I have only one student who comes once a week. As a matter of fact, I recently started conducting a choir four times a week, but I’ve already managed to catch the flu three times and, if this continues, I won't make any money with the choir either."

When Čiurlionis, the director of the choir became ill, he was visited by doctor Andrius Domaševičius, who was a descendant of the left-wing nobility. As soon as Mr. Domaševičius returned to Vilnius, he joined the underground Lithuanian resistance group, the so-called "Twelve Apostles of Vilnius". He was the also the founded the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, and helped organize the Great Seimas of Vilnius in 1905. He ran a private clinic as well as a hospital was interested in music and wrote articles for the Lithuanian press. Čiurlionis described him thus, “Dr. Domaševičius is highly intelligent, passionately in love with classical music, has dark hair and blue eyes and cared for me very attentively when I was ill.” For a while, the musician couldn't even compose - he was able to rent a piano only after the New Year. That is why he drew portraits of the people he met during that time with words, rather than with a paintbrush.

He first described a couple who were kindly disposed towards him and helped him when he was looking for ways to support hiself in Vilnius. They were Jonas and Ona Vileišis. At the time, Jonas was the chairman of the Vilnius Kanklės Society, and was one of the founders along with Čiurlionis of the Lithuanian Artist Society. Elected secretary, he seemingly didn’t have the time to manage these duties, and that is why Čiurlionis took a bit of a swipe at him in his description, “Jonas Vileišis is a very nice man who is a bit of an aristocrat, a bit bourgeois and a member of every single Lithuanian society in Vilnius, it would seem, only for the fact of belonging to it. He is very much in love with his wife”. And she was certainly someone to fall in love with: Jonas Vileišis met Ona, a beautiful girl from the aristocratic Kossakowski family, who was completely taken with her husband’s national ideals and began not only to speak, but to also to write Lithuanian. Čiurlionis played four-hand piano with her. She was warm and sincere, always ready to entertain a guest. The home of this young family somewhat filled the loss of the Wolman family’s hospitality who had remained in Warsaw.

In his list of new acquaintances, Čiurlionis also mentioned Jonas' brother Petras Vileišis, a vocally dedicated supporter of the Lithuanian national movement. After completing his studies and becoming a railway bridge engineer, he worked as a construction contractor for structures requiring caissons in the depths of Russia and accumulated a considerable amount of wealth that he used upon his return to Lithuania not only to set up a business, but also donated to the first Lithuanian daily, Vilnius News, to a Lithuanian printing house and a bookstore. Many of the nation's most enlightened people, such as Jonas Basanavičius, Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė, Mykolas and Vaclovas Biržiška and Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas who organized the Great Seimas of Vilnius, had been able to set up residence in Vilnius in 1905 thanks to jobs provided by Petras Vileišis. The first Lithuanian art show was held at his mansion and Lithuanians were able to view Čiurlionis’ works for the first time. He was a member of the Vilnius City Council for four years.

In this room you can see photos from the First Lithuanian Art Exposition at the Vileišis Manor. "Petras Vileišis is a very sympathetic old man, simple, kind-hearted," was the way that the artist described him, adding, "a few years ago he had about 500 thousand, and now he has been left with 50. He gave it all away to people and for various programs for the rebirth of the nation." In fact, Vileišis' funds dropped even more dramatically, and this prompted him to leave for Russia again to earn money. In the letter, Čiurlionis admitted, "We sympathize with each other."

While hanging his paintings for his first exhibition, Čiurlionis became acquainted with the twenty-seven-year-old artist Petras Rimša, who was one of the first in the press to Lithuanian artists to think about a joint exhibition of their work. At the beginning, Rimša, who had come to Vilnius from a rural environment, was a bit shy around his older colleague, but soon became close friends with him and became a dedicated assistant when Čiurlionis was organizing the Second Lithuanian Art Exhibition. Later, Rimša recalled with pleasure what a good mood had prevailed when the artists hung the First Lithuanian Art Exhibition. “Of course, the soul of the good mood in our circle was Antanas Žmuidzinavičius. But Čiurlionis was also a part of it. They were both also wonderful at singing while preparing the exhibition. After all, it’s natural to work while singing. It seems like today that I see Čiurlionis and Žmuidzinavičius up high on ladders and hanging paintings. And then a wonderful song from Dzūkija starts to pour out of their young hearts, "Oh, the woods, the woods..." We would get so involved in the singing that work stopped altogether. The preparation of the exhibition cemented the artists into a very close friendship that was quite rare.”

