wn land.
Thenceforward, while music shall endure, his name must be written among
those who have advanced their most perfect of the arts to a higher
standard. His work was done: his battle over. His name was blazoned for
eternity on the roster of the Russian Great.

But the man? Where was he, what was he doing, upon this, his day?

It was half-past three when the first movement of the "Tosca Symphony"
ended in the concert-hall. At that hour Ivan returned to his house from
a long walk through the whitened fields, and, donning dressing-gown and
slippers, went up to his work-room and shut the door. Moved by a most
unusual impulse, he seated himself at the piano and began to play, from
memory, some strains from the last act of "die Goetterdaemmerung." At the
point where Brunhild, carried beyond herself and her abhorred mortality
back to the heights of immortal perception and abnegation, sings, with
divine calm, the words: "Ruhe, Ruhe, du Gott!"--Ivan paused. The phrase
caught him up. The majesty of the chords in which the great German has
framed it, suddenly fired him with longing: "Rest thee, Rest thee, thou
God!" He played it over and over, meditatively, humming the words in the
rich, low notes of the score. And in those moments his final hour was
ushered in.

All day, struggle as he would, Ivan had been keyed to a pitch of nervous
excitement by speculations concerning the concert in Moscow. Finally, at
noon, he had gone out, determined upon attaining an animal fatigue which
would rest his brain. His struggle with the wind and snow accomplished
the first end, but not the second. Now, however, those words of the
dying goddess--she who stood quietly awaiting her chosen death, brought
a great calm to his mind. As he lingered over them his face changed, and
a new look came into those eyes which had striven so many times, of
late, to pierce the shadows that enshroud the future.

"Rest thee, oh God!"

Rest--for _him_! How often had he demanded it, in vain? Now, at last, he
was enjoined to _take_ it--for himself.

Rising from the piano he went to the door which led into the outer hall,
locked it, and drew the bolt fast. Then, in the wall on the right, he
pressed the spring which opened the invisible door to the room of the
goddess. Entering there, he lighted the two candles at the flame of the
burning lamp, and filled the little golden censer that swung before the
statue, with incense; noting, the while, with his customary