ome young officer
("whose father was a millionaire prince") as an excellent successor to
the fallen Brodsky.

The one important fact of these weeks, however, and the one having most
to do with the young man's subsequent career, was the time which he
spent, in his solitary evenings, over his musical note-books. The
absence of a piano sharpened his faculties amazingly; till, by the time
of his return to civilization, an instrument was no longer necessary to
him in composing. Ivan was beginning, at last, to know the faces of his
secret gods; and to be not a little troubled at the anomalous position
of an army officer, whose dreams and ambitions were all towards the arts
of peace. How, indeed, was he now to reach the realm of these heavenly
beings? For always, in the midst of his highest flights, there lowered
above him, blotting out the gleaming spires of his Parnassus, the dark
forms of those demi-gods into whose service he had been forced. And more
than once, in his high solitude, Ivan heard, in the secret chamber of
his soul, a strong voice of command bidding him leave this present life,
drop every vanity of his existence, and set out boldly along that steep
path that should lead him at last, through hardship and labor, to
summits of the highest joy that can be known to human heart and brain.
Then, puzzled and disturbed by his sense of the responsibility of his
solitude, Ivan would perform by day his mechanical duties, and then
hurry away, at evening, to labor undisturbed through the strange
northern twilights, at his chosen task.

CHAPTER IX

"HALF-GODS GO"

Ivan made no mistake in these personal equations of his; but he managed
one very bad one when, in his heart, he thought of fate, or destiny, or
circumstance, as leaving all responsibility of decision to him, thus
shirking its generally acknowledged business. Had this chosen son
harbored no such audacity, perhaps the rearrangement of Ivan's life,
necessary though it had now become, might have been gradually wrought.
As it was, the fellow must be given a double lesson, and forced to learn
it well:--by heart, in all probability. Nor must it fail to stretch his
powers of apprehension to their fullest extent. Wherefore, in the early
autumn, the giant wheel that is not turned by chance, began to revolve
for Ivan, very slowly, without apparent aim in its pristine movements.

Summer was gone. The five great camps in the Empire had been broken a
fortnight befo