to Chopin.

Usually he would come out into the garden for five minutes at half-past
nine to smoke a cigarette, but that morning it had struck ten before the
music ceased. I saw him. He walked absent-minded along the terrace in
the strange silence that had succeeded. He was wearing his
riding-breeches, for we habitually rode at eleven. And that morning I did
not hide my work when he came. It was, in fact, finished; the time had
arrived to disclose it. He stopped in front of me in the sunlight,
utterly preoccupied with himself and his labours. He had the rapt look on
his face which results from the terrible mental and spiritual strain of
practising as he practised.

'Satisfied?' I asked him.

He frowned.

'There are times when one gets rather inspired,' he said, looking at me,
as it were, without seeing me. 'It's as if the whole soul gets into one's
hands. That's what's wanted.'

'You had it this morning?'

'A bit.'

He smiled with candid joy.

'While I was listening--' I began.

'Oh!' he broke in impulsively, violently, 'it isn't you that have to
listen. It's I that have to listen. It's the player that has to listen.
He's got to do more than listen. He's got to be _in_ the piano with his
inmost heart. If he isn't on the full stretch of analysis the whole
blessed time, he might just as well be turning the handle of a
barrel-organ.'

He always talked about his work during the little 'recess' which he took
in the middle of the morning. He pretended to be talking to me, but it
was to himself that he talked. He was impatient if I spoke.

'I shall be greater than ever,' he proceeded, after a moment. And his
attitude towards himself was so disengaged, so apart and aloof, so
critically appreciative, that it was impossible to accuse him of egoism.
He was, perhaps, as amazed at his own transcendent gift as any other
person could be, and he was incapable of hiding his sensations. 'Yes,' he
repeated; 'I think I shall be greater than ever. You see, a Chopin player
is born; you can't make him. With Chopin it's not a question of
intellect. It's all tone with Chopin--_tone_, my child, even in the most
bravura passages. You've got to get it.'

'Yes,' I agreed.

He gazed over the tree-tops into the blue sky.

'I may be ready in six months,' he said.

'I think you will,' I concurred, with a judicial air. But I honestly
deemed him to be more than ready then.

Twelve months previously he had said: 'With six hours' prac