When Mussorgsky resigned his commission with the Preobrazhensky Guards in June 1858 at the age of 19, his health had already been seriously undermined by his year with them. Known as "the golden youth" of St. Petersburg, the Guards were, in the manner of the time, drunks, gamblers, and womanizers. Although the shy and artistic Mussorgsky did not participate fully in their exploits, his delicate constitution had already begun to degenerate under their influence and he left St. Petersburg in September of that year hoping to recuperate in the country.

In later letters, Mussorgsky alludes to a "disease" that precipitated this move. Some writers have speculated that the disease was epilepsy, others that it was an early sign of the alcoholism which would kill him. Mussorgsky, in his letters to his composition teacher Balakirev, speaks of onanism and mysticism, claiming that he had been "assailed by extremely tormenting dreams, by hallucinations so sweet, yet terrible, so intoxicating, that to die in such a state would have seemed an easy thing."

Understandably, the teacher thought his composition student mad. Nor were the pieces Mussorgsky wrote during those years capable of persuading Balakirev differently. The tiny Ein Kinderscherz, called a "scherzo for piano" in its original version of September 1859 is a light and insignificant trifle and reveals no advance in Mussorgsky's compositional abilities over the Souvenir d'enfance he had composed two years earlier. Even in its revised form from May 1860 entitled Kitten in the Corner, the piece is no further advanced. It is as if Mussorgsky had never taken composition lessons.

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