ecame
impossible, and she would leave the twain again, and, through the lonely
night, weep away some of the still-rankling bitterness, the incurable
smart, of her many wounds. Later, however, came days when the memories
held less of sadness, and, in those rich, slow harmonies, she began to
discern vague thoughts, faintest hopes that, somewhere, perhaps deep in
the fire-heart of God, she should learn His excuse for suffering: be
taught the wherefore of the present: receive that compensation that must
exist, to balance the account held for her by eternity. In time she came
even to think a little of the music-maker: that silent man to whom her
own existence seemed a thing peaceful and fine in its absolute security
from any form of want. She realized, through him, those other thousands
in the world who had lived through lifetimes of conscious insignificance
and unattainable desire, nor thought these serious evils. In short she
was given a horizon whereon she began to see things properly
proportioned. And there, at last, she beheld also her son, and all the
possibilities in the future of those for whom the road of life lies all
ahead. But even she, who knew him best of all, knew little of Ivan's
inner self. She never surmised his strange consciousness of the mighty
void within his soul: the aching gap that his life could never fill: the
unspoken question that waited in him, fulminating, till he should at
last demand his answer from the most high God.

In the face of such things it is difficult to reiterate the denial that
Ivan was a morbid boy. True, he bore an inheritance from his mother. The
life she had led before his birth had certainly left its mark upon him.
But that instinctive sadness had in her been tinged with an inner joy:
the joy of eager motherhood. And in Ivan this joy found its repetition
in a vein of practical gayety. There were days when his mischief was as
diabolical as one could wish it: when Ludmillo, tormented, was still
brought to laugh at his piquant, irresistible nonsense. Nor was the boy
without other traits of his sex and age. There were weeks when he was
full of the wildest plans for his future career; being all for the joys
of the physical, beside which mental labor was to play a most
unimportant role. He would be an explorer. Siberia, North America,
Central Africa, were to open before his determined efforts. Or the
Celestial Empire might be penetrated to its innermost recesses by him in
his undet