In September of 1907, the landscape artist Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, who had studied in Warsaw and Paris, became the chairman of the newly established Lithuanian Art Society. He remained in this position throughout the life of the society. When in 1908 he set out to further his studies in Munich and raise funds for the society for travel to America, Čiurlionis replaced the chairman in all of the organizational work. Žmuidzinavičius remembered how, at the opening of the First Exhibition, Konstantinas came in all dressed up with an oversized bow tie. There was one young lady, who upon seeing his strange paintings in which "the underground mingled with the sky", decided that she wanted to see the artist himself, whom she thought would probably “look like God knows what.” And Čiurlionis, who was standing nearby, was quick with an answer, "Madam, he's truly horrible: like a dragon who swallows virgins." Žmuidzinavičius, who loved concerts, continued on for a long while about what an impression Konstantinas’ music made on him, "When Čiurlionis would play, life in this world came to an end: the artist himself would transcend this world and take his listeners along with him to other more beautiful worlds of dreams and mirages."

After moving to Vilnius, Čiurlionis stayed in close contact not only with Lithuanian artists. One of his most important acquaintances was with a contemporary artist Lev (Leiba) Antokolskis. After he graduated from the Vilnius School of Drawing and studied with Ilya Repin at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, he spent a bit of time in Paris. For the past five years, he had already been the director of drawing classes at the Vilnius Jewish Crafts School in Vilnius. The school had been initiated by the Society of Industrial Arts, which a year ago had bestowed the institution with the name of Lev's uncle, the famous sculptor Mark (Marduch) Antokolskis. Čiurlionis' vivid imagination first caught the artist's attention when he visited the First Lithuanian Exhibition. His symbolic works immediately appeared to be "full of deep philosophical meaning," and he equated the original interpretation of musical themes to a "shining, dazzling meteor." Later, Čiurlionis met with Lev Antokolskis on organizational matters at the Vilnius Art Society. The artist's acquaintance with representatives of the Art World in St. Petersburg proved to be very useful for Čiurlionis in establishing business relations in the then capital of tsarist Russia. After Konstantinas’ death, Antokolskis remembered how he loved the crooked streets of Vilnius. “I remember one autumn evening when I visited his little room on Andrejaus Street where there was nothing but a piano, a bunch of handwritten music scores and dried out autumn branches hanging on the walls. He was there alone with his ingenious ideas and the sound of his music surprised one with its grief...” In this modest home, conversations were often extended through music by fingers running along the Lippenberg piano’s keyboard.

Čiurlionis was also visited in his room by Ivan Trutnev, a painter of religious and folk scenes and portraits in the academic tradition, who was already eighty years old at the time. After studying in Moscow and then touring the cities of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, he worked in Vitebsk, and for the past four decades headed a drawing school in Vilnius. He had earned the title of Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, as well as the titles of State Counselor and True State Counselor. Among the works of Ivan Trutnev was a project for a monument to the “Hangman of Vilnius” Mikhail Muravyov, but Čiurlionis may not have known about it.

At the end of 1908, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, who had taught painting to Čiurlionis at the Warsaw School of Art and had somewhat influenced him, moved to Vilnius. They were both artists of virtually the same generation as they were born only 5 years apart. After having studied in St. Petersburg, traveling to Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Paris, Vienna, and working at the Krakow Academy of Arts in for a year, Vilnius attracted Ruszczyc because of its less pretentious environment, and because an early exhibition of his works had taken place in this city. The house in Užupis where Ruszczyc lived was relatively close to Čiurlionis' rented apartment and the two artists would occasionally meet. Once, when Ruszczyc visited the Lithuanian Art Exhibition, he commented that only Čiurlionis’ works were worthy of note. Although Ruszczyc liked the Scherzo from Sonata and the entire Zodiac series, he couldn’t refrain from reproaching the artist for too much Kabbalism and too little actual painting in his work.

