Comet Wine

I'm A Bloodhound. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you I'm a meticulous researcher, an untiring zealot, a ruthless bloodhound when pursuing facts. I'm not a professional musician, granted; not even a gifted amateur; but my fondness for music can't be disputed and my personal fund of musical and musicological knowledge happens to be huge. All the more remarkable (wouldn't you say?) that no catalog, no concert program, no newspaper file, no encyclopedia, no dictionary, no memoir, no interview, no history of music, no grave marker has rewarded my efforts by surrendering the name V.I. Cholodenko.

Such a person, it would seem, never existed. Or, if he did exist, became an Orwellian unperson who was whisked from this world as completely as were Ambrose Bierce, Judge Crater, or the passengers and crew of the Marie Celeste. I'm well aware of the transliteration problems regarding Russian names, and I've doggedly searched under the spellings Tcholodenko, Tscholodenko, Shcholodenko and even Zholodenko, but to no avail. True, I haven't had access to archives within the Soviet Union (my letters to Shostakovich and Khachaturian appear to have gone astray), but I've queried Russian musicians on tour in the United States, and to none of them is it a familiar name.

Its exclusive appearance is in a ribbon-tied bunch of old letters, crisp and desiccated, purchased last year by me, along with items of furniture and art, at a private auction of the effects of the late Beverly Hills attorney Francis Cargrave. They had belonged to his grandfather, Sir Robert Cargrave, an eminent London Physician, to whom they are addressed, and all were written, in elegant if somewhat epicene prose, by Lord Henry Stanton, a fashionable beau and minor poet of the period.

The curiosity, the enigma, lies in the fact that all the people mentioned in the three pertinent letters are real people, who lived, whose names and achievements are well-known--all, that is, but the name and achievements of Cholodenko. Even the briefly mentioned Colonel Spalding existed, as will be noted later. Down to the most insignificant details--such as the color of his famous host's eyeglasses--Lord Stanton's letters can be substantiated (the only exceptions, again, being the references to the elusive Cholodenko).

Is the man a fabrication? Was Stanton the perpetrator of an elaborate hoax? If so, I can't in all honesty understand why. The letters were written to his closest friend, a presumably sober pillar of the medical profession and knight of the British Empire. Both men were no longer youngsters, and undergraduate pranks strike me as uncharacteristic of them.

But if it was not a prank, how can we explain the way Cholodenko has been ripped from history, his music not even a fading echo but a silence, a vacuum, completely forgotten, as totally unknown as the song the Sirens sang?

I don't presume to solve the mystery. I merely present the three letters "for what they're worth," and invite other bloodhounds to make what they will of them. Such bloodhounds will sniff out, as I did, a glaring discrepancy, for the very survival of these letters seems to discredit Lord Henry's colorful insinuations--but he would probably counter our incredulity, if he were here, by urbanely pointing out that if God proverbially moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, might not His Adversary do the same? For reasons of scholarship and accuracy, I haven't condensed or edited the letters in any way (except to eliminate the redundant addresses in all but the first); preferring to let even irrelevant or trivial observations stand, in the hope that they may contain clues that eluded me. I've also kept Stanton's not always standard, though phonetically accurate, transliterations. In a few places, I've inserted short bracketed notes of my own, in italics. The letters bear month and dates, but no year. Stanton being English, I assume these dates conform to the Gregorian calendar familiar to us, rather than to the old Julian calendar, which was still in use in Russia at the time. On the basis of internal evidence, such as the first performance of Eugene Onegin, I believe the letters to have been written in 1879.

• • •

5 April

Sir Robert Cargrave, Harley Street, London, England.

My dear Bobbie,

No, do not scold me! I know full well that I have been a renegade and most delinquent comrade. If I seem to have avoided your home these many months; if I have neglected you, your dear Maude and your brood of cherubim--one of whom, young Jamey, must be quite ripe for Oxford by now!--then ascribe it, I pray you, not to a cooling of our friendship's fires nor to a bachelor's disdain for the familial hearthstone, but, rather, to my persistent vice, travel.

