On this journey through the centre of Turkestan, thanks to special introductions, we stayed for three days in a certain monastery not accessible to everyone. The morning we left this monastery, Vitvitskaia was as pale as death, and her arm, for some reason or other, was in a sling. F or a long time she could not mount her horse by herself, and another comrade and I had to help her.
When the whole caravan was under way, I rode beside Vitvitskai'a, a little behind all the others. I very much wanted to know what had happened to her and questioned her insistently. I thought that perhaps one of our comrades had acted the brute and had dared in some way to insult her—a woman who had become sacred for us all—and I wished to find out who the scoundrel was, in order, without dismounting and without words, to shoot him down like a partridge.
To my questions Vitvitskaia finally replied that the cause of her state was, as she expressed it, that 'damned music', and she asked me if I remembered the music of the night before last.
I did indeed remember how all of us, sitting in some corner of the monastery, had almost sobbed, listening to the monotonous music performed by the brethren during one of their ceremonies. And although we had talked about it afterwards for a long time, none of us could explain the reason for it.
After a little pause Vitvitskaia began to talk other own accord, and what she said about the cause of her strange state took the form of a long story. I do not know whether it was because the scenery through which we were riding that morning was indescribably glorious or whether there was some other reason, but •what she then told me with such sincerity, I still remember almost
word for word even after all these years. Each other words was so strongly
imprinted on my brain that it seems to me I hear her at this moment.
She began as follows:
'I do not remember whether there was anything in music that touched me inwardly when I was still quite young, but I do remember very well how I thought about it. Like everybody else I did not wish to appear ignorant and, in praising or criticizing a piece of music, I judged it only with my mind. Even when I was quite indifferent to the music I heard, if my opinion was asked about it, I expressed a view, for or against, according to the circumstances.
'Sometimes when everyone praised it I spoke against it, using all the technical words I knew, so that people should think I was not just anyone, but an educated person who could discriminate in everything. And sometimes I condemned it in unison with others, because I thought that, if they criticized it, there was doubtless something in it which I did not know about, for which it should be criticized. But if I praised a piece of music, it was because I assumed that the composer, whoever he might be, having been occupied with this matter all his life, would not let any composition see the light if it did not deserve it. In short, in either praising or blaming, I was always insincere with myself and with others, and for this I felt no remorse of conscience.
'Later, when that good old lady, the sister of Prince Lubovedsky, took me under her wing, she persuaded me to learn to play the piano. "Every well- educated, intelligent woman," she said, "should know how to play this instrument." In order to please the dear old lady, I gave myself up wholly to learning to play the piano, and in six months I did indeed play so well that I was invited to take part in a charity concert. All our acquaintances present praised me to the skies and expressed astonishment at my talent.
'One day, after I had been playing, the prince's sister came over to me and very seriously and solemnly told me that, since God had given me such a talent, it would be a great sin to neglect it and not let it develop to the full. She added that, as I had begun to work on music, I should be really educated in this field, and not just play like any Mary Smith, and she therefore thought that I should first of all study the theory of music and, if necessary, even take an examination.
'From that day on she began sending for all kinds of books on music for me, and she even went to Moscow herself to buy them. Very soon the walls of my study were lined with enormous bookcases filled to overflowing with all kinds of musical publications.
(! devoted myself very zealously to studying the theory of music, not only
because I wished to please my benefactress but also because I myself had become greatly attracted to this work, and my interest in the laws of music was increasing from day to day. My books, however, were of no help to me, for nothing whatsoever was said in them either about what music is, or on what its laws are based. They merely repeated in different ways information about the history of music, such as: that our octave has seven notes, but the ancient Chinese octave had only five;
that the harp of the ancient Egyptians was calledt e b u n i and the flutem e m ; that the melodies of the ancient Greeks were constructed on the basis of different modes such as the Ionian, the Phrygian, the Dorian and various others; that in the ninth century polyphony appeared in music, having at first so cacophonic an effect that there was even a case of premature delivery of a pregnant woman, who suddenly heard in church the roar of the organ playing this music; that in the eleventh century a certain monk, Guido d'Arezzo, invented solfege, and so on and so forth. Above all, these books gave details about famous musicians, and how they had become famous; they even recorded what kind of neckties and spectacles were worn by such and such composers. But as to what music is, and what effect it has on the psyche of people, nothing was said anywhere.
'I spent a whole year studying this so-called theory of music. I read almost all my books and finally became definitely convinced that this literature would give me nothing; but my interest in music continued to increase. I therefore gave up all my reading and buried myself in my own thoughts.