After the death of Čiurlionis, Ruszczyc, who was one of the bearers of his coffin and gave a eulogy at the gravesite, focused on his essential impression of Konstantinas. “We have gathered to say goodbye to a person of unadulterated purity, to a friend with noble aspirations, and will remember him deep in our thoughts as a tragically interrupted song. He left us for other worlds, about which he dreamed during his such short life, to that distant country, with which we are not familiar, but we know of it, we are it and feel it inside of us. Čiurlionis is building bridges of colors and sounds from our shore. To others, Čiurlionis was an expression of that dual homeland from which arise both the artist and the man - a homeland with one great Spirit, which, regardless of age or nationality, unites our souls into one great community. And the others are our own lands, against which her son nestles with love. There is one painting by Čiurlionis, well known to you. A bird emerges from the breaking dawn, passing by the peaks of mountains with the wide flutter of its wings, quickly flying away into the distance. This is The Message. That was Čiurlionis’ message. He was the harbinger of new, young art, on which he left his own mark. And he proclaimed to his land and to his countrymen the beauty of the spring that was awakening in them. And so, he left us in the spring."

Another artistic soul close to the environment of the Vilnius Art Society was Stanisław Filiber(t)as Fleury. After graduating from the Vilnius School of Drawing and learning the secrets of the craft of photography in the workshops of several famous masters, he decided to establish his own photo studio. He liked not only photographing the images of Vilnius, but also painting the landscapes of this city and illustrating some books. Later on, he was one of the first to begin producing stereoscopic photographs in Vilnius. When Čiurlionis arrived here, he had been working in his studio on Didžioji Street for close to two decades. Because the studio was very close to Konstantinas’ rented apartment, he dropped by his colleague’s place on the morning of June 1908 to have his picture taken. His fiancée Sofija Kymantaitė said that the photo was taken after they had both spent the night together on Gediminas Hill. “That morning, without practically any sleep, after having transported a piano and being dead tired, he remembered that he had promised a photo to Šaltinis. He stepped into the photographer’s studio and the result is the photo that everyone has seen. But, in that photo there is something that has died - there is no clarity in his expression, no matter how gray the face – the constant glow of his eyes is missing.” ‘I was so tired that I didn't even comb my hair’, he tried explaining afterwards." You can see the photograph hanging on the wall in this room.

Antanas Vileišis, an active participant in the Great Seimas and the Science Society, also worked in the organizing committee of the First Lithuanian Art Exhibition. Being a progressive left-wing man, the doctor was sincere in his efforts to found societies for his socially vulnerable countrymen and also worked in the Vilnius City Duma. Čiurlionis conducted some of the choir's rehearsals at the premises of the Vilnius Lithuanian Mutual Relief Society, and Antanas Vileišis was the chairman of this society.

Konstantinas was visited in his home by the writer Liudas Gira from Dzūkija, who wrote poetry and contributed his writings to many periodicals. The composer had asked him to translate a song for which he had composed music from Polish into Lithuanian. His musical improvisations evoked a string of romantic images in the soul of the twenty-four-year-old. “His hands, like lightning, evoked chords from all over the keyboard. Piano and forte melodies swayed like the tops of Dzūkija’s pines, swinging in the wind,” was the way Gira described the work, which, as far as the writer remembers, the composer called Bells. At that time, the composer spoke about the importance of dissonance, which one can also hear in Lithuanian multi-part songs. Perhaps their mutual interest in folk songs and folk art connected them, because when Čiurlionis started painting sonatas, Gira wrote in the press that he regretted the vagueness of this type of theme, preferring "fairy tales".

Čiurlionis had a number of rehearsals and concerts with the St. Petersburg Conservatory vocal class student Kipras Petrauskas, who became well known to the Lithuanian public after his performance in the melodrama Birutė where he played the part of Birutė's brother. It is not known whether Čiurlionis was acquainted with the first composer of a Lithuanian opera Mikas Petrauskas, but there is no doubt that he met with the author of the libretto Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis.

Marija Piaseckaitė-Šlapelienė, who played the main role in this melodrama, also sang in the choir led by Čiurlionis. Rehearsals took place quite late - after a day's work was done. For over a year, Marija had been managing a Lithuanian bookstore that she had opened, while at the same time raising her young first-born daughter, so she decided not to pursue a career as a vocalist. However, singing in the choir helped her to nurture her hobby. On dark winter evenings, Čiurlionis often had to accompany his choir member until she returned to her home on Saracėnų Street.

