s the happiest
of his life. That it should be spent in solitude, seemed to him most
natural. It would have been abnormal to him to seek companionship in an
hour of exaltation: desecration to drown the pure delights of the
intellect in the artificial ecstasy of alcohol. No. He sat quietly in
his leathern chair, or paced rapidly about the room, occasionally
seating himself at the piano and rippling off portions of the work that
was to be judged at last by the dread tribunal, whose final verdict was
not to be reversed: the supreme court of the general public.

To an on-looker, Ivan's behavior would have seemed commonplace enough.
But he was moving through shadowy heavens, star-lit vaults, to which he
had just attained, wherein he floated, the equal of those whom he had
hitherto worshipped: an inhabitant of the kingdom of the gods, from
whose height he could listen to the echo of his name, cried below by the
earth-millions, repeated all around him, in tones of brotherhood, from
the pale spirits of the surrounding great. And there Ivan knew that his
songs were not of a day, not of a century, but for all time; but should
stand as the perfect musical expression of the soul of the great, white,
desolate country of his birth. Such his achievement, which, in this
hour, he knew to be good. And so, as dawn dimmed the golden light of his
lamps, Ivan, overcome with weariness, his exaltation fallen, the wine of
his delight gone flat and stale, crept away to bed, passing into the
transitional sleep whence he must wake to the noon-day light of the
stolid, patient, working world.

Nicholas, having won Ivan's consent to his brother's plan, and sending
his protege the first summons to rehearse his numbers with the
orchestra, put the affair into Anton's hands. But Ivan, ridiculously
dreading criticism, and the exposure of his awkwardness in handling the
unaccustomed baton, possessed also of the senseless idea that, on the
final day, the thing must go of itself, "somehow,"--daily put off the
matter of rehearsal. His excuses were endless and feeble; but they were
all of them readily accepted by Anton, who was now conducting his
rehearsals alone. It was actually within seven days of the concert
before Nicholas, learning the real state of affairs, rushed off, in a
frenzy, to his brother, to seek an explanation and voice a protest. But
Anton's manner was baffling. He was gentle, courteous, and wonderfully
sympathetic with Ivan for the occupatio