Karlovna Albrecht (), who spurred her into a creative period. After spending the summer together in Butovo, she returned to working on a novella, Anton Ivanovich, began a collaboration with Maximilian Steinberg on an opera based on the Arabian Nights and rented the first permanent housing she had held in a long time, even acquiring a monkey. She also accepted a position at Northern Annals where she wrote reviews. In the spring of 1914, Parnok and Albrecht began an extended trip abroad, traveling through Ascona to the Italian area of Switzerland, and then visiting Milan, Rome and Venice before heading north to Hamburg. Continuing to Shanklin on the Isle of Wight and eventually London, Parnok continued to write reviews and poems. Learning that World War I had broken out, the couple made immediate plans to return to Moscow, where Parnok frantically tried to locate her siblings. She found they were abroad—Valya in Jaffa and Liza in Dresden. Moving into a new apartment, Parnok's life at the beginning of the war was calm and productive. Marina Tsvetaeva period In 1914, at one of the literary salons hosted by Adelaida Gertsyk, Parnok met the young poet Marina Tsvetaeva, with whom she became involved in an affair that left important imprints on the poetry of both women. Around the same time, Parnok read, and later rewrote some of the works of the Greek poet Sappho. By October, Tsvetaeva had committed to the affair, disregarding her obligations to her husband and daughter by writing her first love poem to Parnok. Prior to her affair with Tsvetaeva, Parnok's poetry had not shown the originality of expression that her later works would evidence. Each of the two women drove the other to excel, revealing that Parnok had the upper-hand in love while Tsvetaeva was the more refined poet. On a personal level, Tsvetaeva was both attracted and repelled by Parnok's passion, increasing her feelings of insecurity. On a professional level, both were surprised at the depth of their own jealousy, channeling their envy into a creative duel of words. In Tsvetaeva's Podruga (Girlfriend) cycle, she acted as a seer, peering into Parnok's future, predicting she was a doomed, tragic figure cursed by her passions. In her later works (poems 54 and 58 in her first book of verse, Poems), Parnok responded with calm to the dire predictions that the couple would break up. To Tsvetaeva's constant