at 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.

In 1877