s one great extravagance, stood in the new
studio between two high windows. And about it Ivan's new life revolved,
dreamwise, for a time. Indeed, Piotr and Sosha and a handful of their
fellows, used to weep with the weakly sentiment of age, as they served
their young master in the rooms that had witnessed the long tragedy of
their beloved Lady Sophia, who had been his mother, and whose gentle
presence, outliving the wild individuality of her lord, still haunted
the house for them as for Ivan.

CHAPTER XVIII

JOSEPH THE SOWER

Ivan's new life was monotonous enough, uneventful enough, but singularly
tranquil. The spring this year had brought not so much a quickening of
life as a soothing sense of relief, relaxation, and a lazy contentment
of mind. For the first time in years, Ivan felt absolutely at ease on
the subject of money: knew no uncertainty as to future raiment, and food
and shelter. True, the acquisition of wealth had brought him a loss of
companionship: one never openly proclaimed, but perhaps, for that
reason, the more keenly felt. In June, at the end of the year's work,
Ivan resigned his professorship at the Conservatoire, secretly glorying
in the prospect of thenceforward being free to devote himself wholly to
his own affairs. The resignation put him still further beyond the old
pale of intimacy with composers, painters and writers: the cream of that
intellectual and artistic Bohemia of which he had so long been an
esteemed citizen. In mind, he was unchanged. But a millionaire Prince
_and_ a genius to boot!--It was a combination too fortunate for the
toleration of any class. Where Fate gives too lavishly, man strives to
even things up for the spoiled darling of Heaven:--and usually succeeds
uncommonly well. Envy, jealousy, injustice,--these Ivan believed he had
known already. He found himself mistaken. It seemed now that not one
friend would remain loyal. Anton wrote a sneering and malicious letter
from Paris, purporting to congratulate. Laroche openly mourned.
Ugly-faced, big-hearted Balakirev shook his convict head
melancholy-wise. Even Nicholas and Kashkine could only hope,
halfheartedly, that, despite his wealth, Ivan would stick to his work
out of the inward necessity: the _divine driving_ of the great artist.

Autumn justified the faithful. From the leisure of Monsieur Gregoriev,
came his second ballet--"The Enchantress"--a series of rhythmical minor
melodies in the most delicate of the comp