best coffee-houses.
After this I make calls, return home in the twilight, throw
myself into evening-dress, and must be off to some soiree: to-
day here, to-morrow there. About eleven or twelve (but never
later) I return home, play, laugh, read, lie down, put out
the light, sleep, and dream of you, my dear ones.

If is evident that there was no occasion to fear that Chopin would kill
himself with too hard work. Indeed, the number of friends, or, not to
misuse this sacred name, let us rather say acquaintances, he had, did
not allow him much time for study and composition. In his letters
from Vienna are mentioned more than forty names of families and single
individuals with whom he had personal intercourse. I need hardly add
that among them there was a considerable sprinkling of Poles. Indeed,
the majority of the houses where he was oftenest seen, and where he felt
most happy, were those of his countrymen, or those in which there was at
least some Polish member, or which had some Polish connection. Already
on December 1, 1830, he writes home that he had been several times at
Count Hussarzewski's, and purposes to pay a visit at Countess Rosalia
Rzewuska's, where he expects to meet Madame Cibbini, the daughter
of Leopold Kozeluch and a pupil of Clementi, known as a pianist and
composer, to whom Moscheles dedicated a sonata for four hands, and who
at that time was first lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria. Chopin
had likewise called twice at Madame Weyberheim's. This lady, who was a
sister of Madame Wolf and the wife of a rich banker, invited him to a
soiree "en petit cercle des amateurs," and some weeks later to a soiree
dansante, on which occasion he saw "many young people, beautiful, but
not antique [that is to say not of the Old Testament kind], "refused
to play, although the lady of the house and her beautiful daughters had
invited many musical personages, was forced to dance a cotillon, made
some rounds, and then went home. In the house of the family Beyer (where
the husband was a Pole of Odessa, and the wife, likewise Polish, bore
the fascinating Christian name Constantia--the reader will remember her)
Chopin felt soon at his ease. There he liked to dine, sup, lounge, chat,
play, dance mazurkas, &c. He often met there the violinist Slavik, and
the day before Christmas played with him all the morning and evening,
another day staying with him there till two o'clock in the morning. We
hear also of din