I have set foot on divers shores since last I sipped your sherry, old cohort, and I write to you from St. Petersburg. Yes, I am cosily hugged by "the rugged Russian bear," a cryptic creature, I assure you, warm and greathearted, quick to laugh, and just as quick to plunge into pits of black toská--a word that haughtily defies translation, hovering mystically, as it does, somewhere between melancholy and despair. Neither melancholy nor despair, however, have dogged my steps here in this strange land. I have been most cheerful. There are wondrous sights to bend one's gaze upon; exotic food and drink to quicken and quench the appetite; fascinating people with whom to talk. To your sly and silent question, my reply is Yes!--there are indeed ladies here, lovely ones, with flared bright eyes and sable voices; lambent ladies, recondite and rare. There are amusing soirees, as well (I will tell you of one in a moment), and there are evenings of brilliance at the ballet and the opera.

The opera here would particularly captivate both you and your Maude, I am certain, for I know of your deep love of the form. How enviously, then, will you receive the news that just last month, in Moscow, I attended the premiere of a dazzling new opus theatricum by the composer Pyotr Chaikovsky. It was a work of lapidary excellence, entitled Yevgeny Onyégin (I transliterate as best I can from the spiky Cyrillic original), derived from a poem of that name by a certain Pushkin, a prosodist now dead for decades, who--my friend, Colonel Spalding, tells me--enjoys a classical reputation here, but of whom I had not hitherto heard, since his works have not been translated into English, an error the colonel is now busy putting right. [Lieutenant Colonel Henry Spalding's English translation, transliterated as "Eugene Onéguine," was published in London in 1881.] The opera is a shimmering tapestry of sound, brocaded with waltzes and polonaises.

But St. Petersburg, I find, is richer in cultural life than even Moscow: I have been awed by the art treasures of The Hermitage, humbled by the baroque majesty of the Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral, chastened by the mighty gloom of the Peter Paul fortress and properly impressed by the Smolny monastery and the Winter Palace. Apropos of winter, I have also been chilled to the marrow by the fiercest cold I have ever known. "Winter in April?" I can hear you say. Yes, the severe season stretches from November to April in this place, and the River Neva, which I can see, moonlit, from my window as I write, is frozen over, and has been thus, I am told, for the past six months! It is a great gleaming broadsword of ice, cleaving the city in two.

As for music: Just last night, thanks to a letter of introduction from Spalding, I was received at a famous apartment in the Zagoredny Prospekt--nothing ostentatious, a small drawing room, a few chairs, a grand piano, a table in the dining room loaded with the simplest food and drink . . . but what exceptional people were crowded, shoulder to shoulder, in that place. It was the apartment of Rimsky-Korsakov, who, I was pleased to discover, is not only a gifted and amiable gentleman but speaks excellent English--an accomplishment not shared by many of his compatriots, whose social conversations are customarily couched in (or, at least, liberally laced with) French. The guests, myself excluded, were, to a man, composers and performers, some (I later learned) being members of a koochka, or clan, of musicians of which Rimsky-Korsakov is the nucleus.

You will laugh when I tell you that, not five minutes after being welcomed into the salon, I committed a faux pas. Wishing to take part in the musical discussion, I minutely described and lavishly praised the Chaikovsky opera I had enjoyed so recently at the Moscow Conservatorium. My tall host's gentle eyes grew cold behind his blue-tinted spectacles (which he wears because of ailing sight) and I felt a distinct frost. The awkward moment soon passed, however, and a dark young man took me aside to dryly inform me that "Our esteemed Nikolai Andreyvich considers Chaikovsky's music to be in abominable taste."

"Do you share that opinion?" I asked.

"Not precisely, but I do feel Chaikovsky is not a truly Russian composer. He has let himself be influenced by bad French models--Massenet, Bizet, Gounod, and so on."

We were joined by a bloated, wildhaired, red-nosed, bleary-eyed but very courteous fellow who, after addressing me most deferentially, asked eagerly about the Chaikovsky work: "It is good, then, you think? Ah! Splendid! An excellent subject, Onyégin. I once thought of setting it myself, but it's not my sort of thing--Pyotr Ilyich is the man for it, there's no doubt. Don't you agree, Vassily Ivanovich?" he added, turning to my companion.

