ttle group, was satisfied with his own
condition. But none of the others knew how deep and how lasting had been
the disappointment of his father's silence; or that this misfortune,
coming on the heels of the rejection of his symphony, had thrown him
into one of those protracted fits of depression, new now even to him,
but which were to become familiar to and dreaded by all who cared for
him. He kept himself in a constant state of exhaustion, mental and
bodily, in order that sleep should be possible to his idle hours. At the
same time, he was frequently under the Creator's exaltation: the deep
delight of one who knows the quality of that which he is doing, and is,
for the moment, satisfied therewith. And the climax of this
ecstasy--than which there is nothing finer known to man--came when, on
the evening of March 29th, he carried to his room, from the little
parlor of the "Cucumber," one more finished manuscript--that of his
tone-poem, "Day Dreams," which had been written, rewritten, added to,
cut, polished and rounded off till its author knew that not a note, not
a rest, not a mark of expression could be altered now by him. He knew
also, in his secret soul, that this was good work--far the best, in
fact, that he had ever done. For, for weeks and months, the theme had
held possession of him, and he had put the best of himself into his
subject. Indeed, hurt by the accusation, made in the rejection of his
symphony, of hasty and careless writing, he had worked over his new
piece as he was never to work upon anything again. Indeed its great
fault in the eyes of its admirers to-day, the single one agreed upon by
every critic that has ever understood and loved Gregoriev's work, is
that this alone, of all his creations, is over-polished: faultily
faultless.

That night, for many hours, Ivan sat at the desk in his room, poring
over his beautifully written manuscript, gloating over it, glorying in
the mere texture of the paper sheets; knowing well that they represented
the best and the highest that lay within him; and that the expression
was almost worthy of the conception. Next morning, still acting
secretly, dreading, in his peculiar modesty, possible over-praise from
those who might be prejudiced in his favor, he despatched his precious
bundle to Petersburg, addressed to his old critics and masters, Zaremba
and Anton Rubinstein. With it went a brief note requesting, humbly,
that they examine it and send him their opinion of it