In ten days he is strong enough to think of his wife again; in his solitude he begins work on what he mentions to Frau von Meck as "our symphony."
He goes hunting in the woods, while the lonely bride hunts furniture for their home. By the middle of September, Tschaikovski is brave enough to return; he is pleased to find a home of his own, with all clean and neat. For a few days, even a robbery by servants, and the necessity his wife is under to go to the police-court, do not disturb him, or, at least, so he writes. But hardly more than a week can he stand his wife's society. He determines to kill himself, and stands up to his chin in the ice-cold river, afraid to drown himself, and yet hoping to catch a fatal pneumonia.
His old frenzy seized him; insanity beckoned to him again. Alleging that a telegram had called him to St. Petersburg, he fled from his home, September 24, 1877.
His brother met him at the St. Petersburg station, and hardly knew him. Taken to the nearest hotel, he went into hysterics, and was unconscious for forty-eight hours. The doctor said travel was necessary. The wife was provided for, and, leaving her forever, Tschaikovski fled to foreign countries barely in time to save his sanity. To the last he absolved the poor wretched woman of any slightest blame for his behaviour. His brother, in a biography, completely frank up to this point, now grows reticent, except to release the wife of all blame. So you must satisfy your curiosity by imagining some abnormal state of mind, which you will regard cynically or pityingly, as your manner of mind impels.
The last touch to this tragedy was the sordid tinge of poverty. The wretched man alone in Switzerland was without means. Now Frau von Meck, with great secrecy, offered him an annual income of 6,000 rubles—about $4,500—purely in payment, she said, of the delight his music had given her. He accepted a gift so graciously and gracefully made. Tschaikovski was thenceforth an institution fully endowed.
Modeste says that without this relief from anxiety Tschaikovski would have died. He wrote to the benefactress: "Let every note from my pen henceforth be dedicated to you."
This was not the first time she had aided him. A strange, notable woman, she; a true phenomenon—or a phenomena, as one would be tempted to say who had even less Greek than I or Shakespeare, if such an one exist.
Nadeschda Filaretovna, being poor, had married a poor railway engineer; they lived carefully, and raised eleven children. A railroad investment brought them a sudden wealth, soaring into the millions. In 1876 she lost her husband, but all of the children and the riches remained to keep her busy. She lived in almost complete seclusion.
Tschaikovski's strenuous music penetrated her solitude and her heart. The stories of his small income touched her. She planned schemes to fill his purse, ordering arrangements of music and paying for them munificently. Yet she would not receive the composer personally, and when they met in public they did not speak or exchange a glance.
In Du Maurier's perfect romance, Peter Ibbetson and the Duchess of Towers lived their hearts out in a dream-world. So Frau von Meck and Peter Iljitsch lived theirs in a letter-world.