only what my father told me. But do let me go home and get
your bed ready. I feel faint and I ask pardon for my impertinence. I am
indeed no critic, nor shall I ever presume again." "You may go," said
his master in gruff accents, and regretted his rudeness as soon as
Daniel was out of sight. If any one of the managers who so ardently
praised Mychowski's temperate habits had seen him guzzling wine, beer
and brandy that night, they might have been shocked. He seldom went to
excess, but was out of sorts and nettled at criticism from such a
quarter. Yet--had he played as well as usual? Was not overpraise
undermining his artistic constitution? He thought hard and vainly
endeavored to recapture the mood in which he had interpreted the
Ballade, and then he fell to laughing at his spleen. A great artist to
be annoyed by the first adverse feather that happened to tickle him in
an awkward way. What folly! What vanity! Mychowski laughed and ordered a
big glass of brandy to steady his nerves.

All fat men, he thought, are nervous and sensitive. I must really go to
Marienbad and drink the waters and I think I'll leave Daniel Chopin
behind in Paris. Chopin--Chopin, I wonder how much Chopin is in him?
Pooh! what nonsense. Chopin only loved Sand and before that Constantia
Gladowska. He never stooped to commonplace intrigue. But the
resemblance, the extraordinary resemblance! After all, nature plays
queer pranks. A thunderstorm may alarm a Mozart into existence, and why
not a second Chopin? Ah, if I had that fellow's face and figure or he
had my fingers what couldn't we do? If he were not too old to study--no,
I won't give him lessons, I'll be damned if I will! He might walk away
with me, piano and all. Chopin face, Chopin fingers.

Mychowski was rapidly becoming helpless and at two o'clock the patron of
the cafe sent a message to Daniel, who was hard by, that he had better
fetch his master away. The pianist was lifted into a carriage, though he
lived just around the corner, and with the aid of the concierge, a
cynical man of years, was helped into his apartment and put to bed. It
was a trying night for Daniel, whose nature revolted at any suggestion
of the grosser vices....

From dull, muddy unconsciousness the soul of Mychowski struggled up into
thin light. He fought with bands of villainous appearing men holding
tuning forks; he was rolled down terrific gulfs a-top of pianos; while
accompanying him in his vertiginous flight were o