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For, though no priest of the Orthodox Church had been summoned to the Gregoriev palace, its master had made his confession fully, without reservation, to his son.
It spoke thus: "It is late, and he whom we were commanded to meet is not here. His Imperial Majesty's name forced us to this house. Now he has not come. Is the thing a trick? Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev, have you been capable of this? Dared you dream that such folly of deceit could really help you?"
It was, moreover, rumored that the summer of Monsieur Gregoriev had been no idle one; but that, he having turned for the first time to a serious subject, Moscow would that winter have the opportunity of gauging the young man's talent at the Grand Theatre, when, in November, Signor Merelli's Italian troupe should begin their season of winter opera.
During the years since her marriage Madame Gregoriev had, more than once, wished nay, prayed for death. But a hopeless desire and the inevitable reality are generally two widely different things.
Its society, like that of most Italian cities, is largely cosmopolitan. Its different "colonies" intermingle, however, with the greatest friendliness; and among these "Prince" Gregoriev was effusively received.
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?
Then, in the horrid silence in which he sat, a voice from out of the far away addressed him: "Herr Gregoriev, they are ready for you!" Without a word, his face set, his eyes brilliant, he rose, mechanically, gave his score into the hands of the librarian, who, for ten minutes, had been nervously awaiting it, and then walked woodenly up the passage to the wings.
Then suddenly, by a common impulse, the two women threw themselves into each other's arms and kissed fervently. When they had separated again, the eyes of the Countess were no less suspiciously wet than those of her sister, the wife of Michael Gregoriev.
Madame Gregoriev, smiling through the agony that yet found place in every line of her face, would confess to fatigue and would resign herself to the hands of the maid whose duties were daily becoming more those of a nurse, leaving Ivan to the care of the serfs, who, by their unfeigned delight in his appearance, generally sent him away from their quarters about midnight in a very cheerful mood.
This haze of memory terminated, finally, and objects appeared in a clearer atmosphere, when young Gregoriev became half-owner of a charming apartment in the irreproachable Bashkov Peréolouk, ten minutes' walk from his barracks, in partnership with a fellow-officer, one Vladimir de Windt, destined to become his friend of friends.
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