During preparations for the Second Lithuanian Art Exhibition, Čiurlionis was earnestly assisted by several loyal helpers of the society - Sofija Gimbutaitė, who came from Lithuanian nobility and had acquired the profession of a dentist in Paris and Marija Putvinskytė. Together with Čiurlionis, Sofija Gimbutaitė joined the board of the Lithuanian Art Society, was the organization's treasurer and later served as a secretary. She sincerely believed that a necessary condition for the survival of the culture of every nation was the development of art as well as the establishment of a national museum and contributed as much as possible to the realization of this goal. Sofija donated a huge amount to the society and this ensured her membership in the organization for life. The headquarters of the Society were registered at the address of her apartment on the former Preobrazhenskaya Street. Letters and the works of professional artists as well as folk artists who intended to participate in the exhibition were sent here. From there, Konstantinas carried them to framers, and later to the premises rented for the exhibition. She not only fixed the teeth of needy artists for free, but also allowed them to spend the night in her office, "lending" them money free of charge. Čiurlionis had also used these same services more than once. In the autumn of 1907, he stayed with Gimbutaitė until he found a room for rent on Andrejevskaya Street – where we are right now. Even when he moved out, he went to this caring woman every day for lunch. Sometimes, when he was too busy, she brought lunch to the artist at his rented place. “She is an incredible creation. She brought me borscht today and warmed it up on the small stovetop. I lunch at her place and she has started to fix my teeth," admitted Konstantinas. Unable to pay for lunch, the artist presented Gimbutaitė with his green-colored painting Boat. Gimbutaitė had also acquired the first part of Čiurlionis' diptych Sadness. Before her death in October of 1911 she bequeathed both paintings to the Lithuanian Art Society.

Patrons of the Art Society would also gather in Marija Putvinskytė's apartment. After arriving in Vilnius in the summer of 1906, Marija opened her dental office there and became actively involved in the preparations for the first Lithuanian art exhibition. She participated in the founding and board meetings of the Lithuanian Art Society and assisted many societies. Marija was close friends with Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, and when he went abroad, she assisted Konstantinas in organizing the exhibition. While on duty in the halls and at the cash register, she remembered how visitors reacted to symbolic art. When an alleged art connoisseur pointed to a painting by Čiurlionis and asked out loud, "A to jaki wariat namalował?", he was unflustered and replied, “A to ja” to the laughter of bystanders. In his letter to Marija, the artist described her as “an enthusiast. She's nice and plays billiards." After getting to know her better, he experienced how kind and generous she was. When he had to go to Warsaw to print the exhibition posters, it was Marija who provided him with train tickets.

The journalist and writer Ona Pleirytė, who had recently married Kazimieras Puida, a great fan of literature, exhibited an exceptional amount of exalted attention to Čiurlionis. They both worked in the editorial office of the daily Vilniaus Žinios. Puida, who helped to organize the First Lithuanian Art Exhibition, had even held the position of managing editor for a while. However, the marriage of these young people was in crisis and so, the woman began to look around for a man who was her soulmate. She often showed up at Čiurlionis’ side, wrote pieces based on the motifs in his paintings and published her impressions under the pseudonym of “Vaidilutė”. In gratitude for her attention, the artist presented her with his painting Longing, which was destroyed during the disasters of World War II. She has described the artist and his works quite accurately. “Čiurlionis' paintings are extraordinary. I have visited many European museums, but I have yet to see anything like them. Čiurlionis himself is also extraordinary. He is one of those people who draws everyone’s gaze and forces them to notice him, but, at the same time, he is constrained by his own unique and abstruse personality. He is of medium age and height, with a very strong, sharply defined facial profile that isn’t very appealing and rather gloomy. But his large eyes, with their deeply penetrating gaze, a calm demeanor with a clear shadow of sadness and his extraordinary intelligence set him apart from everyone else.”

"These are all of the participants in the comedy or drama in which I have to live," is how Čiurlionis laughingly introduced the people he had met in Vilnius.