“I like my present quarters very well. Apart from the glorious view of the lake and mountains of Savoy, with the Dent du Midi, which I get from my windows, I am pleased with the villa itself.... But I must confess I am continually haunted by the thought of a long visit to Italy, so that I have decided to start for Rome with my brother about a fortnight hence. Afterwards we shall go on to Naples or Sorrento. After a few days amid the mountains, have you never had the yearning, from which I think no northerner ever escapes, for wide horizons and the unbounded expanse of the plains?... Gradually I am going back to my work, and I can now definitely say that our Symphony will be finished by December at the latest, so you will be able to hear it this season. May this music, which is so closely bound up with the thought of you, speak to you and tell you that I love you with all my heart and soul, O my best and incomparable friend!”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Clarens, October 30th (November 11th), 1877.
“ ... Whenever I think calmly over all I have been through, I come to the conclusion that there is a Providence who has specially cared for me. Not only have I been saved from ruin—which seemed at one time inevitable—but things are now well with me, and I see ahead the dawn-light of happiness and success. As regards religion, I must confess I have a dual temperament, and to this day I have found no satisfactory solution of the problem. On the one hand, my reason obstinately refuses to accept the dogmatic teaching either of the orthodox Russian, or of any other Christian Church. For instance, however much I may think about it, I can see no sense in the doctrine of retribution and reward. How is it possible to draw a hard-and-fast line between the sheep and the goats? What is to be rewarded and what is to be punished? Equally impossible to me is the belief in immortality. Here I am quite in accord with the pantheistic view of immortality and the future life.
“On the other hand, my whole upbringing, customs of childhood, and the poetical image of Christ and all that belongs to His teaching, are so deeply implanted in me, that involuntarily I find myself calling upon Him in my grief and thanking Him in my happiness.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Florence, November 6th (18th), 1877.
“I am ashamed, not without reason, to have to write you a melancholy letter. At first I thought I would not write at all, but the desire to talk with you a little got the upper hand. It is impossible to be insincere with you, even when I have the best of reasons for concealing my thoughts.
“We came here quite unexpectedly. I was so unwell in Milan that I decided to remain a day here, which our tickets permit us to do. My indisposition is not of such great importance. The real trouble is my depression—a wearing, maddening depression, which never leaves me for a moment. In Clarens, where I was living an absolutely quiet life, I was often overcome by melancholy. Not being able to account for these attacks of depression, I attributed them to the mountains. What childishness! I persuaded myself that I need only cross the frontiers of Italy, and a life of perfect happiness would begin! Nonsense! Here I feel a hundred times worse. The weather is glorious, the days are as warm as in July, there is something to see, something to distract me, and yet I am tormented by an overwhelming, gigantic depression. How to account for it I do not know. If I had not asked all my correspondents to address their letters to me in Rome, I think I should not travel any further. I must get as far as that, it is clear, but I am not fit just now for a tourist’s life.... I have not come here for sight-seeing, but to cure myself by work. At the present moment it seems to me impossible to work in Italy, especially in Rome. I regret terribly the peace and quiet of Clarens, where I had made a successful effort to return to my work, and I am seriously wondering whether it might not be better to return there.... What will become of me when my brother goes? I cannot think of that moment without a shudder. But I neither wish, nor am I able, to return to Russia. You see how I keep turning in this cercle vicieux....”
To N. F. von Meck.