24 July

'My Dear Angel! I'm writing again from Radkowszczyzna to let you know that I am alive, and will ask some good people to pass the message to you in Minsk. We have been vegetating day after day for five days now. The silence, as compared with the noise of Wierzbowa Street, is eerie. If it weren't for the god Morpheus, who takes me in his arms at my every call, the duty of living would have been unbearable.'

This is what Moniuszko wrote to his wife on 24 July 1861. He was in Radkowszczyzna to see to his family's financial affairs. He also took the opportunity to visit his father, Czesław. The stony silence was all the more uncomfortable as, in Moniuszko's words, it was 'raining cats and dogs all the time'.