e to playing in public.

"Do you practise when the day of the concert approaches?" asked Lenz.
[FOOTNOTE: Die grossen Pianoforte-Virtusen unstrer Zeit, p. 36.] "It is
a terrible time for me," was Chopin's answer; "I dislike publicity, but
it is part of my position. I shut myself up for a fortnight and play
Bach. That is my preparation; I never practise my own compositions."
What Gutmann told me confirms these statements. Chopin detested playing
in public, and became nervous when the dreaded time approached. He then
fidgeted a great deal about his clothes, and felt very unhappy if one
or the other article did not quite fit or pinched him a little. On one
occasion Chopin, being dissatisfied with his own things, made use of a
dress-coat and shirt of his pupil Gutmann. By the way, the latter, who
gave me this piece of information, must have been in those days of less
bulk, and, I feel inclined to add, of less height, than he was when I
became acquainted with him.

Leaving the two concerts given by Chopin in 1841 and 1842 to be
discussed in detail in the next chapter, I shall now give a translation
of the Polish letters which he wrote in the summer and autumn of 1841 to
Fontana. The letters numbered 4 and 5 are those already alluded to on p.
24 (foot-note 3) which Karasowski gives as respectively dated by Chopin:
"Palma, November 17, 1838"; and "Valdemosa, January 9, 1839." But
against these dates militate the contents: the mention of Troupenas,
with whom the composer's business connection began only in 1840 (with
the Sonata, Op. 35); the mention of the Tarantelle, which was not
published until 1841; the mention (contradictory to an earlier
inquiry--see p. 30) of the sending back of a valet nowhere else alluded
to; the mention of the sending and arrival of a piano, irreconcilable
with the circumstances and certain statements in indisputably
correctly-dated letters; and, lastly, the absence of all mention of
Majorca and the Preludes, those important topics in the letters really
from that place and of that time. Karasowski thinks that the letters
numbered 1, 2, 3, and 9 were of the year 1838, and those numbered 6,
7, and 8 of the year 1839; but as the "Tarantelle," Op. 43, the
"Polonaise," Op. 44, the "Prelude," Op. 45, the "Allegro de Concert,"
Op. 46, the third "Ballade," Op. 47, the two "Nocturnes," Op. 48, and
the "Fantaisie," Op. 49, therein mentioned, were published in 1841, I
have no doubt that they are of the year 184