Among the many occupations which overwhelmed him there, he found time to sit to Kouznietsov for his portrait. “Although the artist knew nothing of Tchaikovsky’s inner life,” says Modeste, “he has succeeded, thanks to the promptings of inspiration, in divining all the tragedy of that mental and spiritual phase through which the composer was passing at that time, and has rendered it with profound actuality. Knowing my brother as I do, I can affirm that no truer, more living likeness of him exists. There are a few slight deviations from strict truth in the delineation of the features; but they do not detract from the portrait as a whole, and I would not on any account have them corrected. Perhaps the vitality which breathes from the picture has been purchased at the price of these small defects.”

Kouznietsov presented the portrait to Tchaikovsky, who, however, declined to accept it, partly because he could not endure a picture of himself upon his own walls, but chiefly because he did not consider himself justified in preventing the artist from making something out of his work. The portrait is now in the Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow.

To Modeste Tchaikovsky.

“Klin, February 5th (17th), 1893.

“ ... My journey from Kamenka here was not very propitious. I was taken so ill in the carriage that I frightened my fellow-passengers by becoming delirious, and had to stop at Kharkov. After taking my usual remedies, and a long sleep, I awoke quite well in the morning....

“Next week I must pay a visit to Vladimir Shilovsky. The prospect fills me with fear and agitation. Tell me, has he greatly changed? How is the dropsy? I am afraid of a scene, and altogether dread our meeting. Is there really no hope for him? Answer these questions.”

Vladimir Shilovsky, who had played an important part in my brother’s life some twenty years earlier, had very rarely come in contact with his old teacher since his marriage with the only remaining child of Count Vassiliev. There had been no breach between them, but their lives had run in opposite directions. In January, 1893, I heard that Vladimir Shilovsky was seriously ill. I informed Peter Ilich, who visited his old pupil in Moscow, and was touched by the joy he showed at their reunion, and by the calm self-control with which he spoke of his hopeless condition. The old intimacy was renewed, and only ended with the Count’s death in June, 1893.

XVII

Tchaikovsky’s life moved in spiral convolutions. At every turn his way seemed to lie through the same spiritual phases. The alternations of light and shade succeeded each other with a corresponding regularity. When speaking of the depression which darkened his last years, I emphasised the fact that he had gone through a similar condition of mind before every decisive change in his existence. The acute moral tension which preceded his retirement from the Ministry of Justice was followed by the calm and happy summer of 1862. To his glad and hopeful mood at the beginning of 1877 succeeded the crisis which compelled him to go abroad for rest and change. So, too, this year, 1893, opened with a period of serene content, for which the creation of his Sixth, or so-called “Pathetic,” Symphony was mainly accountable. The composition of this work seems to have been an act of exorcism, whereby he cast out all the dark spirits which had possessed him in the preceding years.

The first mention of this Symphony occurs in a letter to his brother Anatol, dated February 10th (22nd), 1893, in which he speaks of being completely absorbed in his new project. The following day, writing to Vladimir Davidov, he enters into fuller particulars:—