That intense young man shrugged. "I suppose so--but to tell the truth, I am growing weary of these operatic obeisances to Pushkin. One cannot blame a composer of the old school, such as Glinka, for setting Ruslan, and Lyudmila, but what are we to think when Dargomizhsky sets not one but three Pushkin subjects--Russalka, The Triumph of Bacchus and The Stone Guest; when you joined the cortege five years ago with your own opera; and when Chaikovsky now follows the pattern with Onyégin?" He threw up his hands. "May that be the last!" he sighed.

(continued on page 128)Comet Wine(continued from page 68)

"There is still The Queen of Spades," said the unkempt man, mischievously. "Perhaps you will undertake that one yourself?"

"Thank you, no," snapped the other (rather irritably, I thought). "I leave that to you."

"I may just do it," was the smiling reply, "unless Chaikovsky is too quick for me!" [He was: Tchaikovsky's setting of "The Queen of Spades" or "Pique-Dame" was presented in 1890. And, later, Rimsky-Korsakov drew upon Pushkin for his operas "Le Coq d'Or" and "Mozart and Salieri"; and Rachmaninoff also turned to Pushkin for his "Aleko."] Elaborately excusing himself, the wild-haired man left us and began chatting with another group.

"Talented," my young friend said in appraisal of him after he left, "but he lacks technique. His scores are crude, grotesque, his instrumentation a disgrace. Of course, he isn't well. An epileptic. And, as you may have noted, he drinks heavily. Still, somehow, he goes on writing music. There is a tavern in Morskaia Street, called Maly Yaroslavets--any night you will see him there, drinking vodka, scribbling music on napkins, menus, the margins of newspapers, feverishly, almost as if----"He broke off.

"As if possessed?" I said.

"A somewhat lurid allusion, don't you think? No, I was about to say, 'almost as if his life depended on it'--as I suppose it does, for his interest in music is probably the only thing keeping him alive. To look at him now, Lord Henry, would you ever guess he was once an impeccably groomed Guards officer, of refined breeding, a wit, a ladies' man?" He shook his head dolorously. "Poor Mussorgsky," he sighed.

Looking slowly about the salon, he then said, "The koochka is not what it was, sir. Do you see that pathetic creature sitting in the corner?" The gentleman indicated was indeed pathetic, a wraith who looked with glazed eye upon all who passed before him, responding feebly and mechanically to greetings, like an old man (although he was not old), then sinking back into motionless apathy. "That is, or was, the koochka's vital force, its spine, its heart, its tingling blood. It was in his apartment we were wont to meet, he who held the group together, his hands that firmly gripped the reins, his whip that goaded us to frenzied effort. No man was more steeped in the classical scores, no memory was so vast as his. Now look at him. A coffin. His mind blighted by a mysterious malady. There he sits. His Tamara languishes unfinished. Music has ceased to interest him, he who breathed exotic harmonies every minute of the day."

We had been walking toward this pitiful wreckage, and now my guide leaned close and spoke to him: "Mily Alekseyevich! How is it with you?" The man looked up and blinked vapidly; it was quite obvious he did not recognize the speaker. "It is I, Vassily Ivanovich," he was forced to add.

"Vas . . . sily . . . 'Van . . . ovich . . . " A small, crooked smile of recognition twisted the poor man's face for a moment, although the eyes did not kindle.

"Allow me to present an honored guest from England, Lord Henry Stanton. Lord Henry, Mily Balakirev."

The wretched fellow offered me a limp, dead hand, which I briefly shook; and then we left him, staring vacantly into empty air again. "Tragic," my Virgil murmured; "and the final offense is that poor Mily, who once was the most vociferous of scoffers, now mumbles prayers and bends his knee to icons."

"I hope you are not an unbeliever," I said lightly.

"I believe," he said--a reply that would have satisfied me, had it not been for its dark color, which seemed to imply meanings beyond the simple words.

"Surely," I asked him, "such ruination of body or mind is not typical of your group?"

"Mussorgsky and Balakirev are possibly extreme examples," he agreed. "But there, at the table, stuffing himself with zakuski," he said, indicating a man in the uniform of a lieutenant general of engineers, "is Cui, who suffers from the worst disease of all: poverty of talent. And Rimsky, whose soul is corroded by his envy of Chaikovsky."

The music of Chaikovsky's Yevgeny Onyégin still rang in my memory and I was therefore reminded of the poet on whose work the opera was founded. "You spoke of Pushkin some moments ago," I said. "I have been told he was an extraordinary poet. Why do you hold him in low esteem?"

