e, spontaneous flowers,
perfumed and wilted from their recent warm contact with human flesh, a
spangle or a shred of lace still hanging to more than one audacious
thorn!

Ivan, surrounded, heaped, by these tributes, deathly white and visibly
shaking now, received the rush of a dozen men, and,--wonder of wonders,
one woman! For presently, out of the melee of shaking hands and
emotional bear-hugs, he found himself gazing into the velvet eyes
of--Irina Petrovna, from whom, hopelessly dazed, he turned to the damp
and shining face of Nicholas Rubinstein; (Anton, be it observed, not
having come!)

"What are you doing?--What is it all?" he asked, wearily.

"What is it?--Oh, wonderful truly it is, that you've come at last to
your own, Ivan! that Russia holds out her arms to you: that all Moscow
is yours: that _The Boyar_ is the opera of the century; and you are the
man of--"

He stopped, perforce. Ivan's arms had risen, trembling. His lips had
uttered one, slight cry. And then, without warning, he pitched forward,
over the tumbled wreaths, into the waiting bosom of his gods.

[Footnote 1: This incident is not fictitious; but was an actual
occurrence in the life of one of the most distinguished of Russian
composers.]

CHAPTER XIII

STUDENT'S FOLLY

Morning, with its usual mood of depressed calm, brought with it, for
Ivan, a pessimistic disbelief in the reality of the recent midnight
scene. Nevertheless he had curiosity enough remaining to cause him to
hurry through his dressing and then run out to buy all the papers of the
day. The result was that by the time Sosha appeared with the early
samovar, Ivan was in the clouds again. Buoyancy had set every nerve to
tingling; and the elation of the knowledge that success had actually
come, quivered from him like a rosy aura.

Beyond doubt, "The Boyar" had at last opened to Ivan the long-locked
door of recognition. No Russian opera, it seemed, "Russlan and Ludmilla"
possibly excepted, had gone home to the hearts of the Russian people as
had this piece of youthful work, which, though its merit was perfectly
genuine, was by no means free from faults. At the opera-house itself,
every one, from the Menschikov to Merelli and the chorus, was in a state
of beaming delight. Already Madame Pervana and the august Limpadello
himself had gone quietly to the Signor Impresario with the suggestion
that possibly, after all, the parts of Marie Vassilievna and the Boyar
were suited to