had kept Ivan safe
for a long time from immature and damaging attempts at creative work.
But with the ending of this winter of 1864-65, the spring began to bring
him a renewal of dreams and aspirations too vivid and too strong to be
written off by any fury of exercise, work, or self-deprecation. Melodies
of long ago began to ring again in his ears. Old bits of harmonization,
half forgotten, returned upon him with new meaning in their crude
successions. Vague ideas grew clear. And there was a turmoil within him
which he recognized, instinctively, as the creator's imperative summons.
Still he held off, remembering the warnings of attempting work without
tools--of production before the acquirement of sufficient technique. No
use! The more he fought, the more did his brain seethe--fired by the
events of his dead life, its incidents, its dramatic climaxes, its final
tragedy, all of them turned into a new form, a new meaning: resolving
themselves persistently into his one means of expression. Thus it was
that, before he understood the significance of the change in him, he
realized at last the great fact that his first great work had risen to
completion, as it were, in a night, and lay now awaiting only the
mechanical transcription to paper. It was ambitious, this first
work--the "Symphony of Youth." Its first movement was _allegro agitato_,
_adagio_, and _allegretto scherzando_, picturing each vivid phase of
early boyhood; next came the requisite _andante_,--a dreaming melody,
expressing all the yearning, the vague melancholy of pre-adolescence;
then the third: a rippling _scherzo_ of youthful pleasures, gayety,
young loves and joyous dances; finally a tempestuous _finale_:
_allegretto sforzando e appassionato_--the rising of the burdens of
manhood, of new ambitions; the descending of the sadness of man's
responsibility, the reluctant passing of the careless, heart-free joys
of youth.

The idea and its possibilities took possession of Ivan so much to the
exclusion of all else that by mid-May he capitulated to it, announced
his intention of taking a holiday for the summer, and secreted himself
in his old room, confiding in no one, instinctively afraid of
discouragement from his master and benefactor. But it was a reckless
business, this resignation of all means of livelihood. He had very
little money saved; and, do what he would, he could not hope, if he was
to keep out of debt, to buy much nourishing food. Through stifling da