"I do not," he replied. "Pushkin was a genius. But suppose your English musicians persisted in setting only the plays and verses of Shakespeare, ignoring today's English writers? This preoccupation with the past is stagnating most of Russian culture, and the music itself is as dated as its subject matter. Even Mussorgsky, whose crudeness is sometimes redeemed by flashes of daring, is being obtunded and made 'inoffensive' by Rimsky--a pedant who gets sick to the stomach at the sound of a consecutive fifth!"

Does it strike you, Bobbie, that this chap was annoyingly critical of his illustrious colleagues? It so struck me, and a little later in the evening I had an opportunity to challenge him--but at this precise moment in our conversation, we were joined by our host.

My initial "offense" regarding the music of Chaikovsky was now, happily, forgotten, and Rimsky's eyes were warm behind the blue lenses. "Ah, Lord Henry," he said, "I see you have met our young firebrand. Has he been telling you what old fogies we are, the slaves of tradition, and so on? Dear boy, for shame: Our English visitor will carry away a bad impression of us."

"No, no," I said, "his views are refreshing."

"He is our gadfly," Rimsky said, with a diplomatic smile. "But we must all suspend our conversations--refreshing though they may be--and turn our attention to some music a few of our friends have consented to play for us."

We all found chairs, and a feast of sound was served. Mussorgsky provided accompaniment for a song sung by a basso they called Fyodr [Not Chaliapin, of course, who was only six years old at the time; but possibly Fyodr Stravinsky, the singer-father of Igor]; after which a chemist named Borodin played pungent excerpts from an uncompleted opera ("He's been at it for fifteen years," whispered my young companion. "Keeps interrupting it to work, on symphonies. A chaotic man, disorganized. Bastard son of a prince."). Next, Rimsky-Korsakov himself played a lyrical piece I found charming, but which my self-appointed commentator deprecated as "conventional, unadventurous."

I had, by this time, had a surfeit of his vicious carping. Taking advantage of a lull in the musical offerings, I now turned to him and, with as much courtesy as I could summon and in a voice distinct enough to be heard by all, said, "Surely a man of such austere judgment will condescend to provide an example of his ideal? Will you not take your place at the keyboard, sir, so that others may play at critic?"

He proffered me a strange look and an ambiguous smile. A profound hush fell upon the room. Our host cleared his throat nervously. My heart sank as I realized that somehow, in a way quite unknown to me, I had committed another and possibly more enormous faux pas!

But I see the dawn has begun to tint the sky, and I have not yet been to bed. I will dispatch these pages to you at once, Bobbie, and resume my little chronicle at the very next opportunity.

Your peripatetic friend, Harry.

• • •

8 April

My dear Bobbie,

I left off, if I remember rightly, at that moment in Rimsky-Korsakov's apartment when I committed some manner of gauche blunder merely by suggesting that a rather unpleasant young man, who had been so superciliously critical of his colleagues, play something of his own composition for the assembled (continued on page 134)Coment Wine(continued from page 129) guests. The embarrassed silence that fell upon the room thoroughly discomfited me. What had I said? In what way was my suggestion awkward or indelicate? Was the young man bitterly hated by our famous host? Unlikely, for he was a guest. Did the poor fellow have no hands? Not so; for, even now, he held wineglass and biscuit in long, slender fingers. I was bemused; I may have blushed. Only a moment passed, but it seemed an hour. Finally, the young man, still wearing the smirk with which he had greeted my challenge, replied, "Thank you, Lord Henry. I shall play something of my own, if our host gives me leave?" He cocked an eyebrow toward Rimsky.

Recovering his aplomb, Rimsky said hurriedly, "My dear fellow, of course. The keyboard is yours." And so, raking the room's occupants with an arrogant look, the young man swaggered to the piano and was seated.

He studied the keyboard for a moment, then looked up at us. "I am in the midst of composing an opera," he said. "Its source, you may be surprised to learn, is not a poem by the indispensable Pushkin or an old Slavonic tale. It is a modern novel, a book still in the writing, a work of revolutionary brilliance. It rips the mask of pretense and hypocrisy from our decadent society, and will cause an uproar when it is published. I was privileged to see it in manuscript--the author resides here in St. Petersburg. It is called The Brothers Karamazov. And this," he concluded, flexing his spidery fingers, "is the prelude to the first act of my operatic setting."

