, he sought,
and finally found, salvation from incipient madness, in the refuge
afforded by a neighboring _traktir_, much frequented, o' nights, by
university students, but as deserted through the morning hours as had
been Ivan's yearned-for attic.

Hither, to a small parlor, he removed, by permission, his piano and his
writing-table. And tolerated, nay, encouraged, by a musical and friendly
landlord, Ivan began to forget his recent care-infested, nervous days in
the labor of his love. Provided, on his arrival, with a glass of
_vodka_, and ending by eating there his noon-day meal, the young
composer, assured by his hosts that any obligations he might be under
were, by these purchases, quite repaid, would seat himself at instrument
or desk, and, in that curious compound of mathematical accuracy and free
flights of imagination that goes to make up music, forget himself and
his surroundings completely. Nor was he ever at a loss for material. At
this period, indeed, his brain was beset with far more ideas than could
ever properly be developed. For many weeks, indeed, he confined himself
to but two things: the overture, as a conscientious necessity; and a
tone-poem, in which, as an unconventional form, he might embody the best
of his vagrant fancies, and the rich, unlawful harmonizations wherein
already, fresh though he was from classical remonstrance, he delighted.
But when he found that the "day-dream" could not be made to contain half
his delighted ideas, he began to jot them down separately, and throw
them into the growing sheaf of manuscript which, by-and-by, was to be
worked into the shape of (oh whisper it reverently!) his first opera,
"The Boyar."

At the hour in which the young composer (sometime between half-past
twelve and one o'clock) habitually turned his steps away from the kindly
"Cucumber," his mood, likewise, automatically changed. From the
fanciful creator he became the pedagogue, the serious doctor of music,
whose mind was occupied chiefly by elementary exercises that should tend
to draw the incipient conceits of youth away from the alluring empty
fifth (a form in which his other self delighted), and the equally
insidious octave parallel. At times he advanced to laws of even greater
moment, and corresponding intricacy. For he took a genuine interest in
his pupils; and, in that first year of his teaching, carried his class
to surprising lengths, nor let them betray any evidences of
unthoroughness when the