"Thank God," comments Stassov, in his energetic language, "that in 1863 Dargomijsky recoiled before so colossal an undertaking, since he was not yet prepared for it. His musical nature was still growing and widening, and he was gradually freeing himself from all stiffness and asperity, from false notions of form, and from the Italian and French influences which sometimes predominate in the works of his early and middle periods. In each new composition Dargomijsky takes a step forward, but in 1866 his preparations were complete. A great musician was ready to undertake a great work. Here was a man who had cast off all musical wrong thinking, whose mind was as developed as his talent, and who found such inward force and greatness of character as inspired him to write this work while he lay in bed, subject to the terrible assaults of a mortal malady." _The Stone Guest_, then, is the ultimate expression of that realistic language which Dargomijsky employs in his early cantata _The Triumph of Bacchus_, in _The Roussalka_, and in his best songs. It is applied not to an ordinary ready-made libretto, but to a poem of such excellence that the composer felt it a sacrilege to treat it otherwise than as on an equal footing with the music. This effort to follow with absolute fidelity every word of the book, and to make the note the representative of the word, led to the adoption of a new operatic form, and to the complete abandonment of the traditional soli, duets, choruses, and concerted pieces. In _The Stone Guest_ the singers employ that _melos_, or _mezzo-recitativo_, which is neither melody nor speech, but the connecting link between the two. Some will argue, with Serov, that there is nothing original in these ideas; they had already been carried out by Wagner; and that _The Stone Guest_ does not prove that Dargomijsky was an innovator but merely that he had the intelligence to become the earliest of Wagner's disciples. Nothing could be further from the truth. By 1866 Dargomijsky had some theoretical knowledge of Wagner's views, but he can have heard little, if any, of his music. Whether he was at all influenced by the former, it is difficult to determine; but undoubtedly his efforts to attain to a more natural and realistic method of expression date from a time when Wagner and Wagnerism were practically a sealed book to him. One thing is certain: from cover to cover of _The Stone Guest_ it would be difficult to find any phrase which is strongly reminiscent of Wagner's musical style. What he himself thought of Wagner's music we may gather from a letter written to Serov in 1856, in which he says: "I have not returned your score of "Tannhäuser," because I have not yet had time to go through the whole work. You are right; in the scenic disposition there is much poetry; in the music, too, he shows us a new and practical path; but in his unnatural melodies and spiciness, although at times his harmonies are