His hands fell upon the keys and a dissonant chord impaled our ears. Rimsky-Korsakov winced. Mussorgsky's bleared eyes went suddenly wide. Borodin's jaws, with a caviar savory half masticated, stopped chewing. The chord hung in the air, its life prolonged by the pedal, then, as the long fingers moved among the keys, the dissonance was resolved, an arresting modulation took place, a theme of great power was stated in octaves, and then that theme was developed, with a wealth of architectural ingenuity. The theme took wing, climbed, soared, was burnished with rich harmony, took on a glittering texture, yet not effete but with an underlying firmness and strength. The koochka and the other guests were transfixed, myself among them; Balakirev alone seemed unthrilled. Cascades of bracing sound poured from the piano. When the prelude reached its magnificent conclusion and the last breath-taking chord thundered into eternity, there was an instant of profound silence--followed by a din of applause and congratulatory cries.

The composer was immediately engulfed by his colleagues, who shook his hand, slapped his shoulders, plied him with questions about the opera. If I were pressed to find one word to best describe the general feeling exuded by these men, the word would be surprise. It was plain to me that they were stunned not only by the vigor and beauty of the music but by its source, the young gadfly. I wondered why.

My unvoiced question must have been written on my face, for at that moment Rimsky-Korsakov drew me aside and said, "You appear to be puzzled, Lord Henry. Permit me to enlighten you--although, I confess, I am extremely puzzled myself. The fact is, you see, that this is the very first time young Cholodenko has shown even the dimmest glimmer of musical talent!"

"What? But that prelude----"

"Astonishing, I agree. Daring, original, moving, soundly constructed. A little too dissonant for my taste, perhaps, but I have no hesitation in calling it a work of genius."

"Then how . . . " Incredulous, more baffled than ever, I stammered out my disbelief: "That is to say, a man does not become a genius overnight! His gifts must ripen and grow, his masterworks must be foreshadowed by smaller but promising efforts . . . "

Rimsky nodded. "Exactly. That is why we are all so surprised. That is why I am so puzzled. And that, you see, is why we were so uncomfortable when you asked Cholodenko to play. Hitherto, his attempts have been painfully inept, devoid of any creative spark, colorless, derivative, drab. And his piano playing! The awkward thumpings of an ape!"

"You exaggerate, surely."

"Only a little. The poor boy himself was aware of his shortcomings--shamefully aware. We tried to be polite, we tried to encourage him, we searched for compliments to pay him, but he saw through us and declined to play at these soirees."

"Yet he attends them."

"Yes, although his very presence has been a discomfort to himself and the rest of us. Music has a kind of insidious attraction for him; he is goaded by it as by a demon; he behaves almost as if . . . " He searched for words.

"As if possessed?" I said, for the second time that evening.

"As if it were food and drink to him. And yet, for some time now, he has been merely an observer."

"And a critic!"

"A caustic critic. He has been an embarrassment, an annoyance, but we tolerated him, we pitied him . . . "

"And now, suddenly . . . "

"Yes," said Rimsky. "Suddenly." The eyes narrowed behind their cool blue panes as he gazed across the room at the triumphant Cholodenko. "Suddenly he is a keyboard virtuoso and the creator of a masterpiece. There is a mystery here, Lord Henry."

And, at that, I burst out laughing!

Rimsky said, "You are amused?"

"Amused and appreciative," I replied. "It is a very good joke--you have my admiration, sir."

"Joke?"

"You had me completely gulled. An absolutely inspired hoax!"

Rimsky's brow now creased in an Olympian frown. "I do not waste time with hoaxes,"he said with dignity, and walked stiffly away.

Determined not to be daunted by this, I pushed my way through to Cholodenko and shook his hand. "I am only a profane listener," I said, "and have no real knowledge of music, but my congratulations are sincere."

"Thank you, Lord Henry. You are most kind." His demeanor had undergone a subtle change: Victory and praise had softened the prickly edges of his character. How wrong, Bobbie, is the axiom of our mutual friend, Acton [Obviously, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Eighth Baronet and First Baron, 1834-1902]. "Power corrupts," he says; "absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is bosh, and I've often told him so: It would be much truer to say "Lack of power corrupts; absolute lack of power corrupts absolutely."

