During Saint-Saëns’ short visit to Moscow a very amusing episode took place. One day the friends discovered they had a great many likes and dislikes in common, not merely in the world of music, but in other respects. In their youth both had been enthusiastic admirers of the ballet, and had often tried to imitate the art of the dancers. This suggested the idea of dancing together, and they brought out a little ballet, _Pygmalion and Galatea_, on the stage of the Conservatoire. Saint-Saëns, aged forty, played the part of Galatea most conscientiously, while Tchaikovsky, aged thirty-five, appeared as Pygmalion. N. Rubinstein formed the orchestra. Unfortunately, besides the three performers, no spectators witnessed this singular entertainment. The fate of _Vakoula the Smith_ was Tchaikovsky’s chief preoccupation at this time. The jury consisted of A. Kireiev, Asantchevsky, N. Rubinstein, Th. Tolstoi, Rimsky-Korsakov, Napravnik, Laroche, and K. Davidov. Tchaikovsky’s score, so Laroche relates, was of course copied out in a strange autograph, “but the motto, which was identical with the writing in the parcel, was in Tchaikovsky’s own hand. ‘Ars longa, vita brevis’ ran the motto, and the characteristic features of the writing were well known to us all, so that from the beginning there was not the least room for doubt that Tchaikovsky was the composer of the score. But even if he had not had the _naïveté_ to write this inscription with his own hand, the style of the work would have proclaimed his authorship. As the Grand Duke remarked laughingly, during the sitting of the jury: ‘_Secret de la comédie_.’” The result of the prize competition was very much talked of in Petersburg. Long before the decision of the jury was publicly announced, everyone knew that their approval of _Vakoula_ was unanimous. In October Rimsky-Korsakov wrote to Tchaikovsky as follows:-- “I do not doubt for a moment that your opera will carry off the prize. To my mind, the operas sent in bear witness to a very poor state of things as regards music here.... Except your work, I do not consider there is one fit to receive the prize, or to be performed in public.” Towards the end of October the individual views of the jury were collected in a general decision, and Tchaikovsky received a letter from the Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaevich, in his own handwriting, congratulating him as the prize-winner of the competition. During October Modeste Tchaikovsky retired from the Government service in order to become private tutor to a deaf and dumb boy, Nicholas Konradi. The child’s parents decided to send young Tchaikovsky to Lyons for a year, to study a special system of education for deaf mutes.