the past ten years. Also, do not give up your
_festa_ afterwards. It will be far better than if I were present to
silence the mirth with my morose presence. Drink me one toast, if
you will; for it is borne in upon me that that day will be one of
transformation for me. Therefore wish me, while I wish you

"Success and happiness!

"IVAN BLASHKOV-GREGORIEV."

And Kashkine, crushing the letter savagely into a ball, muttered,
between his teeth: "Ah! 'transformation'! we'll all drink to that! But,
by God, it'll never come to him now!"

* * * * *

By a quarter before two o'clock on the afternoon of October 9, 1890, the
Symphony Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire was filled to the doors. The
winter season had doubly begun; for, outside, sleighs were flying
joyously through the first snow-storm. All the inhabitants of the
Kremlin and Equerries' quarters were back from estate and resort; and
most of the ladies of their families were seated in the wreath of boxes
that crowned the amphitheatre of the hall. Indeed, from a fashionable
and musical point of view, it was an audience such as has seldom been
surpassed in the old Russian city; and, to _mondaine_ and musician
alike, the Gregoriev symphony was the event of the afternoon. For was
not its composer a Prince, a millionaire, and his composition the
masterpiece of Russian musical literature?

In the left-hand stage-box were gathered a little group of his own, old
circle, about the empty chair which had been reserved, in case--faintly
possible--the erratic one should suddenly appear. Kashkine, Laroche,
Ostrovsky, and Ivan's passionate young admirer Rimsky-Korsakow, sat
there in silence, all of them thinking the same half-bitter,
half-resentful thoughts. In their own minds they were persuaded that the
success of the symphony meant more to them than to any other persons
either in the audience or in the city. But they were oddly wrong. Near
them were seated two women, one in a box, amid a little group of people
of the extreme of fashion; the other by herself, in a stall in the
parquet. Both of them were secretly and nervously afire. Both looked
anxiously for Ivan's appearance, longing eagerly for a sight of his
face. And the two of them were at opposite ends of the feminine world;
for one was the Princess Nathalie Feodoreff; the other, a white-fa