'One day, out of boredom, I happened to take from the prince's library a book entitled The World of Vibrations, which gave my thoughts about music a definite direction. The author of this book was not a musician at all, and from the contents it was obvious that he was not even interested in music. He was an engineer and mathematician. In one place in his book he mentioned music merely as an example for his explanation of vibrations. He wrote that the sounds of music are made up of certain vibrations which doubtless act upon the vibrations which are also in a man, and this is why a man likes or dislikes this or that music. I at once understood this, and I fully agreed with the engineer's hypotheses.
'All my thoughts at that time were absorbed by these interests and, when I talked with the prince's sister, I always tried to turn the conversation to the subject of music and its real significance. As a result she herself became interested in this question, and we pondered over it together and also began to make experiments.
'The prince's sister even bought several cats and dogs and other animals specially for this purpose. We also began inviting some of our servants, served them tea and for hours on end played the piano for them. At first our experiments produced no result;
but once, when we had as guests five of our servants and ten peasants from the village formerly owned by the prince, half of them fell asleep while I was playing a waltz of my own composition.
'We repeated this experiment several times, and each time the number of those who fell asleep increased. And although the old lady and I, making use of all kinds of principles, composed other music intended to have different effects on people, nevertheless the only result we attained was to put our guests to sleep. Finally, from constantly working on music and thinking about it, I grew so tired and thin that one day, when the old lady looked at me attentively, she became alarmed and, on the suggestion of an acquaintance, hastened to take me abroad.
'We went to Italy and there, distracted by other impressions, I gradually began to recover. It was only after five years had passed, when we went on our Pamir-Afghanistan expedition and witnessed the experiments of the Monopsyche Brotherhood, that I again began to think about the effect of music, but not with the same enthusiasm as at first.
'In later years, whenever I remembered my first experiments with music, I could not help laughing at our naivete in giving such significance to the guests' falling asleep from our music. It never entered our heads that these people fell asleep from pleasure, simply because they had gradually come to feel at home with us, and because it was very agreeable after a long day's work to eat a good supper, drink the glass of vodka offered them by the kind old lady, and sit in soft armchairs.
'After witnessing the experiments and hearing the explanations of the Monopsyche brethren, I later, on my return to Russia, resumed my experiments on people. I found, as the brothers had advised, the absolute "la" according to the atmospheric pressure of the place where the experiment was to be carried out, and tuned the piano correspondingly, taking into consideration also the dimensions of the room. Besides this, I chose for the experiments people who already had in themselves the repeated impressions of certain chords; and I also took into consideration the character of the place and the race of each one present. Yet I could not obtain identical results, that is to say, I was not able by one and the same melody to evoke identical experiences in everyone.
'It cannot be denied that when the people present corresponded absolutely to the mentioned conditions, I could call forth at will in all of them laughter, tears, malice, kindness and so on. But when they were of mixed race, or if the psyche of one of them differed just a little from the ordinary, the results varied and, try as I might, I could not succeed in evoking with one and the same music the mood I desired in all the people without exception. Therefore I gave up my experiments once more, and as it were considered myself satisfied with the results obtained.
'But here, the day before yesterday, this music almost without melody evoked the same state in all of us—people not only of different race and nationality, but even quite unlike in character, type, habits and temperament. To explain this by the feeling of human "herdness" was out of the question, as we have recently experimentally proved that in all our comrades, thanks to corresponding work on themselves, this feeling is totally absent. In a word, there was nothing the day before yesterday that could have produced this phenomenon and by which it could somehow or other be explained. And after listening to this music, when I returned to my room, there again arose in me the intense desire to know the real cause of this phenomenon, over which I had racked my brains for so many years.
'All night long I could not sleep, but only thought what could be the real meaning of it all. And the whole day yesterday I continued to think, and even lost my appetite. I neither ate nor drank anything, and last night I grew so desperate that either from rage or exhaustion or for some other reason, I almost without knowing it bit my finger, and so hard that I nearly severed it from my hand. That is why my arm is now in a sling. It hurts so much that I can hardly sit on my horse.'
Her story touched me deeply, and with all my heart I wanted to help her in some way. In my turn I told her how a year earlier I had happened to come across a phenomenon, also connected with music, which had greatly astonished me.
I told her how thanks to a letter of introduction from a certain great man. Father Evlissi, who had been my teacher in childhood, I had been among the Essenes, most of whom are Jews, and that by means of very ancient Hebraic music and songs they had made plants grow in half an hour, and I described in detail how they had done this. She became so fascinated by my story that her cheeks even burned. The result of our conversation was that we agreed that as soon as we returned to Russia we would settle down in some town where, without being disturbed by anyone, we could really seriously carry out experiments with music.
