t the same time, vaguely troubled him. It was
evident enough that this boy had endured an experience from which only
indomitable determination of some sort could have brought him out.
Nevertheless, ever and again, came suggestions of egotism, selfishness,
love of luxury, that were naive in their unconsciousness. But so foreign
were these things to Ivan's own simplicity of nature, that he ended by
repudiating his first doubts of the boy before him who had borne so
much.

"My name," began the youth, "is Joseph Kashkarin. I was born in Poland,
in the spring of 1848, just after we had moved from Lodz to the
outskirts of a little village near Choelm. All my life we have been
horribly poor. But my grandfather--I am of family, you see--was wealthy,
one of the first citizens of Lodz, but a fierce patriot. My father and
mother were married in that city, and lived there very well till the
uprisings against the Russians in 1847. My family had the folly to take
part on the side of the nation; and when the strikes were put down, my
grandfather was transported, my father exiled from the city, and all the
property confiscated. Thus, when I was born, we were as poor as the
serfs that were our neighbors; but we lived decently, because my mother
was a lady.

"Our village was on the estate of Ladiskowi: the country-seat of the
great family of that name. Before my birth, Prince Ladiskowi heard of my
father from our Staroste, and came to see him. After that we were
sometimes received at the castle--discreetly, of course, for even the
Ladiskowi were under the espionage of Russian spies. But the Prince
appreciated us, and wished to do more for us than our father permitted.
We had books always when we wished them; and my sister Marie learned to
play on a spinnet that they had up there, and had belonged, they said,
to the Leczinski themselves.

"I wasn't interested in spinnets. That castle held something better for
me. I can scarcely remember the time it first began; but I was not more
than seven when I told my mother one night what I was going to be. She,
I remember, hoped I would say a soldier, to fight for Poland when the
final struggle should come. But I had seen enough of patriotic ruin.
Besides," he went on, a little hastily, "I knew in my heart, even then,
that art is greater than all other things.--That's not cant, Ivan
Mikhailovitch! It's not hypocrisy!--Listen.

"Princess Ladiskowa had been the daughter of a noble artist; and she