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Updated: June 21, 2025
From the leisure of Monsieur Gregoriev, came his second ballet "The Enchantress" a series of rhythmical minor melodies in the most delicate of the composer's moods; a military overture, which was one long series of tempestuously mounting climaxes, built on the theme of the Russian battle-hymn; six songs to poems of Heine, with piano accompaniment; and, finally, the third of his symphonies, declared by Balakirev too technical, as more resembling a clever experiment in orchestral possibilities, than a serious effort in the most rigid of classical forms.
When, twenty minutes after the hour on the night named, the curtain rose, disclosing to the chorus a house packed to the doors, the composer's box reserved for him contained only the two Rubinsteins, Balakirev, Kashkine, and Laroche.
The Ophelia he carried to Balakirev and Nicholas Rubinstein, who sat over it one whole night examining, discussing, rejoicing at its splendor, its delicacy, the perfection of the reconceived masterpiece. Next morning Nicholas sent its composer word that he would play it at the fifth concert of his regular series, on the afternoon of March 4th.
Balakirev, bigger, perhaps, in generosity than any other musician of any time, known purveyor of ideas for men even smaller than he in accomplishment, forced Gregoriev's eyes to meet his.
Ivan took his oddly enough. His intimate friends the only people to whom hitherto he had showed common civility, became first amazed, then chagrined, finally infuriated, by his sudden change of front. By swift degrees he ceased his intimacy with them all: Laroche, Kashkine, Balakirev, nay, Nicholas himself. And by mid-April he found himself scarcely on speaking terms with one of them.
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.
And yet, the pressure of Kashkine's hand upon his shoulder; the friendly light in Rubinstein's faded eyes, the painful hand-clasp of muscular Balakirev surely these things showed that the old cabal against him had at last come to a natural end?
Nathalie, first: then Zaremba, Anton Rubinstein, Laroche his comrade of the Conservatoire, Ostrovsky his collaborator, Balakirev, Merelli, Joseph, finally, Irina, her soul still flaunting its rags before the gaze of the world, while her brother and those student companions of her honest days and Ivan's first success, labored in distant prison-mines, self-victims of unsuccessful treason: what of these?
Brodsky and Balakirev were in the middle of a haunting melody of the Steppes, arranged by Mily himself, when the sharp exclamation of Ivan brought a quick silence, and turned every eye towards him: "I have a message here, my friends. It is bad news. I I must " he passed his hand across his brow, and thought for a moment: "I must get to Moscow to-night, somehow.
Nevertheless he retained one means of communication with the world beyond, in a correspondence maintained with half a dozen representatives of as many different grades of life: Nathalie, of whom he constantly demanded further details of the story of the Grand-Duchess Catharine; Balakirev, now long since in Zaremba's chair at the Petersburg Conservatoire; Avélallement in Hamburg; an odd little Parisian journalist through whom he had eventually obtained the Thébaud Venus; and, lastly, there departed from Maidonovo, twice a month, letters addressed to the inmate of a certain convent in the Arno Valley near Florence, whence replies as regularly arrived, giving quaintly monotonous accounts of the life and welfare of one Vittoria Lodi, at present merely a dependant in the convent and the special penitent of the writer: a little old priest, the only man ever allowed within those sacred walls.
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