To the same.
“Klin, August 20th (September 1st), 1893.
“I shall take the Symphony with me to Petersburg to-day. I promise not to give away the score. The arrangement for four hands needs a thorough revision. I have entrusted this to Leo Konius. I wished him to receive a fee of at least 100 roubles, but he refused....”
Tchaikovsky spent two days with Laroche in Petersburg. Even the prospect of his journey to Hamburg did not suffice to damp his cheerful frame of mind. He does not appear to have written any letters during his absence from Russia, which was of very brief duration.
“On his return from Hamburg he met me in St. Petersburg,” says Modeste, “and stayed with me a day or two. I had not seen him so bright for a long time past. He was keenly interested in the forthcoming season of the Musical Society, and was preparing the programme of the fourth concert, which he was to conduct.
“At this time there was a change in the circumstances of my own life. Having finished the education of N. Konradi, I decided to set up housekeeping with my nephew Vladimir Davidov, who had completed his course at the School of Jurisprudence and was now an independent man. My brother was naturally very much interested in all the arrangements of our new home.
“At this time we discussed subjects for a new opera. Peter Ilich’s favourite author in later life was George Eliot. Once during his travels abroad he had come across her finest book, The Mill on the Floss, and from that time he considered she had no rival but Tolstoi as a writer of fiction. Adam Bede, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch stirred him to the greatest enthusiasm, and he read them over and over again. He cared less for Romola, but was particularly fond of Scenes from Clerical Life. For a time he seriously contemplated founding the libretto of his next opera upon The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton. He wished me to read the tale and give him my opinion: I must confess that, from his own account of it, I persuaded him to give up the idea.
“I do not know if I actually convinced him, or whether he lost interest in it himself, but he never referred to this tale again when he spoke of other subjects for a libretto.
“We separated early in September, and he went to our brother Anatol, who was spending the summer and autumn with his family at Mikhailovskoe.”
Here he enjoyed a very happy visit. “It is indescribably beautiful,” he wrote to Modeste. “It is altogether pleasant and successful. The weather is wonderful. All day long I wander in the forest and bring home quantities of mushrooms.”