The soiree was nearing its end. As the guests began to leave, my curiosity impelled me to seek out Cholodenko and accompany him into the street.

The cold hit me like a cannon ball. Nevertheless, I strolled at Cholodenko's side, along the banks of the frozen Neva (the embankments, of Finnish gray and pink marble, were iridescent under the moon). Both of us were buried in enormous greatcoats of fur, but I was still cold.

"Be patient but a few more days," said my companion, "and you will see spring split open the land. Our Russian spring is sudden, like a beautiful explosion."

"I shall try to live that long," I said, shivering.

"You need a fire and some wine," he laughed. "Come--my apartment is only a few more steps . . . "

I was eager to learn more about this man, although custom urged me to make a token demur: "No, no, it is late--I should be returning to my quarters."

"Please," he said. "I am wide awake from this evening's triumph--I should not like to celebrate it alone."

"But I am a stranger. Surely your friends----"

Cholodenko snarled bitterly, "Those vultures? They condescended to me when they felt me their inferior; soon they will hate me for being their superior. Here is my door--I entreat you----"

My face felt brittle as glass from the cold. With chattering teeth, I replied, "Very well, for a little while." We went inside.

His apartment was small. Dominating it was a grand piano of concert size. Scores and manuscript paper were piled everywhere. Cholodenko built a fire. "And now," he said, producing a dustfilmed bottle, "we will warm ourselves with comet wine."

His strong thumbs deftly pushed out the cork and the frothing elixir spewed out into the goblets in a curving scintillant jet, a white arc that brought to mind, indeed, a comet's tail.

"Comet wine?" I repeated.

He nodded. "A famed and heady vintage from the year of the comet, 1811. This is a very rare bottle, one of the last in the world. Your health, Lord Henry."

We drank. The wine was unlike any I have ever tasted--akin to champagne, but somehow spicy, richer; dry, yet with a honeyed aftertaste. I drained the goblet and he poured again.

"A potent potation," I said with a smile.

"It makes the mind luminous," he averred.

I said, "That heavenly wanderer, for which it is named, imbued it with astral powers, perhaps?"

"Perhaps. Drink, sir. And then I will tell you a little story, a flight of fancy of which I would value your opinion. If you find it strange, so much the better! For, surely, one must not tell mundane stories between draughts of comet wine?"

Of that story, and of its effect on me, I will write soon.

Your friend, Harry.

• • •

12 April

My dear Bobbie,

Forgive the palsied look of my handwriting--I scribble this missive on the train that carries me from St. Petersburg, and the jiggling motion of the conveyance is to blame. Yes, I take my leave of this vast country, will spend some time in Budapest, and will return to London in time to celebrate your birthday. Meanwhile, I have a narrative to conclude--if this confounded train will let me!

The scene, you may recall, was the St. Petersburg apartment of Vassily Ivanovich Cholodenko. The characters, that enigmatic young man and your faithful correspondent. My head was light and bright with comet wine, my perceptions sharpened, as my host lifted a thick mass of music manuscript from the piano and weighed it in his hands. "The score of The Brothers Karamazov," he said. "It needs but the final ensemble. When it is finished, Lord Henry, all the impresarios in the country, in the world, will beg me for the privilege of presenting it on their stages!"

"I can well believe it," I rejoined.

"After that, other operas, symphonies, concerti . . . " His voice glowed with enthusiasm. "There is a book that created a scandal when it was published three years ago--Anna Karenyina--what an opera I will make of it!"

"My dear Vassily," I said, only half in jest, "I see a receptacle for discarded paper there in the corner. May I not take away with me one of those abandoned scraps? In a few short years, an authentic Cholodenko holograph may be priceless!"

He laughed. "I can do better than wastepaper," he said, handing me a double sheet of music manuscript from a stack on the piano. It was sprinkled with black showers of notes in his bold calligraphy. "This is Alyosha's aria from the second act of Karamazov. I have since transposed it to a more singable key--this is the old copy--I have no further use of it."

I thanked him, then said, "This story you wish to tell . . . what is it?"

