Ivan stiffened for an instant; then sank dully back, saying, without a whit of expression in his voice: "Don't tease me any further about old visions, Nikolai.—Even from you that comes hard."
Nicholas' reply was to draw from his pocket a thin roll of paper, which, separating into duplicate, printed sheets, each bearing at its end the spluttering signature of the impresario, he spread out on Ivan's knee.
As the young man, with changing, wondering, finally uplifted, expression, ran slowly through the document, Nicholas prevented any possible expression of obligation by a running fire of comment and explanation.
"Won your spurs, you see, Ivan!—Royalties not great; but there'll certainly be a thousand or two for you.—Give you a great push, now that you've done what we all have to go through before we get there.—I did it, you know, years ago, in Hamburg!—Simply stopped at the second movement of the Italian symphony and walked off the stage.—Knees shaking so I couldn't stand up.—Even Anton lost himself in the Leipsic Tönhalle, once, in the middle of his own cadenza to a Beethoven sonata:—had played it a hundred times, I suppose; tried it twice, and then fairly ran out of the room.—Laroche there, can't expect any real luck till he's done it too.—What form'll you take it in, Grigory?—Hey?—Finished, Ivan?—Well, I'm convinced that it is as well as we can do for you the first time. So you'd better sign it now—using us for witnesses—and I'll carry 'em back to Merelli myself, to-morrow."
So Ivan, lips twitching, hands trembling very much, put a shaky signature in each space indicated below Merelli's sprawling Italian dashes, while Nicholas and little Laroche looked on with shining eyes.
Thereupon began the era of a new and difficult experience. Healthy as was the occupation, Ivan wished a hundred times in those ensuing weeks that he had been seized with an apoplexy before ever he had put his name to the contract that gave him into Merelli's hands.—As a matter of fact, the ordeal was one trying enough for nerveless men. But to Ivan it was simply a process of refined torture, in the course of which every one of his petted peculiarities of style, the most cherished of his situations, the choicest of his originalities, were ruthlessly cut, altered, or swept calmly away:—a perfectly correct and artistic proceeding, and agreeable to every one except the author.
No cutting of rehearsals now! In fact, for his reputation and the life of his suffering opera, Ivan dared not be away from the opera-house during a single hour of that hurried preparation. For, in those days, no composers had so little right in Russia as Russians: no music was so neglected, so criticised, so under-estimated in the land of snows as that produced by the great pioneers of the highest of the arts. And yet, in that same Russia, any nonsense whatever that came out of Italy, got immediate hearing and sickening praise. The opera-houses of every city were given over, during the season, to Italian troupes. And if these did occasionally consent to perform some native work, it was always on an "off" night, with third-rate members of the company, in cast-off, inappropriate costumes, surrounded by worn-out scenery, and accompanied by the "ballet" orchestra—which contained about half the regulation instruments.
Most of these humiliations, it soon appeared, were to fall to the lot of the unfortunate "Boyar."—Still, New Year's night usually promised a good-sized audience; and the chorus was actually to be put into newly designed costumes. But the singers had considered, long ago, that plans for the winter were finished. Therefore this was a preposterous time to begin rehearsals for a work entirely new. The prima-donna and the first tenor simply scouted the idea of applying themselves to learn new rôles—and in a Russian opera! Merelli must be out of his head to set about such a thing!—Ivan, it is true, might have been encouraged had he heard the opinion of his work expressed by Merelli to his refractory singers.—It was a masterpiece; the finest opera, be it Italian, French or Russian, of the decade! etc, etc.—And indeed, had the impresario not actually believed something of this sort, no pleadings of Rubinstein would ever have got it accepted at this time of year. But the parts as they were finally cast might well have discouraged a man more tranquil and more experienced than Ivan: who, moreover, would have regarded as insane the person telling him that, in his secret heart, more than one member of the troupe beside Merelli thought the opera under preparation far ahead of the usual run of saccharine Italian concoctions habitually raved over by the sentimental world of the time.
But alas! What wretchedness it was to listen, day by day, from his empty box, to the throaty warblings of Finocchi—whose pronunciation of Russian was as near Chinese or Hebrew as the Slavic tongue: to argue vainly with La Menschikov, the soprano, who, to Ivan's unbounded disgust, used every vocal trick invented by the melodramatic Italians, from a revolting tremolo, and a barefaced falsetto to an incorrigible persistence in the appoggiatura, an affectation peculiarly unadapted to Ivan's rich, strong style. Many a concerted passage, moreover, did he, in silent despair, alter to suit the stubborn inabilities of the singers, who insisted that the composer knew nothing of the possibilities of the human voice:—a criticism, indeed, passed more than once on Ivan's later works, and by those who knew whereof they spoke. The climax came on a late December afternoon, when, after a three hours' struggle with a single passage, the contralto went into hysterics, the soprano flew into a rage that promised to keep her off the boards for a week, and Finocchi retired to his dressing-room vowing to resign his part. The cause of this united rebellion was the rhythm of a quartet in the third act—by far the best concerted piece in the opera—in which the two high voices sang four eighth notes against triplets in the base.
This passage had, up till now, been held in abeyance by Merelli, who had foreseen difficulty. And, now that it was reached, it proved a reef indeed. For, of the four singers, only the basso had any conception of time. Thus when Merelli, in despair, came apologetically to Ivan to suggest an alteration of the rhythm—which made the whole beauty of the song—Ivan rose from his place swearing, savagely, that not one other note in the score should be altered; but that Merelli and his whole troupe might go to perdition when and how they chose; after which he left the theatre, sought out Nicholas, flung his contract in that good man's face, and requested that he go at once to Merelli with word that the score be returned, with all its parts, and the entire transaction declared off.