IX 1890-1891
On December 13th (25th), 1890, Tchaikovsky received a letter from Nadejda von Meck, informing him that in consequence of the complicated state of her affairs she was on the brink of ruin, and therefore no longer able to continue his allowance.
In the course of their correspondence, which extended over thirteen years, Nadejda Filaretovna had referred more than once to her pecuniary embarrassments and to her fears of becoming bankrupt. But each time she had added that the allowance made to Tchaikovsky could be in no way affected, since she had assured it to him for life, and that the sum of 6,000 roubles a year was of no consequence to her one way or the other. In November, 1889, she had spoken again of her business anxieties, but, as usual, without any reference to Tchaikovsky’s pension. On the contrary, in the summer of 1890 she showed her willingness to help him still further by advancing him a considerable sum. Consequently this news fell upon the composer like a bolt from the blue, and provoked the following reply:—
To N. F. von Meck.
“Tiflis, September 22nd (October 4th), 1890.
“Dearest Friend,—The news you communicated to me in your last letter caused me great anxiety; not on my account, however, but on your own. It would, of course, be untrue were I to say that such a radical change in my budget did not in any way affect my financial position. But it ought not to affect me so seriously as you apparently fear. In recent years my earnings have considerably increased, and there are indications that they will continue to do so. Therefore, if I am accountable for any fraction of your endless cares and anxieties, I beg you, for God’s sake, to be assured that I can think of this pecuniary loss without any bitterness. Believe me, this is the simple truth; I am no master of empty phraseology. That I shall have to economise a little is of no importance. What really matters is that you, with your requirements and large ways of life, should have to retrench. This is terribly hard and vexatious. I feel as though I wanted to lay the blame on someone (you yourself are certainly above reproach), but I do not know who is the real culprit. Besides, not only is my indignation quite useless, but I have no right to interfere in your family affairs. I would rather ask Ladislaw Pakhulsky to tell me what you intend to do, where you will live, and how far you will be straitened as to means. I cannot think of you except as a wealthy woman. The last words of your letter have hurt me a little,150 but I do not think you meant them seriously. Do you really think me incapable of remembering you when I no longer receive your money? How could I forget for a moment all you have done for me, and all for which I owe you gratitude? I may say without exaggeration that you saved me. I should certainly have gone out of my mind and come to an untimely end but for your friendship and sympathy, as well as for the material assistance (then my safety anchor), which enabled me to rally my forces and take up once more my chosen vocation. No, dear friend, I shall always remember and bless you with my last breath. I am glad you can now no longer spend your means upon me, so that I may show my unbounded and passionate gratitude, which passes all words. Perhaps you yourself hardly suspect how immeasurable has been your generosity. If you did, you would never have said that, now you are poor, I am to think of you ‘sometimes.’ I can truly say that I have never forgotten you, and never shall forget you for a moment, for whenever I think of myself my thoughts turn directly to you.
“I kiss your hands, with all my heart’s warmth, and implore you to believe, once and for all, that no one feels more keenly for your troubles than I do.
“I will write another time about myself and all I am doing. Forgive my hasty, badly written letter: I am too much upset to write well.”
To the above letter we need only add that Tchaikovsky, with his usual lack of confidence, greatly exaggerated to himself the consequences of this loss. A few days later he wrote to Jurgenson:—
“Now I must start quite a fresh life, on a totally different scale of expenditure. In all probability I shall be compelled to seek some occupation in Petersburg which will bring me in a good salary. This is very, very humiliating—yes, humiliating is the word!”
But this “humiliation” soon passed away. About this time his pecuniary situation greatly improved, and the success of Pique Dame more than covered the loss of his pension.
Soon, too, he was relieved as to the fate of Nadejda Filaretovna, for he learnt that her fears of ruin had been unfounded, and her financial difficulties had almost completely blown over. But with this relief—strange as it may appear—came also a sense of injury which Tchaikovsky carried to the grave. No sooner was he assured that his friend was as well off as before, than he began to persuade himself that her last letter had been nothing “but an excuse to get rid of him on the first opportunity”; that he had been mistaken in idealising his relations with his “best friend”; that the allowance had long since ceased to be the outcome of a generous impulse, and that Nadejda Filaretovna was no longer as grateful to him for his ready acceptance of her help, as he was to receive it.
“Such were my relations with her,” he wrote to Jurgenson, “that I never felt oppressed by her generous gifts; but now they weigh upon me in retrospect. My pride is hurt; my faith in her unfailing readiness to help me, and to make any sacrifice for my sake is betrayed.”