"No more than a notion, really. Something I may one day fashion into a libretto--it would lend itself to music, I think. I would like your thoughts, as a man of letters, a poet."

"A very minor poet, I fear, but I will gladly listen."

He poured more wine, saying, "I have in mind a Faustian theme. The Faust, in this case, would possibly be a painter. But it would be patently clear to the audience from the opening moments of the first act--for his canvases would be visibly deployed about his studio--that he is a painter without gift, a maker of wretched daubs. In a poignant aria--baritone, I think--he pours out his misery and his yearnings. He aspires to greatness, but a cruel Deity has let him be born bereft of greatness. He rails, curses God, the aria ends in a crashing blasphemy. Effective, yes?"

"Please go on," I said, my curiosity quickened.

"Enter Lucifer. And here I would smash tradition and make him not the usual booming basso but a lyric tenor with a seductive voice of refined gold--the Fallen Angel, you see, a tragic figure. A bargain is reached. The Adversary will grant the painter the gift of genius--for seven years, let us say, or five, or ten--and then will claim both his body and his immortal soul. The painter agrees, the curtain falls, and when it rises on the next scene, we are immediately aware of a startling transformation--the canvases in the painter's studio are stunning, masterful! A theatrical stroke, don't you agree?"

I nodded, and drank avidly from my goblet, for my throat was unaccountably dry. I felt somewhat dizzy--was it only the heady wine?--and my heart was beating faster. "Most theatrical," I replied. "What follows?"

Cholodenko sighed. "That is my dilemma. I do not know what follows. I had hoped you could offer something . . . "

My brain was crowded with questions, fears, wild conjectures. I told myself that a composer was merely seeking my aid in devising an opera libretto--nothing more. I said, "It is a fascinating premise, but of course it cannot end there. It needs complication, development, reversal. Possibly, a young lady? . . . No, that's banal . . . "

Suddenly, a face was in my mind. The remembrance of it, and the new implications it now carried, I found disturbing. The eyes in this face were dead, as blank as the brain behind them; the smile was vacuous and vapid: It was the face of that living corpse, Balakirev. My thoughts were racing, my head swam. I set down my goblet with a hand that, I now saw, was trembling.

Cholodenko's solicitous voice reached me as if through a mist: "Are you well, Lord Henry?"

"What? . . . "

"You are so very pale! As if you had seen----"

I looked up at him. I peered deep into the eyes of this man. They were not dead, those eyes! They were dark, yes, the darkest eyes I have ever seen, and deep-set in the gaunt face, but they were alive, they burned with fanatic fire. At length, I found my voice. "I am quite all right. A drop too much, I fear . . . "

"Comet wine is unpredictable. Are you sure----"

"Yes, yes. Don't concern yourself." I inhaled deeply. "Now then, this opera story of yours . . . "

"You must not feel obligated to----"

"Suppose," I said guardedly, "that you invent another character. A fellow painter--but a man immensely gifted and acclaimed. You introduce him in Act One, prior to the appearance of Lucifer . . . "

"Yes?" said Cholodenko quickly.

"As the opera progresses, we watch an uncanny transferal . . . we see the gifts of this great painter dim, in direct proportion to the rate with which your Faustian painter is infused with talent, until the great artist is an empty shell and his opposite number is a man of refulgent genius."

Cholodenko smiled sardonically. "The Devil robs Peter to pay Paul, is that it?"

"That is precisely it. What do you think of the idea?"

"It is arousing," he said, his dark eyes watching my face intently. "It is very clever." Then, waxing casual again, he asked, "But is it enough?"

"No, of course not," I said, rising and pacing. His eyes followed me, flickering from left to right and back again. "There must be the obligatory finale, wherein Lucifer returns after the stipulated time, and drags the condemned painter to fiery perdition. Quite a scene, that! Think what you could make of it."

"It's trite," he snapped. "The weary bourgeois idea of retribution. I detest it."

I stared at him, mouth agape. "My dear boy, you needn't bite my head off. It's merely an opera . . . isn't it?"

He mumbled, "I apologize. But that scene has been done before--Mozart, Gounod, Dargomizhsky . . . "

I shrugged. "Then we will change it."

"Yes, yes," he said, almost desperately. "We must . . . change it."

"What would you suggest? That your Faust be spared?"

