After Berlin came Hamburg, which Tchaikovsky found “a considerable improvement.” Brussels and Antwerp did not please him at all. At Ostend they stayed three days. “It is beautiful here,” he wrote. “I love the sea, especially when it foams and roars, and these last days it has been furious.” Next they went on to London. “Our visit would be very pleasant were it not for the anxiety about your health,” he wrote to his father. “Your letters are awaiting me in Paris, and my heart yearns for them, but we must remain here a few days longer. London is very interesting, but makes a gloomy impression. The sun is seldom visible, and it rains all the time.” Here Tchaikovsky heard Patti for the first time, and although later in life she fascinated him, now he could see “nothing particular” in her. As might be expected, Paris pleased him best of all the towns he visited. Life in the French capital he found delightful. The six weeks which he spent in Paris were the culmination of his pleasure trip. But in the midst of his enjoyment he experienced a complete disenchantment with his travelling companion. After a series of painful misunderstandings they separated, and Peter Ilich returned to Russia alone about the end of September. Intellectually and artistically, Tchaikovsky profited little by this journey. Indeed, it is astonishing how little sensitive he seems to have been at that time to all such impressions. In the three months he was abroad he only acquired one positive piece of information--where one could derive the greatest pleasure. And yet his journey was not altogether wasted. In the first place, it brought home to him the strength of his attachment to his own people. He missed the twins most of all. “Take care, father, that Toly and Modi[6] are not idle.” “Are Toly and Modi working well?” “Don’t forget to tell the examiner that Toly and Modi are prepared for the upper division,” so runs the gist of his letters. Secondly, on this journey he learnt to realise the inevitable end of an idle and pleasure-seeking life, and to recognise that it led to nothing, and that existence held other and nobler aims than the pursuit of enjoyment. The various distractions of Parisian life brought about a wholesome reaction, and on the threshold of a new career he could look quietly on the termination of his former life, conscious only of an ardent desire to step from the shadow into God’s daylight. Soon after his return he wrote the following letter to his sister:-- “_October_ 23_rd_ (_November_ 4_th_), 1861.