This curious discrepancy between his actions and his intentions, this external submission to, and inward protest against, the compelling circumstances of life, so characteristic of Tchaikovsky, has already become familiar to us. He was incapable of clearing a direct way for himself to some definite goal; he could only desire intensely and await with patience the course of events, until the obstacles gave way of themselves and the path was open to him at last. After the mental collapse he had suffered, and during the pause in his creative activity in November and December, 1877, he thought of the return to his old life in Moscow with fear and trembling, while still regarding it as an inevitable necessity. The great distance which lay between himself and Moscow softened all its sharpness of outline, and veiled all the unpleasant side of life in that city. From far-away Italy and Switzerland he no longer looked back upon everyday Moscow, but saw rather the white City of the Tsars, with its flashing golden cupolas, which was so dear to his patriotic soul. He no longer saw the Conservatoire, with its tiresome classes and petty commonplace interests, but a little group of true friends for whom he yearned. All this drowned the resolve which already existed in his inmost heart, never to return to his old way of life. He attributed this dislike of his former existence to his ill-health, and cherished the hope that the ideal conditions of his life abroad would restore his nerves and soothe his irritability; he was convinced that he would completely recover, and take up his professorship once more with a stout heart. But it proved otherwise. From the month of January, when he was able to arrange his life as he pleased, when, with improved health, the desire to compose awoke once more--from the moment, in fact, in which his real recovery began--life in Moscow seemed to him to be more dreadful and impossible; his connection with the Conservatoire, and with the social life of the capital, more and more unbearable; while the free, untrammelled existence in which nothing hindered his creative activity grew more attractive in his eyes. Never had Tchaikovsky been so lastingly happy as during the period dating from 1878. Never had “the calm, peaceful existence in solitude” appeared so alluring, nor his imagination so quick and so varied. Consequently everything which disturbed his existence at that happy time seemed hostile and unfavourable to its continuance. Only the weak bond of his promise to return to the Conservatoire remained to be broken.