asion
when Filtsch had given his master particular satisfaction by a tasteful
rendering of the second solo of the first movement of the E minor
Concerto, Chopin said: "You have played this well, my boy (mon
garcon), I must try it myself." Lenz relates that what now followed was
indescribable: the little one (der Kleine) burst into tears, and Chopin,
who indeed had been telling them the story of his artist life, said,
as if speaking to himself, "I have loved it! I have already once
played it!" Then, turning to Filtsch, he spoke these words: "Yours is a
beautiful artist nature (une belle nature d'artiste), you will become
a great artist." Whilst the youthful pianist was studying the Concerto
with Chopin, he was never allowed to play more than one solo at a time,
the work affecting too much the feelings of the composer, who, moreover,
thought that the whole was contained in every one of the solos; and
when he at last got leave to perform the whole, an event for which he
prepared himself by fasting and prayers of the Roman Catholic Church,
and by such reading as was pointed out by his master, practising being
forbidden for the time, Chopin said to him: "As you have now mastered
the movement so well, we will bring it to a hearing."

The reader must understand that I do not vouch for the strict
correctness of Lenz's somewhat melodramatic narrative; and having given
this warning I shall, to keep myself free from all responsibility,
simply translate the rest of what is yet to be told:--

Chopin invited a party of ladies, George Sand was one of them,
and was as quiet as a mouse; moreover, she knew nothing of
music. The favoured pupils from the highest aristocracy
appeared with modest demeanour and full of the most profound
devotion, they glided silently, like gold-fishes in a vase,
one after another into the salon, and sat down as far as
possible from the piano, as Chopin liked people to do. Nobody
spoke, Chopin only nodded, and shook hands with one here and
there, not with all of them. The square pianoforte, which
stood in his cabinet, he had placed beside the Pleyel concert
grand in the salon, not without the most painful embarras to
him. The most insignificant trifle affected him; he was a noli
me tangere. He had said once, or rather had thought aloud: "If
I saw a crack more in the ceiling, I should not be able to
bring out a note." Chopin poured the whole dreamy, vaporous
instrumentation of