

Heavens! It had begun! He was in for it—hopelessly. Somehow or other these terrible men must be kept playing.—How? By whom? Again he looked at his score, and slowly turned a page. The sound of clarinets smote his ear. They were actually getting on, then.—Good! Out of the mists of his terror, there came, at last, an idea: the wild notion that here, now, came a quick crescendo and climax. With a wide sweep of his baton he suddenly broke in upon the orchestra and demanded the tutti. Gruening, violently tremoloing, swore, helplessly. The men stared. Wildly, once more, Ivan indicated full orchestra. So there came one, furious, discordant crash, as all the instruments, obeying, in their customary, hypnotic manner, the motion of their leader, came in, each with his first notes, no matter how far ahead of the present measure they might be. The noise was, truly, something hideous! The men themselves grew panic-stricken; and each group strove madly to bring their particular theme out of the general chaos; thereby increasing, tenfold, the frightful charivari.[1]