the work into his incomparable
accompaniment. He played without book. I have never heard
anything that could be compared to the first tutti, which he
played alone on the piano. The little one did wonders. The
whole was an impression for all the rest of one's life. After
Chopin had briefly dismissed the ladies (he loved praise
neither for himself nor for others, and only George Sand was
permitted to embrace Filtsch), he said to the latter, his
brother, who always accompanied the little one, and me: "We
have yet to take a walk." It was a command which we received
with the most respectful bow.

The destination of this walk was Schlesinger's music-shop, where Chopin
presented his promising young pupil with the score of Beethoven's
"Fidelio":--

"I am in your debt, you have given me much pleasure to-day. I
wrote the Concerto in happier days. Receive, my dear little
friend, this great master-work; read therein as long as you
live, and remember me also sometimes." The little one was as
if stunned, and kissed Chopin's hand. We were all deeply
moved, Chopin himself was so. He disappeared immediately
through the glass door on a level with the Rue Richelieu, into
which it leads.

A scene of a very different nature which occurred some years later was
described to me by Madame Dubois. This lady, then still Mdlle. O'Meara
and a pupil of Chopin's, had in 1847 played, accompanied on a second
piano by her master, the latter's Concerto in E minor at a party of
Madame de Courbonne's. Madame Girardin, who was among the guests,
afterwards wrote most charmingly and eulogistically about the young
girl's beauty and talent in one of her Lettres parisiennes, which
appeared in La Presse and were subsequently published in a collected
form under the title of "Le Vicomte de Launay." Made curious by Madame
Girardin's account, and probably also by remarks of Chopin and others,
George Sand wished to see the heroine of that much-talked-of letter.
Thus it came to pass that one day when Miss O'Meara was having her
lesson, George Sand crossed the Square d'Orleans and paid Chopin a
visit in his apartments. The master received her with all the grace
and amiability he was capable of. Noticing that her pardessus
was bespattered with mud, he seemed to be much vexed, and the
exquisitely-elegant gentleman (l'homme de toutes les elegances ) began
to rub off with his small, white hands the stains which on any other
person