lder, his long, spidery arms, almost colorless blond hair and eroded
features gave him the air of a cenobite who had escaped from some
Scandinavian wilderness into life. His Oriental reserve, and evident
dislike of all his former social habits, set the musical world wagging
its head, recalling the latter days of Dostoiewsky. But Illowski was not
mad: he simply awaited his opportunity. It came. The morning after his
first concert he was awakened by fame knocking at his gate, the most
horrible kind of fame. He was not called a madman by the critics, for
his music could never have been the product of a crazy brain--he was
pronounced an arch-enemy to mankind, because he told infamous secrets in
his music, secrets that had lain buried in the shale of a vanished
epoch. And, lest the world grow cold, he drove to its very soul the most
hideous truths. A hypnotist, he conducted his orchestra through
extraordinary and malevolent forests of tone. The audience went into the
night, some sobbing, some beating the air like possessed ones, others
frozen with terror. At the second concert the throngs were so dense that
the authorities interfered. What poison was being disseminated in the
air of a concert hall? What new device of the revolutionists? What
deadly secret did this meagre, dreamy, harmless-looking Russian possess?
The censors were alert. Critics were instructed by the heads of their
journals to drive forth this musical anarchist; but criticism availed
not. A week, and Illowski became the talk of Russia, a month, and Europe
filled with strange rumors about him. Here was a magician who made the
dead speak, the living dumb--what were the limits of his power? What his
ultimate intention? Such a man might be converted into a political force
would he but range himself on the right side of the throne. If not--why,
then there was still Siberia and its weary stretches of snow!

When he reached Moscow rioting began in the streets. Leaving, he went
with his dark-skinned Eastern musicians to the provinces. And the
government trembled. Peasants threw aside spade, forgot vodka and rushed
to his free concerts, given in canvas-covered booths; and the impetus
communicated to this huge, weltering mass of slaving humanity, broke
wave-like upon the remotest borders of the empire. The church became
alarmed. Anti-Christ had been predicted for centuries, and latterly by
the Second Adventists. Was Illowski the one at whose nod principalities
and powe