was, however, one of the works that Ivan never heard. At the time
of its first performance he refused the invitation to conduct it, and
did not so much as think of going to Moscow to hear it played. He was in
a very different mood from one of triumph; for there had come upon him
the bitter grief of Nicholas Rubinstein's death. For two years the old
man had faded, visibly. During the summer of 1881, he had spent much
time at Maidonovo, where he helped Ivan with the final polishing of his
last opera, the famous "Boris Telekin." That autumn, all the old circle
conspired together to keep him in the country, where Ivan longed to tend
him as a son. But the old man, dominant to the last, insisted on
returning to town and resuming his work at the Conservatoire. In the
February of 1883 he actually went to Paris, to help Anton and Davidoff
prepare for their great festival there. The journey, however, fulfilled
Kashkine's bitter prophecy. Nicholas died in the French capital on the
evening of March 11th; and Ivan, struck to the heart, crept yet closer
into the solitude and isolation of Klin, where, for three months, he
yielded himself to Tosca and opium, till a second catastrophe in the
Russian musical world was averted only by Kashkine, who routed out his
friend and forcibly insisted on beginning rehearsals for "Boris
Telekin"; which opera saw its _premiere_ in November; and became the
sensation of the season.

This one was the last of Gregoriev's operas. He had already expended too
much time on a form unsuited to his talent; and when "Boris" left his
hands perfected, he completely lost interest in it, and began at once to
devote himself to his unnumbered symphony, the "AEneid"; one of the
greatest of musical epics, and well worthy of the poem whence it had
risen. The fruit of the winter of 1883 and 1884, included also the
too-popular "Nathalie" dances, (where, for once, Ivan over-melodized);
the "Cinderella" ballet; and his symphonic poem "Dream of Italy." These
completed, he sank into a state of torpor from which nothing seemed to
rouse him. Overwork had shorn him alike of vitality and of the
imagination which had become as the breath of life to him. And the brief
tone-poem "Hypatia," forced after a fortnight's visit in October from
Madame Feodoreff and her daughters, is the driest, most hopelessly
academic, of his works.

Nathalie's departure, however, seemed to break the spell of his
dreariness. During the following six weeks