hind sight--there appeared to
be a most charming country.--What was it he must see there? Out
of the silver mist there was surely a form emerging?--a creature
slender, delicate, crowned with a weight of fragrant hair! Clothed in
rose-red, she; and her lips were smiling, her arms out-stretched to
him:--Nathalie!--Naturally he went forth to meet her, to melt with her
into that radiant light. And there came a great roaring in his ears--the
noise of many waters rushing. Ay, they were closing now above his head.
He was down.--And so--night.--Oblivion.

* * * * *

There passed an endless time. In the darkness the soul of Ivan, ready
poised, waited for the summons. No summons came. Must it indeed return
within itself, unfreed? Yes, for the senses were stirring even now. Out
of the void came a vague murmur of human voices--a sharp exclamation.
Then blackness once more; this time complete.

* * * * *

Complete though it had seemed, when Ivan opened his eyes again upon the
scanty furniture of his bedroom, it was with the sense of many days gone
by. His head was iron-bound; his tongue dry and swollen; life a series
of horrible retchings. After a time his dull eyes travelled slowly round
the room. Kashkine was near, and Rubinstein, and two strange men. On
every face was an expression of relief, of joy. Ivan marvelled at the
reason. Then his eye encountered the table, and he thought he knew. For
there, in a pile, lay the manuscript pages of his opera; to recover
which, indeed, Balakirev had, during the five-day battle with death,
journeyed to Petersburg and told his tale to the frightened Zaremba. But
this and certain other things--the fact that there were men in the world
who loved him, and a place in the world that demanded him, Ivan was to
learn by faint degrees, and with some sardonic humiliation.

[Footnote 1: The incident here recounted, like that of Ivan's failure
to conduct his symphony, is not imaginary. It occurred in Moscow, in
the winter of 1865, with one of the early works of Peter Illich
Tchaikowsky.]

CHAPTER XVI

JOSEPH

It was in the November of that same year--1870--that "Isabella" had its
initial performance, in Moscow, under Merelli. The original intention
had been to open the season with the new work. But, at the last moment,
the leader, despite his memories of "The Boyar," repudiated his promise,
deeming the honor too great for a Ru