"Why may he not be spared? Must he be punished because he wished to bring the world great art? . . . "

"No," I said slowly, "not for that."

"Then for what? Why must he be damned for all eternity? Why, Lord Henry?"

We were facing each other across the piano. He was leaning forward, his hands gripping the instrument's lid, his nails digging into the very wood. When I answered him, my voice was even and low:

"Because," I said, "of the man who was drained of his God-given genius to satisfy the cravings of your Faust. The man who was sucked dry and thrown aside. For that, someone must pay. For that, your Faust must burn in Hell."

"No!"

The syllable was torn from his depths. It rang in the room. "Why must he burn for that? He had no way of knowing whence that talent came! Even if, later, he began to suspect the truth, if he saw the great master wane as his own star ascended, there was nothing he could do, no way he could stop it, the pact had been sealed! The Fiend had tricked him! Comprehend, if you can, the horror he would feel, the guilt, the shame, as he watched that blazing talent become cold ashes, sacrificed on the altar of his own ambition! He would hate and disgust himself, he would loathe himself far more than one would loathe a vampire--for a vampire drains only the blood of his victim, whereas he . . . "

Cholodenko's voice stopped, throttled by emotion. His face was a mask of anguish. Then he took a shuddering breath, straightened, and summoned the shadow of a laugh. "But what a very good story this must be, indeed, to sting us to such passion. I fear we are taking it too seriously."

"Are we?"

"Of course we are! Come, hand me your glass . . . "

"I have had enough, thank you. Perhaps we both have."

"You may be right. It has made us irritable. I'm sorry I burdened you with my problems."

"Not at all. It is stimulating to collaborate with a fellow artist. But it is really very late, and I must go."

I reached for my greatcoat, but he gripped my arm. "No, please, Lord Henry. Stay. I beseech you. Do not leave me here . . . alone."

I smiled courteously, and gently extricated my arm from his grasp. I put on my coat. At the door, I turned and spoke. "That final scene," I said. "You wish something different from the usual plunge to Hell. Here is something that might prove piquant, and is certainly theatrical . . . "

Although he did not respond, I continued:

"Lucifer drags your Faust down to The Pit, but the opera does not end, not quite. There is a little epilog. In it, those lustrous paintings fade before the audience's eyes and become empty canvases--I suppose that might be done chemically, or by a trick of lighting? And the poor chap whose gifts were stolen is restored to his former glory. As for your Faust--it is as if he never lived; even the memory of him is swallowed in Hell. How does that strike you?"

I do not know if he heard me. He was staring into the fire. I waited for a reply, but he said nothing and did not look at me. After a moment, I left.

Please pass on to Maude the enclosure you will find herein. It is the piece of music Cholodenko gave me--Alyosha's aria from Karamazov. Bid her play it (I am sure it is beautiful) and you will be the envy of London: the first of your circle to be granted a foretaste of a bold new opera that is certain to be greeted as a masterpiece.

Your friend, Harry.

• • •

Lord Henry Stanton's account of his Russian sojourn ends there. The other letters of his in the packet purchased at the Beverly Hills auction are interesting enough to possibly justify future publication, but all the material bearing upon what I may call The Great Cholodenko Mystery is contained in the three letters you have just read. To them, I can add nothing about Cholodenko, although I can supply some peripheral data available to any researcher willing to spend a little time digging into the history of Russian music:

In the years following Lord Henry's visit to Russia, Mily Balakirev enjoyed a miraculous recovery. He returned to his abandoned Tamara, completed it, and in 1882 saw it produced to acclaim so tremendous that it secured for him, in the following year, a coveted appointment as Director of the Court Chapel. He again became an active host, filling his home with musicians and others eager for his friendship and guidance. He composed his second symphony and worked on a piano concerto. He conducted. He organized festivals in homage to Chopin and Glinka. He personally prepared a new edition of Glinka's works. He energetically composed and edited music even into his retirement years, and outlived the other members of the koochka (with the single exception of Cui), dying in 1910 at the age of 73.

A final curiosity: A yellowing sheet of music paper, presumably the one Lord Henry mentioned, the page he said contained Alyosha's aria from The Brothers Karamazov in Cholodenko's own hand, actually is folded into his April 12th letter--but, except for the printer's mark and the orderly rows of staves, it is blank.