His first important step was to enroll in the Russian Musical Society, later to become the St. Petersburg Conservatory. There Anton Rubinstein, the renowned pianist and composer, then teaching composition and orchestration, exerted a lasting influence on him. At that time Anton’s brother Nicholas was founding the Moscow Conservatory. Impressed by Tschaikowsky’s brilliant showing at the St. Petersburg school, he engaged him as instructor in harmony for the new Moscow organization. Tschaikowsky held the post for eleven years. The pay was scant, but there were weightier compensations. Nicholas Rubinstein gave the young man a room in his Moscow house, encouraged him to compose, introduced him around, and gave him sound advice on sundry matters. Best of all, he produced many of Tschaikowsky’s early compositions. Tschaikowsky, loyal and devoted in all his ties, never forgot his friend. After Rubinstein’s death, he dedicated his Trio, _In Memory of a Great Artist_, to the great man who had given him his real start in music and a creative life. During his second year in the Moscow Conservatory Tschaikowsky fell madly in love with the French soprano Désirée Artôt, then touring Russia. While the indecisive Russian wasted time weighing the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, a Spanish baritone named Padilla came along, made violent love to Mlle. Artôt, and hurried her off to the altar before she could catch her breath and notify her Russian suitor. We nevertheless owe the fickle French lady a debt of gratitude. Without the emotional disturbance Tschaikowsky might not have been moved to write the _Romeo and Juliet_ overture-fantasy. His first serious rebuff in love had at any rate paid dividends in art. From then on Tschaikowsky wrote at a feverish pace. Whenever his duties at the Conservatory could spare him, he retired to his study and wrote symphonies, overtures, operas, chamber music, songs, and religious choruses. Sometimes a gnawing doubt in his own talents assailed him. To his friends he wrote voluminous letters complaining of the strong sense of inferiority bedevilling his work. There were attacks of bleak gloom and diffidence lasting weeks. Trips to the country or to Italy and Switzerland were often needed to restore his damaged nervous system and jarred self-confidence to normalcy. Unfavorable reviews stung him like wasps. And while Moscow often evidenced great enthusiasm for his music, St. Petersburg was harder to please. The press there was often virulent with abuse.