terly rebelling, tried, in his heart,
to hope that that distant Polish hut of his youth knew him again:
sheltered, in peaceful dissolution, one of the great talents of the
age.

CHAPTER XX

MADAME FEODOREFF

It may be said that it was not until after the ending of Joseph's weak
tragedy that Ivan passed into his third, and final, mental stage. As a
boy, he had known very intimately the inner buoyancy of youth, hope, and
faith in the joy of life. After the marriage of Nathalie, and his
subsequent precipitation, had come those wild rebellions of the soul,
the violent protestations, the young and petted cynicisms, that are the
inevitable accompaniment of the inevitable hour of disenchantment. This
phase, however great its length, must, nevertheless, resolve itself at
last into one of two others: the quiet complacency of a renewed but
gentler optimism; or a cynicism tried, real, deep-rooted, unhappy but
irresistible. Be this state a sign of weakness or of strength, it was
the one to which Ivan felt himself driven, willy-nilly, by all the force
of his experience. From that doubt of complete disillusion, that
confusion of thought and loss of all happy confidence which is one of
the results of the long-continued bread-struggle wherein disinterested
philosophy can have no part, Ivan had moved, by insensible stages, far
into the kingdom of the unredeemable pessimist.

To him, looking ruefully back along the years of his man-struggle, it
seemed as if each trial, each disappointment, had been built on a
variation of a single theme. Of the several friendships that had been
his, all, after running an uncertain course, had come to violent or
unhappy ends. And in the grave of each was buried a little and a little
more of his natural faith and optimism. And yet--not all! One
friendship, the first, had lapsed naturally, through separation. Indeed,
Ivan still sometimes heard from the companion of his first Petersburg
days--Vladimir de Windt. Had there, however, been no letters, he could
still always have followed his comrade's track; for de Windt--having
left the army many years since, to enter on a diplomatic career, had
been climbing, steadily, and was already, at thirty-five, on the
threshold of the Council chamber. Over this fact Ivan could unfeignedly
rejoice; for already Russia, high and low, was discussing the merits and
the probable future of this young man.

But of the others,--that group of men, the two women, who