over to the instrument. 'That's very
pretty,' he said, and began making a running bass accompaniment. He was
a born inventor of finger tricks; he took up the theme and gradually we
fashioned the study as it now stands. But it was first written in C
sharp minor. Frederic suggested that it was too difficult for wealthy
amateurs in that key, and changed it to C minor. More copies would be
sold, he said. But he spoke no more of Warsaw after that. Why? Ah! don't
ask me--the true artist, I suppose. Once that his grief is objectified,
once that his sorrow is translated into tone, the first cause is quite
forgotten,--Art is so selfish, so beautiful, you know!

"I never left Frederic but once; the odious Sand woman, who smoked a
pipe and swore like a cab driver, smuggled the poor devil away to
Majorca. He came back a sick man; no wonder! You remember the de Musset
episode. The poet's mother even implored the old dragon to take Alfred
to Italy. He, too, was coughing--all her friends coughed except Liszt,
who sneered at her blandishments--and Italy was good for consumptives.
De Musset went away ailing; he returned a mere shadow. What happened?
Ah! I cannot say. Possibly his eyes were opened by the things he
saw--you remember the young Italian physician--I think his name was
Pagello? It was the same with Chopin. Without me he could not thrive.
Sand knew it and hated me. I was the sturdy oak, Frederic the tender
ivy. I poured out my heart's blood for him, poured it into his music. He
was a mere girl, I tell you--a sensitive, slender, shrinking, peevish
girl, a born prudish spinster, and would shiver if any one looked at
him. Liszt always frightened him and he hated Mendelssohn. He called
Beethoven a sour old Dutchman, and swore that he did not write piano
music. For the man who first brought his name before the public, the
big-hearted German, Robert Schumann--here's to his memory--Chopin had an
intense dislike. He confessed to me that Schumann was no composer, a
talented improviser only. I think he was a bit jealous of the man's
genius. But Freddie loved Mozart, loved his music so madly that it was
my turn to become jealous.

"And fastidious! Bon Dieu! I tell you that he could not drink, and once
Balzac told us a piquant story and Frederic fainted. I remember well how
Balzac stared and said in that great voice of his: 'Guard well thy
little damsel, my good Minkiewicz, else he may yet be abducted by a
tom-cat,' and then he laughed u