The fabulous vastness of the country repeated itself day after day with the persistence of eternal truth—sank into the child's unconsciousness, coloured his childish thoughts, his young feelings, carried persuasion into his ignorance—irresistible like an unceasing whisper of a voice from Heaven. The father's prosperity grew apace—quicker than the child. There are such fortunate hazards! They ceased to wander and the boy lived with his Ukrainian mother in riverside towns while the father travelled about, busy with his wheat transport contracts, watching, highbooted in the mire of banks, his blunt-nosed scows afloat on the muddy streams of interminable waterways. In the desolation of the antechambers of government offices he found a new ambition for his son. He saw him uniformed, embroidered, bemedalled, autocratic, called Excellency. Everything is possible in Russia; and, as the proverb says: anything may be done—only cautiously! When the boy was eight years old he put him to school in a provincial town. From there Stephen went to the capital. The elder man could not understand the ambition of the youth.... Paint! Why paint? Paint what? Where? What's the good of it? Generals don't paint; nor do Councillors—even the writers in chancelleries don't paint. As to the General-Governors they would not even speak to a painter; they would not hear him if he presumed to.... The old man was afraid of such an incomprehensible form of madness. The son took his stand on the autocracy of vocation and argued his point in strange words, with bewildering arguments. The father saw only the fixedness of resolve and—in his fear of losing the favourite for ever—pleaded timidly.... All the painters of which his son spoke—he understood—were dead. Well! Poor folk. God rest their souls. What's the good then of going abroad if there was no one there to tell the secrets of the trade. They had left works? Maybe, maybe. He felt certain Stephen could paint much better than those dead fellows. Then, why go so far to look at what they left—if there was anything left to look at? He doubted it. Such a long time—long time. Things get rotten and crumble—houses and bridges—let alone paintings. And they were foreigners too! Why go so far—amongst Germans and such like? Was Russia not big enough to paint in—if he must! ... He bowed his head at last. Heaven willed it. For his sins! For his sins! ... "And do you write to us—we are old people," he said to his son. Then added with a tremulous sense of his own cunning, "Write to us. You will be here and there—God knows! Write so that we know where to send money after you. Those foreigners are great cheats and you are young—young. Well, it's time. Then, go with God ... and come back soon". They embraced. The son drove off, the big collar of his cloak up, without turning his head once. In the house the mother had thrown her print skirt over her head and wept in the profound darkness of her grief. The father stood at the gate and threw a rapid sign of the cross after the vanished longings of his simple heart.

For years, under the gilded domes of splendid cathedrals, in the imposing gloom of holy monasteries, or in humble village churches the bereaved father sought in vain the help of renowned saints who answered his trustful prayers by the meaningless stare of naïve art. Evidently he did not deserve the mercy of the blessed. This thought dawned upon him at last, and he ceased to make himself obtrusive by his prayers but still haunted assiduously the sacred edifices in an indistinct but tenacious hope that the sight of his mute distress would, in time, move some attendant at the footstool of the Most High to a compassionate intercession. With both elbows on the little wooden table of "Traktirs" frequented by men of his class he often told his friends, while they sipped their tea, the story of his great sorrow—ending it solemnly with the words: "Our son is under the visitation of God", and with a deep sigh. He cursed the impious Frenchmen who had, by their black arts, bewitched the boy. After consulting his wife he made a solemn vow to build a church in which the misguided son could have his peace with God by painting, on a gold background, a gorgeous altar-piece. Let him only return! The money was ready! But Providence, unlike the powers of this earth, was impervious to the offer of a splendid bribe. He did not see his son again. Reaching home, after one of his business journeys, he was seized by some violent internal disorder. He had just time in the last return of consciousness to assure his distracted wife of his belief that the Jews had poisoned all the wells in the province—and expired in her arms with the resignation of indifference. She followed him quickly. During the last months of her life she seemed to have forgotten her eldest boy in an impatient longing to rejoin the man who had charmed her youth.

Stephen grieved, and carried his grief, contained and profound, through every second of the first few weeks. In the sifted light coming with pearly purity through the white clouds of lofty skylights he wandered with slow steps in the long galleries between the masterpieces of line and colour. The atmosphere of these places was full of the heartless serenity of perfection. The other people in them looked to him very small, distinct and—no matter how numerous—exceedingly lonely, like men and women lost in a strange world. Their irresolute footsteps rang, sharp but ineffectual, in the significant silence of glorious memories. Stephen wandered about. His powerful and clumsy frame clad in black attracted attention, eluded it by its restlessness. He flitted in the doorways, crossed the narrow end of long perspectives, was seen, thrown in abandoned postures, on circular couches, only to get up again and pace forward stiffly with fixed and unseeing eyes. The whispers of amused remarks did not disturb him—were not heard by him. The first appeal of death vivifies the past, evokes a great clearness of distinct memories out of the crash of destroyed hopes. Stephen remembered, could see, the pathetic faces of the dead who—he imagined—had died with his name on their lips. The armour of his art, the armour polished, impenetrable, unstained and harder than steel, seemed to be stripped off him by a mighty hand, to fall with an ominous clatter at his feet. Defenceless, he was pierced by the venomous sharpness of remorse. He had abandoned those two loving hearts for the promise of unattainable things, for alluring lies, for beautiful illusions. He wanted to shout at immortal achievements: "You have no heart". To his lofty aspirations he said: "You have no conscience",—To Beauty: "Thou art a lie!" To Inspiration: "Go! Depart with the last word unspoken—for I have no more sacrifices to offer". In the haste of his regrets he dispersed with frenzied renunciation the band of charming phantoms that had for so many years surrounded his life—and remained alone, humbled and appalled by the reality of his loss.

This state of agonizing self-reproach did not last long—no longer than with other men. Stephen's brother wrote him letters where filial sorrow was mingled with judicious concern about their affairs. That young man was cheery, practical and brotherly. He had taken over the business. He was also modern and irreverent. He spoke with strange levity of the Governor of the Province saying that the fellow had priest's eyes—that see everything—and a wolf's maw—that would swallow everything. "But"—he added—"I have the wherewithal to stuff his maw and have obtained the lease of government mills. We shall make a good thing of it. And next year I go to the Caucasus—provisioning the troops—when we shall dwell in a town, Brother, in a big town! You come and live with us. You shall paint those Tcherkesses and the Georgian women, and make money by it—if you like. There's a fellow here—went to Turkestan; painted those savages there on small bits of canvas, and even paper—and everybody in Petersburg is running to see. It's true! I have seen myself people fight at the doors. There's many mad folks in our country. Why shouldn't you get some of their roubles? But there is plenty of money already. Half of it is yours. I understand affairs. Come and live with us. My wife asks after you often and your nephew is beginning to run about. There's no country in the world like our country. Come!"