In his agony of wounded pride Tchaikovsky was driven to wish that his friend had really been ruined, so that he “might help her, even as she had helped him.” To these painful feelings was added all the bitterness involved in seeing their ideal connection shattered and dissolved. He felt as though he had been roughly awakened from some beautiful dream, and found in its stead “a commonplace, silly joke, which fills me with disgust and shame.”
But the worst blow was yet to come. Shortly after receiving Nadejda von Meck’s letter, Tchaikovsky’s circumstances—as we have already said—improved so greatly that it would not have been difficult for him to have returned her the sum she had allowed him. He believed, however, that this would have hurt her feelings, and he could not bring himself to mortify in the smallest degree the woman who had actually been his saviour at the most critical moment of his life. The only way out of this painful situation seemed the continuance of his correspondence with her, as though nothing had happened. His advances, however, met with nothing but silent opposition on the part of Nadejda Filaretovna, and this proved the unkindest cut of all. Her indifference to his fate, her lack of interest in his work, convinced him that things had never been what they seemed, and all the old ideal friendship now appeared to him as the whim of a wealthy woman—the commonplace ending to a fairy tale; while her last letter remained like a blot upon the charm and beauty of their former intercourse. Neither the great success of Pique Dame, nor the profound sorrow caused by the death of his beloved sister, in April, 1891, nor even his triumphs in America, served to soften the blow she had inflicted.
On June 6th (18th), 1891, he wrote from Moscow to Ladislaw Pakhulsky:—
“I have just received your letter. It is true Nadejda Filaretovna is ill, weak, and her nerves are upset, so that she can no longer write to me as before. Not for the world would I add to her sufferings. I am grieved, bewildered, and—I say it frankly—deeply hurt that she has ceased to feel any interest in me. Even if she no longer desired me to go on corresponding directly with her, it could have been easily arranged for you and Julia Karlovna to have acted as links between us. But she has never once inquired through either of you how I am living, or what I am doing. I have endeavoured, through you, to re-establish my correspondence with Nadejda Filaretovna, but not one of your letters has contained the least courteous reference to my efforts. No doubt you are aware that in September last she informed me that she could no longer pay my pension. You must also know how I replied to her. I wished and hoped that our relations might remain unchanged. But unhappily this seemed impossible, because of her complete estrangement from me. The result has been that all our intercourse was brought to an end directly I ceased to receive her money. This situation lowers me in my own estimation; makes the remembrance of the money I accepted from her well-nigh intolerable; worries and weighs upon me more than I can say. When I was in the country last autumn I re-read all her letters to me. No illness, no misfortune, no pecuniary anxieties could ever—so it seemed to me—change the sentiments which were expressed in these letters. And yet they have changed. Perhaps I idealised Nadejda Filaretovna because I did not know her personally. I could not conceive change in anyone so half-divine. I would sooner have believed that the earth could fail beneath me than that our relations could suffer change. But the inconceivable has happened, and all my ideas of human nature, all my faith in the best of mankind, have been turned upside down. My peace is broken, and the share of happiness fate has allotted me is embittered and spoilt.
“No doubt Nadejda Filaretovna has dealt me this cruel blow unconsciously and unintentionally. Never in my life have I felt so lowered, or my pride so profoundly injured as in this matter. The worst is that, on account of her shattered health, I dare not show her all the troubles of my heart, lest I should grieve or upset her.
“I may not speak out, which would be my sole relief. However, let this suffice. Even as it is, I may regret having said all this—but I felt the need of giving vent to some of my bitterness. Of course, I do not wish a word to be said to her.
“Should she ever inquire about me, say I returned safely from America and have settled down to work in Maidanovo. You may add that I am well.
“Do not answer this letter.”
Nadejda Filaretovna made no response to this communication. Pakhulsky assured Tchaikovsky that her apparent indifference was the result of a serious nervous illness, but that in her heart of hearts she still cared for her old friend. He returned the above letter to Tchaikovsky, because he dare not give it to Nadejda Filaretovna during her illness, and did not consider himself justified in keeping it.
This was Tchaikovsky’s last effort to win back the affection of his “best friend.” But the wound remained unhealed, a cause of secret anguish which darkened his life to the end. Even on his death-bed the name of Nadejda Filaretovna was constantly on his lips, and in the broken phrases of his last delirium these words alone were intelligible to those around him.
Before taking leave of this personality who played so benevolent a part in Tchaikovsky’s existence, let it be said, in extenuation of her undeserved cruelty, that from 1890 Nadejda von Meck’s life was a slow decline, brought about by a terrible nervous disease, which changed her relations not only to him, but to others. The news of his end reached her on her death-bed, and two months later she, too, passed away, on January 13th (25th), 1894.