During this visit, Tchaikovsky composed and orchestrated his first independent musical work, the overture to his favourite Russian play, _The Storm_, by Ostrovsky. He had already hankered to write an opera on this play, consequently when Rubinstein set him to compose an overture by way of a holiday task, he naturally selected the subject which had interested him for so long. On page 30 of his instrumentation sketch-book for 1863-4 he made a pencil note of the programme of this overture:-- “Introduction; adagio (Catharine’s childhood and life before marriage); allegro (the threatening of the storm); her longing for a truer love and happiness; allegro appassionato (her spiritual conflict). Sudden change to evening on the banks of the Volga: the same conflict, but with traces of feverish joy. The coming of the storm (repetition of the theme which follows the adagio and the further development of it). The Storm: the climax of her desperate conflict--Death.” The next important composition, which was not lost, like so many of Tchaikovsky’s early works, was the “Dances of the Serving Girls,” afterwards employed as a ballet in his opera, _The Voyevode_. It is impossible to fix the precise date at which these dances were composed, but early in 1865 they were already finished and orchestrated. VII. In 1865 Tchaikovsky’s father married--for the third time--a widow, Elizabeth Alexandrov. This event made no difference to the life of Peter Ilich, for he was attached to his stepmother, whom he had known for several years, and to whom he often went for advice in moments of doubt and difficulty. The summer of this year was spent with his sister at Kamenka. Kamenka, of which we hear so much in the life of Peter Ilich, is a rural spot on the banks of the Tiasmin, in the Government of Kiev, and forms part of the great estate which Tchaikovsky’s brother-in-law had inherited from the exiled Decembrist Vassily Davidov. The place has historical associations, having been the centre of the revolutionary movement which disturbed the last years of Alexander I. Here, too, the poet Poushkin came as a visitor, and his famous poem, “The Prisoner in the Caucasus,” is said to have been written at Kamenka. The property actually belonged to an elder brother, Nicholas Davidov, who practically resigned it to the management of Tchaikovsky’s brother-in-law, preferring the pleasures of his library and garden to the responsibilities of a great landowner. Kamenka did not boast great natural charms, nevertheless Tchaikovsky enjoyed his visit there, and soon forgot the luxuries of Trostinetz.