“From Bayreuth I went first to Nuremberg, where I spent a whole day and wrote the notice for the _Russky Viedomosti_. Nuremberg is charming! I arrived in Vienna to-day and leave to-morrow for Verbovka.” Laroche contributes the following account of Tchaikovsky’s visit to the Bayreuth festival:-- “The effort of listening and gazing during the immensely long acts of the Wagner Trilogy (especially of _Rheingold_ and the first part of _Götterdämmerung_, which both last without interval for two hours), the sitting in a close, dark amphitheatre in tropical heat, the sincere endeavour to understand the language and style of the book of the words--which is so clumsy and difficult in its composition that even to Germans themselves it is almost inaccessible--all produced in Tchaikovsky a feeling of great depression, from which he only recovered when it came to an end and he found himself at a comfortable supper with a glass of beer....” Such was the impression produced upon Tchaikovsky by the _Nibelungen_. He himself recorded the following observations upon Wagner’s colossal work:-- “I brought away the impression that the Trilogy contains many passages of extraordinary beauty, especially symphonic beauty, which is remarkable, as Wagner has certainly no intention of writing an opera in the style of a symphony. I feel a respectful admiration for the immense talents of the composer and his wealth of technique, such as has never been heard before. And yet I have grave doubts as to the truth of Wagner’s principles of opera. I will, however, continue the study of this music--the most complicated which has hitherto been composed. “Yet if the ‘Ring’ bores one in places, if much in it is at first incomprehensible and vague, if Wagner’s harmonies are at times open to objection, as being too complicated and artificial, and his theories are false, even if the results of his immense work should eventually fall into oblivion, and the Bayreuth Theatre drop into an eternal slumber, yet the _Nibelungen Ring_ is an event of the greatest importance to the world, an epoch-making work of art.” Morally and physically exhausted, pondering uninterruptedly on his own future, and imbued with the firm conviction that “things could not go on as they were,” Tchaikovsky returned from foreign countries, travelling through Vienna to Verbovka. There a hearty welcome from his relations awaited him, and all the idyllic enjoyments of the country. The happy family life of the Davidovs was the best thing to calm and comfort Tchaikovsky, but, at the same time, it strengthened a certain intention in which his morbid imagination discerned the one means of “salvation,” but which actually became the starting-point of still greater troubles and worries. On August 19th (31st) he wrote to me from Verbovka:--