“Yesterday was the first night of Eugene Oniegin. I was oppressed by varied emotions, both at the rehearsals and on the night itself. At first the public was very reserved; by degrees, however, the applause grew and at the last all went well. The performance and mounting of the opera were satisfactory....
“Tkachenko (the young man who wanted to commit suicide) has arrived. I have seen him. On the whole he made a sympathetic impression upon me. His sufferings are the outcome of the internal conflict which exists between his aspirations and stern reality. He is intelligent and cultivated, yet in order to earn his bread he has had to be a railway guard. He is very anxious to become a musician. He is nervous, and morbidly modest, and seems to be broken in spirit. Poverty and solitude have made him misanthropical. His views are rather strange, but he is by no means stupid. I am sorry for him and have agreed to look after him. I have decided that he shall go to the Conservatoire, and then it will be seen whether he can take up music, or some other career. It will not be difficult to make a useful and contented man of him.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Moscow, January 19th (31st), 1881.
“Dear, kind friend, it has come to this: I take up my pen to write to you unwillingly, because I feel the immediate need to pour out all the suffering and bitterness which is heaped up in me. You will wonder how a man who is successful in his work can still complain and rail at fate? But my successes are not so important as they seem; besides they do not compensate me for the intolerable sufferings I undergo when I mix in the society of my fellow-creatures; when I have to be constantly posing before them; when I cannot live as I wish, and as I am accustomed to do, but am tossed to and fro like a ball in the round of city life....
“Eugene Oniegin does not progress. The prima donna is seriously ill, so that the opera cannot be performed again for some time.... The criticisms upon it are peculiar. Some critics find the ‘couplets’ for Triquet the best thing in the work and think Tatiana’s part dry and colourless. Others think I have no inspiration, but great cleverness. The Petersburg papers write in chorus to rend my Italian Capriccio, declaring it to be vulgar; and Cui prophesies that The Maid of Orleans will turn out a commonplace affair.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Petersburg, January 27th (February 8th), 1881.
“I will tell you something about Tkachenko. He is an extraordinary being! I had looked after him in every respect, and he began his studies with great zeal. The day before I left Moscow he came to ‘talk to me on serious business,’ and the longer he talked, the more convinced I became that he is mentally and morally deranged. He has taken it into his head that I am not keeping him for his own sake, but in order to acquire the reputation of a benefactor. He added that he was not disposed to be the victim of my desire for popularity, and absolutely refused to recognise me as his benefactor, so I was not to reckon upon his gratitude.
“I replied coldly, and advised him to devote himself to his work, without troubling himself as to my motives for assisting him. I assured him I was quite indifferent as to his gratitude, that I was just leaving the town, and begged him not to waste his thoughts on me, but to fix them exclusively upon his work.