“I am gradually becoming accustomed to Moscow, although sometimes I feel very lonely. My classes are very successful, to my great astonishment; my nervousness is vanishing completely, and I am gradually assuming the airs of a professor. My home-sickness is also wearing off, but still Moscow is a strange place, and it will be long before I can contemplate without horror the thought of remaining here for years--perhaps for ever....” _To Modeste Tchaikovsky._ (_The middle of February._) “MY DEAR FRIEND MODI,--I have been very busy lately, and therefore have not written for a long while. Rubinstein has entrusted me with some important work which has to be finished by the third week in Lent.... “Life glides on quietly and monotonously, so that I have hardly anything to tell you. I often visit the Tarnovskys, whose niece is the loveliest girl I ever saw in my life. I am very much taken with her, which causes Rubinstein to be a perfect nuisance. The moment we arrive at the house the others begin to tease us and leave us together. At home she is called ‘Mufka,’ and just now I am wondering whether I dare use this name for her too. I only need to know her a little better. Rubinstein has also been in love with her, but his sentiments have now grown cooler. “My nerves are in good condition; I am very calm and even cheerful. I often console myself with thoughts of Easter, spring, and the summer holidays.” The work to which Tchaikovsky refers at the beginning of this letter was the instrumentation of his overture in F major, which had been originally scored for the small orchestra of the Petersburg Conservatoire. In later years the composer must have destroyed the fuller arrangement of the work, although at this time he seems to have been satisfied with the result. _To A. and M. Tchaikovsky._ “_March_ 6_th_ (18_th_). “ ... My overture was performed on Friday, and had a good success. I was unanimously recalled, and--to be grandiloquent--received with applause that made the welkin ring. More flattering still was the ovation I met with at the supper which Rubinstein gave after the concert.... After supper he proposed my health amid renewed applause. I go into these details because it is my first public success, and consequently very gratifying.” At the end of March Tchaikovsky, eager as a schoolboy at the beginning of his holidays, left Moscow for Petersburg, where he stayed until April 4th (16th). _To A. and M. Tchaikovsky._ “MOSCOW, _April_ 7_th_ (19_th_).