He made a naïve offer of friendship. It only stirred up more trouble. He finally granted a meeting. Antonina had won. The girl was deaf to his self-depiction as a morose, ill-tempered neurotic who would assuredly drive her mad. Antonina knew better. No, there was only one way out—marriage. Tschaikowsky became engaged. He repented at leisure. Attempts to break the engagement proved futile. Antonina was bent on becoming Mrs. Tschaikowsky. They were married. A few days later Tschaikowsky fled for his sanity. They were reconciled. There followed two hellish weeks of tragi-farcical life together in Moscow. One night, in a wild daze, Tschaikowsky fled again. He wandered about wildly and reached the Moscow River. He had made up his mind. He stood neck-deep in the water, hoping to freeze to death. He was rescued in time. Though for long he “bordered on insanity,” somehow he came through the crisis with most of his mind. His brother Anatol took him to Switzerland. Slowly Tschaikowsky got back to normal. He never saw Antonina Ivanovna again. The clinical aspects of the case have been thoroughly aired in recent years. The publication of long-withheld letters throw fresh light on Tschaikowsky’s temperament. Antonina and he were mentally and physically incompatible. Despite the fearful suicidal state into which his marriage plunged him, Tschaikowsky never made a harsh reference to his wife. Antonina, for her part, graciously cleared him in her memoirs. “Peter was in no way to blame,” she wrote. [Illustration: The house at Votinsk, in western Russia, where Tschaikowsky was born and where he spent the early years of his life before his family moved to St. Petersburg.] [Illustration: Mme. Nadeshka von Meck, Tschaikowsky’s life-long benefactress, whom he corresponded with but never met.]